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cmcm789

cmcm789

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I have a 8/10 yr old HP with intel core i3 (dual core) 3.30Ghz and 1TB Hard drive. I run the usual office programme and have Adobe PS and LR. A while back i added some RAM to bring it up to 8GB as it seems to run up to over 7 during LR processing.

Photography is a hobby so i'm not dependant on a good PC for my business, but it seems to be getting slower and slower. I do regular clean ups but Lightroom seems to kill it.

I have looked at the minimum basic spec recommended for Lightroom/Photoshop and my PC ticks the RAM and processor boxes (>3Ghz).

I don't want to (wouldn't be allowed to) invest money unnecessarily in a new machine for a "hobby" but over christmas I noticed some older refurbed Dell PCs on Amazon. They were the same age as mine but were Intel Core i5 3.2GHz (up to 3.6 boost), 8GB RAM and 480GB SSD drive, for £185.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiP...1031&rnid=182781031&rps=1&s=computers&sr=1-41

Just wondering would it be worth it and would i notice a difference while using Lightroom? Currently it's taking an age to render images when the zoom changes and when merging more than about 5 images in a panorama i have to keep my fingers crossed that i don't have to restart the PC.

Thanks
 
Yeah that dual core along with a mechanical hard drive are the weak links, on paper the suggested system looks a decent upgrade though keen to see the details of the SSD. Will check and report back.

Edit - can't find any info about the SSD. Just seems a large SSD for such a low price but at a guess - you would be going from a mechanical HD that can do 80-160MB/s read/write to an SSD that should be able to do double/triple that (even if it is a low end one). And the jump to a true quad core will help.

It's very hard to find an upgrade path outside of second hand that can be had for under £200. A quick 5 minute spec I came up with - 4C Ryzen 3200G with integrated Vega graphics, 16GB of RAM (£20 less if you go with 8GB), a B450 motherboard, an entry level 480GB SSD which will smoke your current mechanical can be had for ~£240 but that's without a case or PSU so more like £300 new.
 
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What Windows version are you running?

Is the motherboard capable of accepting more than the 8GB you have now?

PS FWIW before I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 I was using (still am) my now more than 10 year old home built PC with its i5 quad core and 16GB of RAM

PPS my drives are all spinners but the jump from 8 to 16GB was imo a step up ;)
 
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Box Brownie said:
What Windows version are you running?

Is the motherboard capable of accepting more than the 8GB you have now?

PS FWIW before I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 I was using (still am) my now more than 10 year old home built PC with its i5 quad core and 16GB of RAM

PPS my drives are all spinners but the jump from 8 to 16GB was imo a step up ;)
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My PC is Windows 10. I opened Task Manager when the machine was playing up and memory usage was up to 7.3GB but processor his 100% often. Possibly if i had a faster processor the RAM may then become the bottle neck. I was thinking with the DELL machine that i could add Additional RAM cheaply enough.
 
cmcm789 said:
My PC is Windows 10. I opened Task Manager when the machine was playing up and memory usage was up to 7.3GB but processor his 100% often. Possibly if i had a faster processor the RAM may then become the bottle neck. I was thinking with the DELL machine that i could add Additional RAM cheaply enough.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that W10 needs a lump of RAM to run and if LR or any other programs are grabbing as much as you are talking about the 'system' will suffer.

NB as I recall there is a setting in LR to limit the amount of RAM used.......and in the past (cannot now recall when I read it) a common cause of system slowdown was folk allocating too much of available ram to LR!

Though I may not be doing the same tasks as you all four of my i5 cores max out but I can still be doing some other less intensive data shifting job(s) whilst they are crunching along.

Edit:-
This is what MS says about ram and free disk space to run W10. NB these are the minimums
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
  • Hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit OS or 20 GB for 64-bit OS
 
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Get rid of dust inside and all fans and vents,
Runs cooler and faster . Run system mechanic program well worth getting
 
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Something like this is another consideration...

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/aw...-pc-at-awd-259-3376688?page=2#thread-comments

Similar CPU to the first hand spec I used as an example, it's just the previous generation of it. But for £75 more than your Dell refurb you get the whole tower with more modern components that you can easily upgrade further down the line. If you want under £200 though, the refurb is still unbeatable (for now ;)....
 
Badly overpriced.

A couple of years back I bought a more powerfull refurbished Dell for £199.99

It had the same age top of the range i7 and double the RAM.

No joke, get them from ebay and shop around
 
It may be nothing to do with LR/PS. My older pc was frequently showing 100% usage in the Spring last year and I thought it was time for a replacement as it is also about 10 years old. After a lot of googling and trying various suggestion, I eventually found out what was causing the problem and it has been fine since then. A clean install of W10 may help.
 
Take a look at ITZOO or dellrefurbished.co.uk, the latter site is where ex DELL leased systems are sold off cheap. Watch out for special offers which knock sizeable chunks off their prices, at present they are offering 45% off all their stuff.

To help compare your current CPU against the bewildering choice of other systems, I would take a peak at https://www.cpubenchmark.net
 
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broc said:
Take a look at ITZOO or dellrefurbished.co.uk, the latter site is where ex DELL leased systems are sold off cheap. Watch out for special offers which knock sizeable chunks off their prices, at present they are offering 45% off all their stuff.

To help compare your current CPU against the bewildering choice of other systems, I would take a peak at https://www.cpubenchmark.net
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Broc Thanks. I was back and forth to CPU benchmark. My current was scored at 3900 i think and the i5s i was looking at were 6500-7000. But in real world i don't know what that means. At a guess i would think maybe it's 50% faster??
 
Brentor said:
It may be nothing to do with LR/PS. My older pc was frequently showing 100% usage in the Spring last year and I thought it was time for a replacement as it is also about 10 years old. After a lot of googling and trying various suggestion, I eventually found out what was causing the problem and it has been fine since then. A clean install of W10 may help.
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Brentor, was the W10 install a simple process? or did you have to reinstall all other programmes after this?

If i thought it would work i would give it a go, but reluctant if it is very time consuming or i have the possibility of losing data.
 
Caerus said:
Badly overpriced.

A couple of years back I bought a more powerfull refurbished Dell for £199.99

It had the same age top of the range i7 and double the RAM.

No joke, get them from ebay and shop around
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Caerus, when you say ebay do you mean outlets or refurbished units and do they have the same level of customer service/ warranty?
Thanks.
 
cmcm789 said:
Caerus, when you say ebay do you mean outlets or refurbished units and do they have the same level of customer service/ warranty?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Just had a quick go myself, loads of systems on there and they have some basic configuration options though yet to find an i7 for £200. Have seen some warranties for 3 months, others for 1 year.
 
cmcm789 said:
Broc Thanks. I was back and forth to CPU benchmark. My current was scored at 3900 i think and the i5s i was looking at were 6500-7000. But in real world i don't know what that means. At a guess i would think maybe it's 50% faster??
Click to expand...
In layman terms the bigger the CPU benchmark number the better. The CPU benchmark numbers represent processor 'throughput' rather than raw 'clock speeds'. Processor 'clock speed' or Mhz is an indicator of performance but can be misleading if taken on its own.

One thing to watch out for is the number of 'cores' a processor has (Most processors have multiple cores and they are designed to process multiple tasks or operations simultaneously).

You will find CPU benchmark quotes a single core speed and a processor speed. You will see that the overall processor speed is not the same as the number of cores multiplied by the individual core speed as there are 'overheads' in managing multiple cores. I would tend to favour a higher core speed rather than number of cores as the overheads increase as more cores are added to a processor.

Another site worth looking at is https://www.bargainhardware.co.uk

This website will allow you to 'specify' your own configuration using refurbished components to meet your needs/budget.

In my last job (school computer network manager) before I retired I bought hundreds of DELL Optiplex units over a 10 year period as they are robust, reliable and cheap to maintain. I still have a couple of Optiplex 7020 Small form factor PCs running at home.
 
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cmcm789 said:
Caerus, when you say ebay do you mean outlets or refurbished units and do they have the same level of customer service/ warranty?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

There are many businesses on ebay who specialise in selling refurbished Dell PC`s.

You do realise they are mostly ex-business PC`s bought in bulk from companies who are upgrading ?

They blank the Memory and re-install windows 10 ( usually a one time Windows 10 Pro copy )

Anyway this is a considerably better machine and far better buy :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-ELITE...990146?hash=item1cde9e2402:g:kdkAAOSwg7Zd4ExZ

It has 6th generation i5 instead of third generation. ( WAY better and newer )

It has DD4 RAM instead of DDR3 ( newer and better )

It had combo of SSD and Hard drive ( you can upgrade them to larger ones.

HP Elitedesk are excellent, as good or better than Dell equivalent.
 
Caerus said:
There are many businesses on ebay who specialise in selling refurbished Dell PC`s.

You do realise they are mostly ex-business PC`s bought in bulk from companies who are upgrading ?

They blank the Memory and re-install windows 10 ( usually a one time Windows 10 Pro copy )

Anyway this is a considerably better machine and far better buy :

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-ELITE...990146?hash=item1cde9e2402:g:kdkAAOSwg7Zd4ExZ

It has 6th generation i5 instead of third generation. ( WAY better and newer )

It has DD4 RAM instead of DDR3 ( newer and better )

It had combo of SSD and Hard drive ( you can upgrade them to larger ones.

HP Elitedesk are excellent, as good or better than Dell equivalent.
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That looks like a really good deal. only concern would be i can't see any warranty and as an occasional user i would be worried that any issues wouldn't show themselves within the 30Day return period.
 
cmcm789 said:
That looks like a really good deal. only concern would be i can't see any warranty and as an occasional user i would be worried that any issues wouldn't show themselves within the 30Day return period.
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At least you know now what kind of specs and price you should be looking for now.

There will be dozens of that machine for sale, you have to scan through them and find the best.

I don't worry about warranty on PC`s because I use them 16 hours a day and leave them on all night and they still don't break down.
 
Caerus said:
At least you know now what kind of specs and price you should be looking for now.

There will be dozens of that machine for sale, you have to scan through them and find the best.

I don't worry about warranty on PC`s because I use them 16 hours a day and leave them on all night and they still don't break down.
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Very tempted just to pull the trigger on that one and get it over with. I've had an HP machine for years with no issues. Also, if the processor is newer it would be more future proof and i suppose i could upgrade memory is needed. I take it if i increased the RAM for example up to 16GB that it would utilize it alright? Not that it matters (apparently) for Lightroom but how would i know if it has a suitable graphics card??

Apologies for the very basic and probably stupid questions.
 
cmcm789 said:
Very tempted just to pull the trigger on that one and get it over with. I've had an HP machine for years with no issues. Also, if the processor is newer it would be more future proof and i suppose i could upgrade memory is needed. I take it if i increased the RAM for example up to 16GB that it would utilize it alright? Not that it matters (apparently) for Lightroom but how would i know if it has a suitable graphics card??

Apologies for the very basic and probably stupid questions.
Click to expand...

It wont have a graphics card as such. It uses a graphics processor that is part of the main processor. ( one of the reasons newer processors are better because their graphics power will be improved. )

You will be able to fit probably 16GB or 32GB RAM if wanted but you need to get the right ones for the motherboard.

I prefer 16GB RAM because 8GB can sometimes make a PC run poorly when many things are open at the same time.

The main thing you may want to upgrade is the hard drive with a modern 4GB or larger one or get an external hard drive with large capacity to fit many photos.

I use Western Digital 8TB MYBOOK external one ( Amazon were selling them for £120 on their Amazon Day special event thing. )
 
cmcm789 said:
Apologies for the very basic and probably stupid questions.
Click to expand...
There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers! And there haven’t been any so far in this thread :).
 
cmcm789 said:
Very tempted just to pull the trigger on that one and get it over with. I've had an HP machine for years with no issues. Also, if the processor is newer it would be more future proof and i suppose i could upgrade memory is needed. I take it if i increased the RAM for example up to 16GB that it would utilize it alright? Not that it matters (apparently) for Lightroom but how would i know if it has a suitable graphics card??

Apologies for the very basic and probably stupid questions.
Click to expand...

I would also query whether it has either an ethernet or wireless card for connecting to t'internet.
 
Ref: graphics cards and their specs.

Frankly cannot recall whether my old LR V6 can utilise the power of the GPU but Topaz Labs software does to very good effect in respect of processing times......and that you have make sure to choose a graphics card that at the very least meets their minimum spec!

PS and how long before Adobe put a min spec GPU to run LR and/or PS???
 
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Giblets said:
I would also query whether it has either an ethernet or wireless card for connecting to t'internet.
Click to expand...
I checked and i don't think it has a wireless card, but I have my current Pavillion Connected via Netgear usb dongle and the connection is very stable and fast so i am happy to do the same with an upgrade.
 
Box Brownie said:
Ref: graphics cards and their specs.

Frankly cannot recall whether my old LR V6 can utilise the power of the GPU but Topaz Labs software does to very good effect in respect of processing times......and that you have make sure to choose a graphics card that at the very least meets their minimum spec!

PS and how long before Adobe put a min spec GPU to run LR and/or PS???
Click to expand...
Is a graphics Card something i can add at a later stage?
 
cmcm789 said:
Is a graphics Card something i can add at a later stage?
Click to expand...

AFAIK, yes provided:-
If the motherboard has a suitable PCI slot......and the case design equally has the physical space clearance to accommodate one?

And that you can access the BIOS settings to disable the onboard graphics? NB I am unsure if such a 'switch' is automatically done should W10 detect the new card.
 
cmcm789 said:
I have a 8/10 yr old HP with intel core i3 (dual core) 3.30Ghz and 1TB Hard drive. I run the usual office programme and have Adobe PS and LR. A while back i added some RAM to bring it up to 8GB as it seems to run up to over 7 during LR processing.

Photography is a hobby so i'm not dependant on a good PC for my business, but it seems to be getting slower and slower. I do regular clean ups but Lightroom seems to kill it.

I have looked at the minimum basic spec recommended for Lightroom/Photoshop and my PC ticks the RAM and processor boxes (>3Ghz).

I don't want to (wouldn't be allowed to) invest money unnecessarily in a new machine for a "hobby" but over christmas I noticed some older refurbed Dell PCs on Amazon. They were the same age as mine but were Intel Core i5 3.2GHz (up to 3.6 boost), 8GB RAM and 480GB SSD drive, for £185.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiPlex-i5-3470-Professional-Computer/dp/B07VX7HV6J/ref=sr_1_41?keywords=dell+pc&qid=1577971177&refinements=p_76:419159031,p_n_feature_browse-bin:1481781031&rnid=182781031&rps=1&s=computers&sr=1-41

Just wondering would it be worth it and would i notice a difference while using Lightroom? Currently it's taking an age to render images when the zoom changes and when merging more than about 5 images in a panorama i have to keep my fingers crossed that i don't have to restart the PC.

Thanks
Click to expand...

good luck with the ram quote
i have been buying dell laptops off ebay with XP pro so i cant shed much tech on your problems...
i run LR and PS2....
the prices vary from £50 to £150+ depending on model and internals
i would recommend them above the HP models... i had a solid made lenovo T60 which did well
just a punt
cheers
geof

what i have been told is upping the ram too much just on its own....the machine may not use it??
 
Box Brownie said:
AFAIK, yes provided:-
If the motherboard has a suitable PCI slot......and the case design equally has the physical space clearance to accommodate one?

And that you can access the BIOS settings to disable the onboard graphics? NB I am unsure if such a 'switch' is automatically done should W10 detect the new card.
Click to expand...
These ex-business desktops tend to have relatively low wattage PSUs so you would need to watch out if adding a discrete graphics card as they can be power hungry. They may lack the necessary power connectors too. If you are serious about adding a graphics card see what the manufacturer offered when new.......
 
cmcm789 said:
Brentor, was the W10 install a simple process? or did you have to reinstall all other programmes after this?

If i thought it would work i would give it a go, but reluctant if it is very time consuming or i have the possibility of losing data.
Click to expand...

In my case I did not have to reinstall W10 as I managed to find out what was causing the 100% memory usage and fixed the issue. Unfortunately it seems that several issues can cause the problem so it will take time. You may be lucky and find the solution quickly, if you have one. I agree that a Windows reinstall is a pain but if you do buy a refurb pc, you will need to reinstall all your programs. Whatever you do please back up your data.
 
I run a 6 year old Samsung laptop...core i5.... 4gb ram as standard.... Upgraded to 16gb ram and a fast ssd drive.... Wow loving it.... LR opens in under 2 seconds and PS loads in 3 seconds.... No issues running both and watching a YouTube tutorial on what to do lol... Very coat effective [emoji106]
 
supergeeman said:
I run a 6 year old Samsung laptop...core i5.... 4gb ram as standard.... Upgraded to 16gb ram and a fast ssd drive.... Wow loving it.... LR opens in under 2 seconds and PS loads in 3 seconds.... No issues running both and watching a YouTube tutorial on what to do lol... Very coat effective [emoji106]
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I run a programme every while to check the performance, I think it's called Nova something. When I went from 4 to 8 GB it improved but I think the processor is now the weakest link as it regularly hits 100% during tasks. I considered an SSD and additional RAM but would be worried it wouldn't fix my issues.
Looking at the spec of the desktop linked to earlier it seems excellent value and more scope to upgrade than my own.
 
If it is more upgradable and already has ssd, go for it at that price if it meets your requirements. I paid £80 on a 500gb ssd last year and that was half price so you are paying very little for the rest of the pc. I used it on my other pc and the increased performance was very noticeable. Personably I would not buy a refurb pc that old but that is just me.
 
Tbh we haven't seen massive leaps in cpu processing in many years, they are just more efficient these days. You could buy a sandy Bridge i7 and it would still kick ass. I still have a 2600k with ssd and it's very fast, I could easily overclock to 4.5ghz on air cooling.
 
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b
mrtoad said:
good luck with the ram quote
i have been buying dell laptops off ebay with XP pro so i cant shed much tech on your problems...
i run LR and PS2....
the prices vary from £50 to £150+ depending on model and internals
i would recommend them above the HP models... i had a solid made lenovo T60 which did well
just a punt
cheers
geof

what i have been told is upping the ram too much just on its own....the machine may not use it??
Click to expand...

Be VERY careful about buying RAM for these machines - you cannot usually fit just any old RAM sticks - they are very finicky about what will work so you MUST buy RAM sticks which are designed for them and they are usually ECC RAM as well.
 
petersmart said:
b


Be VERY careful about buying RAM for these machines - you cannot usually fit just any old RAM sticks - they are very finicky about what will work so you MUST buy RAM sticks which are designed for them and they are usually ECC RAM as well.
Click to expand...
This is important, older systems (3-4 years old) are more likely to use DDR3 memory rather than DDR4, However the Crucial website at https://uk.crucial.com will allow you to identify the right memory for most PCs and motherboards. Once you know the spec you can shop around. I tend to stick with branded memory such as Crucial or Kingston.

In my experience most commercial desktop PCs & laptops (such as Optiplex, Vostro, Latitude and Inspiron) do not use ECC memory, that is generally used for workstation class systems and servers, such as DELL Precision and Poweredge units and HP Z series and Proliant units.
 
cmcm789 said:
I have a 8/10 yr old HP with intel core i3 (dual core) 3.30Ghz and 1TB Hard drive. I run the usual office programme and have Adobe PS and LR. A while back i added some RAM to bring it up to 8GB as it seems to run up to over 7 during LR processing.

Photography is a hobby so i'm not dependant on a good PC for my business, but it seems to be getting slower and slower. I do regular clean ups but Lightroom seems to kill it.

I have looked at the minimum basic spec recommended for Lightroom/Photoshop and my PC ticks the RAM and processor boxes (>3Ghz).

I don't want to (wouldn't be allowed to) invest money unnecessarily in a new machine for a "hobby" but over christmas I noticed some older refurbed Dell PCs on Amazon. They were the same age as mine but were Intel Core i5 3.2GHz (up to 3.6 boost), 8GB RAM and 480GB SSD drive, for £185.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiPlex-i5-3470-Professional-Computer/dp/B07VX7HV6J/ref=sr_1_41?keywords=dell+pc&qid=1577971177&refinements=p_76:419159031,p_n_feature_browse-bin:1481781031&rnid=182781031&rps=1&s=computers&sr=1-41

Just wondering would it be worth it and would i notice a difference while using Lightroom? Currently it's taking an age to render images when the zoom changes and when merging more than about 5 images in a panorama i have to keep my fingers crossed that i don't have to restart the PC.

Thanks
Click to expand...

@cmcm789 PC type of computers are upgradeable. You could upgrade the processor, RAM, hard drive, any parts as much as you can, as long as the motherboard is capable of supporting the upgraded parts. You could have an expert check your motherboard and confirm if it could have the processor upgraded to whatever is highest it could support.

That's the beauty of PCs, upgrading a piece of parts, unlike the Apple Macs where you would have to replace the whole lot, like those cartoons, JPEG jokes, and memes found all over the Internet.

You could have the processor upgraded if your motherboard is capable to being supporting whatever is available, which would be cheaper than replacing the whole computer.
 
cmcm789 said:
My PC is Windows 10. I opened Task Manager when the machine was playing up and memory usage was up to 7.3GB but processor his 100% often. Possibly if i had a faster processor the RAM may then become the bottle neck. I was thinking with the DELL machine that i could add Additional RAM cheaply enough.
Click to expand...

That's normal. If it was 2GB, actual memory usage tend to be something like 1.XXGB, if it was 4GB, usage tend to be something like 3.XXGB, 8GB, usage is 7.XXGB, 32GB is 31.XXGB, and so on. Always a little bit of the RAM is being used for the computer's needs, such as the operating system, the motherboard, and so on, leaving you with the rest of the memory available for use with application software and your own files.
 
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