New desk top spec.

mistagain1

mistagain1

Suspended / Banned
Messages
194
Name
Trev
Edit My Images
No
Hi all.
I am looking to update my desktop. I use it for editing in Photoshop and Lightroom, emails and a bit of web wandering but that is about all.
I am looking to update/upgrade my current 5 year old imedia i5 desktop, it is very slow when working with photo's and when checking task manager the the disk is running at 100%.
So some advice from you guys rather than the clowns in PC World who are only interested in 1. selling what they have in stock, that 2. is not what is the best thing for your requirements and 3. introducing you into there crap warranty. (I don't like PC World does it show?? :banghead: Lol)

Recommendations please, I am probably not fully competent :whistle: to build my own.

Thanks in advance,
Trev.
 
Hi,
Before you spend some of your money, 5 years is not old for a PC, have you tried the obvious, spyware/adware programs to get rid of some of that carp that sits there and slows it all down.
 
Thanks Graham.
Tried looking at what is holding it up but struggled to find anything obvious. Run spyware/ malware programs and that always comes up nothing found. The carp comes from the bits that windows adds in that I don't need or want. Cortana, Edge, apps etc etc.
 
What operating system are you running?
Have a look at your programs that run at startup, many like Adobe, google etc add their own update programs to startup that just eat up resources.
Under windows 10 you can find this In Task manager otherwise run msconfig.
Disable anything you don't definitely need.
 
Byker28i said:
What operating system are you running?
Have a look at your programs that run at startup, many like Adobe, google etc add their own update programs to startup that just eat up resources.
Under windows 10 you can find this In Task manager otherwise run msconfig.
Disable anything you don't definitely need.
Click to expand...

Running Windows 10 whatever the latest upgrade was a couple of weeks ago. the only thing I have running on start up is anti virus having switched off Adobe.To be fair don't know from the task manager list what I need and what I don't.!!
 
Re-install windows. Internet browsing introduces hidden junk that builds up and up till the user declares " my PC runs really slow now, I need a new one "
 
mistagain1 said:
Thanks Graham.
Tried looking at what is holding it up but struggled to find anything obvious. Run spyware/ malware programs and that always comes up nothing found. The carp comes from the bits that windows adds in that I don't need or want. Cortana, Edge, apps etc etc.
Click to expand...
What do the graphs in task manager show you? Is the cpu, memory or disk that is struggling? Sort the columns by % and see if anything is running high amounts.

The built in apps like Edge won't be doing anything. Cortana maybe a bit of memory usage.

What spec is your current machine?
 
Hi Neil.
Current computer is a PB imedia S2885 originally with Windows 8.1. Intel i5 4440 Intel graphics 1tb HDD was 8gb ram but now 16gb and has been for the last year or so, it was something I tried to make it a bit quicker.
As i am with it now with just one window open for Chrome and task manager open CPU is 5-7% Memory steady at 20% Disk is 1 to 3% network 0% and GPU 1-5%. Apps open are 3 with Chrome showing (12) Notification and Task manager Back ground processes are 52 and window processes are 83. Graphs are all showing very little activity.
Last weekend I had 6 Apps running Photoshop cc, Outlook, Notification, Task manager, Windows explorer, and windows photo viewer and it had been clunking and groaning for what seemed like ages( the reason for looking at Task manager) and it showed CPU 53% Memory 34% disk was stuck om 100% and net work was zero.the screen grab I took doesn't show anything else.

I hope this will give a better clue as to what is going on with it.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Trev
 
GTG said:
Re-install windows. Internet browsing introduces hidden junk that builds up and up till the user declares " my PC runs really slow now, I need a new one "
Click to expand...
I don't have any recovery disk for the machine, it came with Windows already installed and it auto updated to Windows 10.
It's the cr4p that comes with windows that does my head in if I could get rid of that and have the latest windows with the interference from windows 97 I would be over the moon. I don't need cortana, news apps, xbox games etc :mad:

Trev.
 
I have done photo editing with a PC with about the same power as that and it was very good.
mistagain1 said:
I don't have any recovery disk for the machine, it came with Windows already installed and it auto updated to Windows 10.
It's the cr4p that comes with windows that does my head in if I could get rid of that and have the latest windows with the interference from windows 97 I would be over the moon. I don't need cortana, news apps, xbox games etc :mad:

Trev.
Click to expand...

You can download Win 10 from Microsoft. They ask you to type your activation code ( should be somewhere on your PC in a sticker or something.

Follow the instructions and put it onto a USB stick.

If all goes well then go onto ebay and type in Windows 10 licence.

There will be loads of adverts for £2.99 or £4.99 etc. They are one time use codes and actually work ( i have used them many times )

Then when you have a code, put the usb into the PC and restart it and follow the instructions.

Save everything you need first onto an external hard disk or usb sticks if you have any. Or data discs as a last resort.

That is how i do it anyway and never had any problems.

This will also get rid of and crap that the original PC maker added on to the hard drive ( its called bloatware and is junk usually that makes the PC run worse than it should in some cases )
 
mistagain1 said:
Last weekend I had 6 Apps running Photoshop cc, Outlook, Notification, Task manager, Windows explorer, and windows photo viewer and it had been clunking and groaning for what seemed like ages( the reason for looking at Task manager) and it showed CPU 53% Memory 34% disk was stuck om 100% and net work was zero.the screen grab I took doesn't show anything else.
Click to expand...
So the disk is running flat out and the CPU is busy, it'll certainly slow down.

Was this the first boot after the big update to Windows 10? It spends ages after it has booted into the new version processing the updates in the background.
 
CPU is fine.
Stick a ssd in it to run the os from and install win 10 with an oem licence from eBay as suggesed above.

If you want to spend a bit more buy a larger ssd which you can also store you images on to process them.
 
the ssd option would be my call on this one, i am running an old i7 cpu and 8gb of ram, it is a ddr3 ram build so i think it is probably about 6/7 years old if memory serves but it runs pretty well really and i use it for autodesk programmes plus photoshop and lightroom. Only thing i would do short term is to replace the system hard drive with a ssd as i already keep everything stored on a second hard drive anyway so windows and other programmes have plenty of room to move. Actually that is a point, how much disk space do you have left on the c:?
 
thinking about it you shouldn't really need to pay for a windows 10 license either, even from an upgrade version since it now operated from a digital license which iirc goes off the serial number of the motherboard so providing you don't change the board then you can just download windows from microsoft using their boot device download page and reformat/reinstall from a usb drive and it will pick up the serial number automatically. Obviously that is more faff than cloning since you will have to then reinstall drivers/programmes etc but should mean you have a nice fresh up to date version of windows without any of the clutter that can come with a cloned version. Just got to make sure you back up anything you want to keep beforehand
 
If your HDD is at 100% it's either full or it 'could' be in the early stages of failure. A re-install would make it look like its ok for a short time but eventually it would start to degrade again.
I'd recommend a combination of the above and replace the storage completely with something like a 240GB solid state drive for the OS and photo editing software supplemented by a 1 or 2TB HDD for data. If you want you could just go for the SSD initially but a HDD with 100% utilisation seems a bit suspect to me unless there's no free space left - you've not stated how full the drive is yet.
My PC has an older processor only 8GB RAM but has a 240GB SSD and a 1TB HDD and I have no performance issues at all.
 
Thanks for all the replies gents.
Ok. this is what i can see earlier on this afternoon it looked like the disk was running at 12-15mbs but was showing 100%. It is a 1tb hdd with it partitioned 'C' drive has 355gb free and 'D' drive has 385gb free so from that i would say that space isn't an issue?
My thought is to look at a full fresh install and see if that helps it if not IF the HDD is suspect i have the ability to get a new one and may go down that route but get one with SSD and HDD, graphics card etc.
While i think about it would the Fresh Start I have found in Windows defender be of any assistance?

Thanks again all.
Trev
 
Hi again
Just downloaded some photo's from a XQD card started at 234mbs then it dropped away to 30mbs task manager showing disk at 100% 234mbs. Does that mean anything?

Trev.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top