PC upgrade

A reformat isn't going to change the fact that you are running a single core P4. Even a modern single celeron will be faster due to improved architecture. Its just a fact of life that as software improves it gets more resource hungry and you need newer computers!
 
if it was slow booting up or initially opening lightroom then id say do a fresh build or at least run something like CC cleaner as the registry is probably clogged.

but lightroom processing wont be affected by that.
 
a lot comes up on google that isnt necessarily fact.. ;)

i would suggest in this case its simply a case of bottlenecking at the CPU rather than system slowdown.

anyway a lot of those first results talk about disk fragmentation (may your disk NTFS, itll fragment less) which wouldnt really cause 100% CPU more so slow disk access/writes. the others talk about being on Mac?
 
It's not particularly slow on other functions, I do have it as NTFS and I clean my crap very regularly. :)
 
Personally... If it were me, I would just rip the guts out, replace CPU & Mainboard, Ram, HD, and be done with it!

You could upgrade for just over £200 with these parts:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/193593 Dual Core 3.06GHz 1066FSB
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190137 Asus P5KPL-AM Motherboard
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119223 Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz Hyperx RAM
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804 Samsung Spinpoint 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache

Ok it's not cutting edge, but it's far better than what you have at the mo, just add graphics (or use on board graphics)
& your OS, pretty cheapish upgrade I think. Obviously your budget is tight so I would work with what you have before spending a wad of cash.
 
Have you thought about finding a local computer fair where you can pick up parts for much cheaper than a retailer, even a retail selling OEM parts. And all the help and assistance is there, whilst your walking around in person rather than trying to remember what you have read here.

Last time I went to one I priced up a new computer with half way decent specs for about £250, to about the same standard as one you may find in currys for £700 odd. However currys are quite heavily overpriced on computer goods.
 
I've no problem with the home build - I love taking things apart and have ben inside my pc's a fair bit. It's an idea, yes, but I'll have to do it with used parts as money is properly tight until a few things come off.
 
rogan200 said:
As everyone says a RAM increase will help a lot - with regard to the HDD, why not fit an additional drive and use the first drive for your operating system, programs, etc, and the new drive just for your photos - saves wasting the 150gig drive you have already.
Click to expand...

I'm running Cacheman and I can assure you I go nowhere near to maxing out my RAM with anything I do. RAM isn't the issue. good call on HDD though. I'm going to upgrade along with power source soon.
 
as above RAM will have no baring on the CPU maxing out.

ive got an intel dual core 2.2Ghz on ebay at the moment if that helps you :D

not sure what benefit keeping an older 150Gb hard drive will be though, my iPod has nearly as big a drive.. i say bin it and pop a SATA 1TB into your upgraded box, itll be faster (than im assuming your current IDE drive?) and you certainly wont miss the 150Gb.
 
People I really do appreciate the advice, but I have made it pretty clear that money is an issue. That being, I do not have any. Polishing turds may be my only answer for now. ;)
 
I got my computer off ebay from a firm, don't remember which, but i could find out.

It had intel quad processors, 8GB ram, 1064mb graphics card, 500gb hd. All for £400
yes the components are probably rubbish (apart from the graphics card which is quite good) but since i've loaded windows 7 (64bit) it is amazingly quick. Good option if you don't want to spend too much. Obviously you could probably spend less for a bit less power. The good thing about it is that it is all easily upgradeable, if you wanted to put better components in at a later date.
 
My original question was whether RAM or processor mattered most. After running Cacheman I can easily see it's the processor. As I've said, I do appreciate the responses, but I don't have £400 knocking about. I was hoping I'd be able to bung a new processor in and be done. It's obvious now that ain't going to happen, so I'll just have to make do until I can afford to upgrade properly. Glass comes way higher on my list of important things. ;) :D
 
The23rdman said:
My original question was whether RAM or processor mattered most. After running Cacheman I can easily see it's the processor. As I've said, I do appreciate the responses, but I don't have £400 knocking about. I was hoping I'd be able to bung a new processor in and be done. It's obvious now that ain't going to happen, so I'll just have to make do until I can afford to upgrade properly. Glass comes way higher on my list of important things. ;) :D
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It's your system being old generally. The processor maxing out is just a symptom. There is no cheap fix. You may find things snappier if you reformat the system, but it's time to bite the bullet if you want to improve things.
 
Yep, I realise that. I'm currently looking at the gear Ed was so kind to link too.
 
noneforit said:
I dont know why people get so hung up on RAM, in my opinion (as a systems engineer) is that your P4 chip is likely the issue. 2gb of memory will run photoshop and lightroom easily if you have a decent processor. I run CS4 on 2gb of mediocre RAM (laptop) and ive never had it hang once

Its unlikely that your motherboard will take a dual core chip so you would need a new board, a dual core processor and RAM is pretty cheap these days so could stick with the 2gb youve got (as long as it will go in the new board) or buy faster ram
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Exactly. These are very processor intensive applications and from my chair here I can safely say the processor is the more limiting factor. Fair enough, if he said he had 512MB of RAM, it'd be different, but even today 2GB is fairly respectable. I get along just fine with 1GB.
 
Okay, if I stick a 1Tb HDD in this build what kind of power supply will I need?
 
The23rdman said:
Polishing turds may be my only answer for now. ;)
Click to expand...

Like it (y) :D

I don't think your current hardware is entirely to blame for your problems to be fair, your system although not the most powerful around, does
at least meet the minimum specification to run lightshop. (excedes it actually as you have 2GB of ram)

I still feel that a format and new installation could work as a number of factors can cause high CPU utilization. I know others will probably disagree, but
things like: corrupt files, corrupt applications, corrupt or invalid registry entries, malware, spyware, viruses etc, can all be culprits.

Have you made sure preferences are set NOT to automatically write XMP to the files?
I've seen this refered to alot on other forums, not being a user of lightroom I wouldn't know, but you can apparantly uncheck it by going to:

file>catalog settings>metadata>uncheck 'Automatically write changes into XMP'

maybe you have done this? im not sure, just trying to help :)
 
Yep, done that a while ago. :) I'll reformat first and see what happens, but I'm kinda steeling for an upgrade.
 
CruisingComet said:
I still feel that a format and new installation could work as a number of factors can cause high CPU utilization. I know others will probably disagree, but
things like: corrupt files, corrupt applications, corrupt or invalid registry entries, malware, spyware, viruses etc, can all be culprits.
Click to expand...

i disagree :D

either way there should be no need to reinstall, use Ccleaner for registry checking and malwarebytes/spybot for malaware checks.

i cant see any of that making much if any of a difference though.

presumably we've tried doing software updates on LR and the plugins?
 
If you had said that the system was running fine and suddenly slowed down one day....it would point to something software related (virus/malware/spyware/fragged disk/corrupt sectors etc etc).

2gb of RAM is plenty enough to run both Photoshop and Lightroom

Obviously any system would benefit from faster RAM but not neccecarily more RAM

Looking at an earlier post, you have stated that the processor is Maxing out and not the RAM

P4 is a very old CPU in todays world and as someone stated earlier, software evolves and allows for better features which in turn generally requires faster hardware (both CPU and RAM)

If you are going to upgrade then I would suggest a new motherboard, a dual core CPU (Either Dual core Pentium or Core2Duo depending on your budget) and faster RAM

A better motherboard may take your current RAM but its likely to run fairly slow if it came out of a P4 board so I would suggest buying more (2gb or 4gb as the price difference isnt massive generally) at a faster speed (again depending on your budget)

I have no idea of your budget but you are going to need a few hundred £ to get a decentish system

A quick look on ebuyer shows the following:

Processor - Core2Duo 3ghz £92
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158339

Motherboard - Asus Socket 775 £33.29
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169508

RAM - 4gb Kingston 1066mhz - £70
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148859

This totals around £195 and would run sooo much better than your current setup.

Obviously you can get a better board or less memory depending on your budget etc.
 
noneforit said:
A quick look on ebuyer shows the following:

Processor - Core2Duo 3ghz £92
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158339

Motherboard - Asus Socket 775 £33.29
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169508

RAM - 4gb Kingston 1066mhz - £70
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148859

This totals around £195
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Or as posted previously... (And Including a 1TB Hard Drive) :cautious:

CruisingComet said:
You could upgrade for just over £200 with these parts:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/193593 Dual Core 3.06GHz 1066FSB
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190137 Asus P5KPL-AM Motherboard
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119223 Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz Hyperx RAM
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804 Samsung Spinpoint 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache
Click to expand...
 
Agreed but was giving the OP some more options.


I think its worth paying an extra £22 for a Core2Duo instead of a Pentium Dual core

Agreed that he could drop down to 2gb of RAM to put towards a new hard drive but again personally I would go for the 4gb as the price difference is minimum and its future proofing
 
noneforit said:
I think its worth paying an extra £22 for a Core2Duo instead of a Pentium Dual core

Agreed that he could drop down to 2gb of RAM to put towards a new hard drive but again personally I would go for the 4gb as the price difference is minimum and its future proofing
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree it's worth paying the extra for the Core2 Duo as well, but he keeps saying he got no dosh :D
 
I've got no dosh! :D I am going to build it though, but I'll get the bits in stages. :D
 
Could get an Intel Core i3 system for just over £200 from overclockers.co.uk:

- Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) - OEM
- Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard
- Corsair Value Select 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (VS2GB1333D3 G)

Total: £212 inc VAT and delivery. (However the i3 is normally £10 more or something).
 
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