I NEED a new computer ...advice needed!

[ddt0725]

My daughter (IT student) has helped me out tremendously with giving my old computer a longer life expectancy but it is dying a painful death once again and it is time to put it and me out of our misery! It takes minutes to go from one computer screen to another, it takes hours to do very slight edits on a photo! I just loaded slightly over a hundred photos and it took about a 1/2 hour and it takes forever to open one photo!!! When I use photoshop I have to wait and wait and wait for the computer to catch up with me constantly! Now I can't even use the internet without a constant "not responding" message! I'm going crazy ...I am not a patient person to begin with!

#1 - I have not one penny at the moment to spend on a computer!
#2 - I have no choice but to sell my 100-400mm to get a new computer

My thoughts ...sell the 100-400mm and buy a used 200mm 2.8 II once again and use the rest of the money for a computer. When I have additional cash available, buy an extender for the 200mm to give me more reach. If that doesn't leave me with enough, then my longest lens will be 150mm I can take out of my current computer the additonal RAM, hard drive, graphics card that I just bought for it and put it in the new computer if need be. I could also take out Windows 7 Professional and put it on the new computer so it has to run 64-bit.

So, any thoughts on the best bang for my buck computer I can get or the cheapest place to buy one from or the main things I should look for?? I need to be able to load, edit and multi-task without growing older waiting for the computer to do it and what good is any of the photo equipment I have left if I don't have a computer.

Denise

FYI - I should mention up until 2 days ago, my computer was running perfectly, no problems! Why all of a sudden it has decided to go at such a super slow, barely moving pace I can't figure out!

[Sheiky]

FYI - I should mention up until 2 days ago, my computer was running perfectly, no problems! Why all of a sudden it has decided to go at such a super slow, barely moving pace I can't figure out!

Hey Denise,

don't decide too quickly I would say. If your pc worked fine up till two days ago there must be something wrong.
I don't know exactly what's wrong with it, but since it did work two days ago it's hard to believe you completely broke it.

I don't know your set-up, but it sounds like the RAM could be broke.
If you have multiple slots filled with RAM, try to remove all but one and check how it works. Do this with all the RAM-thingies you have.
It would be even better to check all individual RAM-thingies using Memtest86+. You will have to boot with this program and then it checks all the area's on your memory-thingies(no idea how you'd call them in English)

If it isn't the RAM, it could be numerous things. You could also take a screen-shot of the Task-manager while you're in Windows . See if certain things eat up all your RAM. Sometimes Anti-Virus or Malware can really slow down your pc.

This is just a start, but it might save you selling your camera-gear...
I'm pretty sure your daughter could do all this with her hands behind her back. Better yet, you could do it yourself

Let me(us) know how it goes.

Edit: You could also start by trying Memtest86+. If there's something wrong with your RAM it will quickly show. After that you could do the testing on the separate RAM-thingies if you have more than one.

[shutterdown]

Denise, do a system restore, and restore the computer to a point about a week ago.

[ddt0725]

Hey Denise,

don't decide too quickly I would say. If your pc worked fine up till two days ago there must be something wrong.
I don't know exactly what's wrong with it, but since it did work two days ago it's hard to believe you completely broke it.

I don't know your set-up, but it sounds like the RAM could be broke.
If you have multiple slots filled with RAM, try to remove all but one and check how it works. Do this with all the RAM-thingies you have.
It would be even better to check all individual RAM-thingies using Memtest86+. You will have to boot with this program and then it checks all the area's on your memory-thingies(no idea how you'd call them in English)

If it isn't the RAM, it could be numerous things. You could also take a screen-shot of the Task-manager while you're in Windows . See if certain things eat up all your RAM. Sometimes Anti-Virus or Malware can really slow down your pc.

This is just a start, but it might save you selling your camera-gear...
I'm pretty sure your daughter could do all this with her hands behind her back. Better yet, you could do it yourself

Let me(us) know how it goes.

Edit: You could also start by trying Memtest86+. If there's something wrong with your RAM it will quickly show. After that you could do the testing on the separate RAM-thingies if you have more than one.

Ram-thingies works for me! It's the only computer lingo I understand ...LOL! She just checked my RAM-thingies with Speccy and all was good! I told her the free anti-virus software that she re-installed the other day may be the problem. She had to re-install it because it kept shutting itself off. So then she just used Windows Task Manager to see how much RAM it was using and saw that it was using pretty much ALL of it!!!! So she uninstalled it just now. "IT" being AVG anti-virus program. She now installed Comodo, another free anti-virus program and is currently doing an initial scan. Even while it is doing the scan, I am able to type this and have been able to have multiple screens open and WOW!!! I have speed!!!

I am so glad I posted this and got such quick responses before putting my lens up for sale!!!! Thank you, thank you EVERYONE so much for the suggestions and getting us to further investigate the problem with the computer!! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the problem has been solved!!! I was able to type this at 70 wpm and my computer kept up with me ...LOL!

[Joel Eade]

Sounds suspiciously like a virus/malware to me ... also scan the disk drive(s) with Windows security essentials or whatever anti-viral program you can.

[Jayson]

I would try a restore, then run virus software as suggested before. Sounds like you have a bug.

[DavidEccleston]

I agree with the others, it sounds like a malware issue, or a broken automated update. I know someone who's computer became unusable after an automatic HP printer driver update... It took 10 minutes for the desktop to redraw. Every minute or two you'd see the mouse move. Completely and totally unusable, thanks to a printer driver.

Boot in safe mode, and run system restore. If you see an update from 2 or 3 days ago, I'd suspect that. Attempt to restore to before that update, and attempt to cancel any auto update that starts on boot-up and find a way to disable the auto update from recurring.

If you don't have automatic restore points, you may need to reinstall Windows to get it usable again.

If you have restore points, but there's nothing showing up in the last few days, it may be malware, or a driver update that doesn't trigger restore points. Figuring it out might not be easy. Perhaps find a bootable linux cd, and check for files that have been modified recently in the system directories.

Good luck.

[ddt0725]

I am scrolling up and down the forum pages and flipping from screen to screen just for the sheer fun of it ....LOL! This ol' computer still has plenty of life left in it!!

[thekingb]

Glad you are up and running again. Antivirus software is notorious for bogging down systems.

[DavidEccleston]

I ditched AVG something like 3 years ago when it started to bog down my system, and started dropped down in the rankings of effectiveness. "Avira AntiVir" and "Avast!" are both good free alternatives.