Greetings to all,
Haven't posted in a week or so, as I have been upgrading the computer. Easy enough for some but not for me.
Affectionately known as computer geeks, this demographic laugh at their ownjokes, speak there own language and have an unfailing belief that we less gifted luditesunderstand where they are coming from.
I did evrything I could to make it simple and painless, but it didn't happen my friend. I just received CS5 and HDR Efex software and ordered a new computer system to replace the ancient heap of you know what thatI had been using for too long. I specified my needs to the sales person, Photoshop and blah blah blah. He said that the system I had chosen would not cut it, I would need quad core. "Quad core you say," I think, what could I have been thinking, of course I need quad core. I wonder if there is sext core, maybe I should get that. I didn't ask, but promptly agreed and laughed off my previous system as ancient and went with the experts suggestion.
I took the quote home and looked dreamily at the long list of specs, not having a clue what I was admiring, but admire I did. I went in the next day, saw a different sales rep and ordered the system. A little worried that I may not have enough "memory", I pursued a line of enquiry about ram. This stuff apparantly helps the computer to think about a few things at once and I was told thatperhaps I should upgrade to a name brand, rather than the generic stuff.
Moving along, I picked up the computer on Friday and spent the next five days, slowly andI mean slowly transferring data from the old clunker to the new beast. All the while telling my wife how good it is and yes I have been stuck in this room for days, but evrything needs updating and more blah blah blah.
Today I finally loaded HDR Efex and the damn thing stopped working. "Not enough memory to open all the files," it said. I was onlytrying to open one bloody(Australian expletive that you can say around your Mum and the kids)file. I had 4 gigs of Armani ram, surely that was enough. I jumped on the phone andtechnophile saidI could need more, but we will have to have your machine for 12 hours while we burn in the new ram, cause ram is fickle stuff and sometimes it doesn't work real well and it could just freeze and lock up.
I decided to take it in to the tech repair section and let them fix it.
Nice guy the tech expert, probably from another planet, but he initially told methat it might be ram or it could be my video card, no point throwing ram at it, if the video card cannot keep up with CS5. I had to take it home and run "task manager" and see where all the memory was going. Sounded complicated to me, I started doubting my abilities.
Than he saw it.
On the spec sheet for the machine. "How come you have 32 bit Windows and not 64 bit Windows?" he asked. What you talking about Willis, I thought. "What you talking about?" I asked. The technology God than tells me that 32bit Windows7 can onlyread a maximum of 3 gig of ram but actually only runs at about 2 gig. I could buy another 8 gig and it would still onlyoperate at 2 gig.The only thing to do was re-format the whole thing and install 64 bit Windows and start again.
Arghhh, 5 days of one finger typing and trying to keep a computer reading all the stuff I tried to force feed it.
It wasn't my fault, I had specified what I wanted it to do, but Sales didn't tick the 64 box. And they cost the same, it's not even an upgrade to have 64 bit.
It worked until the HDR crunching started.
This rant was for the benefit of those who one day might need to upgrade their computer and like me don't know about the stuff we aren't supposed to know about.
But mostly it was for me.
Arghh,
Steve
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Originally Posted by Bob Williams
