Memory issue with illustrator (but not really)

[Gilligan]

Oddly enough we have a website that we HAVE to edit on my old CS4 machine because Adobe Flash refuses to save it.  It crashes every time we try to save it.  Not something you really want to completely redo in the newer version.  So we are stuck hoping nothing happens to that CS4 machine.

I sometimes think I'd rather be back with CS4 on her machine.

[Gilligan]

Right there with u waiting for HD prices to stabalize before I build my new server. Priced a 1TB last month.. 250 when it was 99 last year.

I literally have 500 gig drives on my shelf that I bought for 49.99 before the flood... after the flood they were 99.99.

Granted, I had bought a 2TB drive before the flood and dropped it in a client's server I built AFTER the flood... that was a nice little bump in profit.

[inkman996]

Gilligan can you monitor system RAM usage when all this is happening and confirm the system is only using a small percentage of actual RAM? Maybe there is a windows program out there written to help allocate RAM better who knows.

[jsheridan]

Friend was in dire need for a 1TB few months ago, bought an external for cheap and took out the drive and installed it internally. That game didn't last long as the externals have finally caught up in pricing.

[Dottonedan]

My professional  expertise tells me that you have a GLITCH in your Illy program. LOL.

Another tip would be not to be working from a hard drive that is your main OS drive, I have all my files on a second Internal hard drive, the drive is only for files, not for windows.  I let programs and windows live on one drive, data on another.  This speeds up things a bit more.

That sounds very smart. I'll look at that also. I did have everything (work files) stored and operating from the main drive. It does make sense to have the main drive freed up for space access.


I can't tell you why, as I'm no computer pro. but I had only 8 gigs of ram while freelancing at a company (on site recently for a short time) and they were using all old macs. Now, I will grant you that they would do far better if they upgraded but they were operating on files that were all (starting at 1.5 gigs of a photoshop file and upwards of 3GB psd files. They were doing all kinds of crazy wrong in file preparation and needed to adjust how they do things, but the point is, these old macs with 8gb or rams were opening and working on files that were that large (and they did this on a daily basis). it was the norm and they had the basics open at the same time, like firefox, acrobat, Illustrator.


(Those were not as old as what I'm using right now. LOL with only 1GB DDR SDRAM on a 1.25 GHz G4 processor. I am using this because my PC motherboard fried last week and am operating just fine for now).  I'm sure I can't open 30 programs but I'm working between Illustrator and Photoshop   In addition, (no punch here) but I am also not getting any out of memory issues between the two.  My HD is 80GB. and 70% full.  Note, that I also worked on some of this company's 1.5-3 gb files (at home) on my PC that had 8gb of ram but I did have 600GB of HD space on my main drive and then 1TB of external storage space.


(Pro's by the way, can vary in knowledge or more so "expertise" in the same field. For example, experts in the color separation field are not all equal. You have some who are experts in indexing and know nothing else. You have others that are experts in vector color separation and don't work in raster. etc. Same applies everywhere else I'm sure).

If RAM or 30-40 GB of RAM makes all that much difference, than I will be first in line to speed up my next PC when I get it. For the next week or so, I am running my old dependable Mac Mini. cira 2005.  I might also mention, that I do still have my old beige table top Mac from 1997 that STILL does operate well but slow. 2BG of ram and a 40GB HD.   I use it to do some old things in older programs that you can't do in todays programs.  It's interesting to note, that the PC that just had the motherboard fried,..was on the same power line in the same one room as these other two MACS that were both on and operating during that time. Both MACS still operate the same. Just say'n is all. Interesting.

The fact that I am going to purchase another $300-$500.00 PC should indicate that I'm not about being ALL MAC all the time. It's money right now as it was back then two years. So. Yes, MACS are far more exp. but again, I still have both my old ones and I'm on my 2nd PC in two years.  One might say, It's user error.  Could be, but again, just say'n. I don't need repairs and someone to fix my user errors on the Macs.

Let me close by saying,  I LOVE PC's.  and especially PC users and people who are PC experts. Love'm Love'm Love'm

(Forgot to mention I did have Photoshop close down on me and Illy closed down on me once each, while operating on my old Mac a few days ago). It's not perfect all the time.).

[GraphicDisorder]

My professional  expertise tells me that you have a GLITCH in your Illy program. LOL.

Another tip would be not to be working from a hard drive that is your main OS drive, I have all my files on a second Internal hard drive, the drive is only for files, not for windows.  I let programs and windows live on one drive, data on another.  This speeds up things a bit more.

That sounds very smart. I'll look at that also. I did have everything (work files) stored and operating from the main drive. It does make sense to have the main drive freed up for space access.


I can't tell you why, as I'm no computer pro. but I had only 8 gigs of ram while freelancing at a company (on site recently for a short time) and they were using all old macs. Now, I will grant you that they would do far better if they upgraded but they were operating on files that were all (starting at 1.5 gigs of a photoshop file and upwards of 3GB psd files. They were doing all kinds of crazy wrong in file preparation and needed to adjust how they do things, but the point is, these old macs with 8gb or rams were opening and working on files that were that large (and they did this on a daily basis). it was the norm and they had the basics open at the same time, like firefox, acrobat, Illustrator.


(Those were not as old as what I'm using right now. LOL with only 1GB DDR SDRAM on a 1.25 GHz G4 processor. I am using this because my PC motherboard fried last week and am operating just fine for now).  I'm sure I can't open 30 programs but I'm working between Illustrator and Photoshop   In addition, (no punch here) but I am also not getting any out of memory issues between the two.  My HD is 80GB. and 70% full.  Note, that I also worked on some of this company's 1.5-3 gb files (at home) on my PC that had 8gb of ram but I did have 600GB of HD space on my main drive and then 1TB of external storage space.


(Pro's by the way, can vary in knowledge or more so "expertise" in the same field. For example, experts in the color separation field are not all equal. You have some who are experts in indexing and know nothing else. You have others that are experts in vector color separation and don't work in raster. etc. Same applies everywhere else I'm sure).

If RAM or 30-40 GB of RAM makes all that much difference, than I will be first in line to speed up my next PC when I get it. For the next week or so, I am running my old dependable Mac Mini. cira 2005.  I might also mention, that I do still have my old beige table top Mac from 1997 that STILL does operate well but slow. 2BG of ram and a 40GB HD.   I use it to do some old things in older programs that you can't do in todays programs.  It's interesting to note, that the PC that just had the motherboard fried,..was on the same power line in the same one room as these other two MACS that were both on and operating during that time. Both MACS still operate the same. Just say'n is all. Interesting.

The fact that I am going to purchase another $300-$500.00 PC should indicate that I'm not about being ALL MAC all the time. It's money right now as it was back then two years. So. Yes, MACS are far more exp. but again, I still have both my old ones and I'm on my 2nd PC in two years.  One might say, It's user error.  Could be, but again, just say'n. I don't need repairs and someone to fix my user errors on the Macs.

Let me close by saying,  I LOVE PC's.  and especially PC users and people who are PC experts. Love'm Love'm Love'm

I don't have a illustrator issue though

I have computers I have run with much less beefy specs, that's not exclusive to MAC's at all.  I own 2 Mac's, they are slow compared to my PC's.  Of course my specs on my PC's dwarf the iMac and MacBook Pro I have, so its probably not fair to compare.  But I have built computers all of my adult life.  I have never put my hands on a Mac I couldn't out build for less money, including the dual processor Macs.  Macs used to be out of reach (many years ago) to out build because they controlled their own hardware (proc/etc).  Now they all use Intel stuff, because frankly its better, so for good reason.

For sure on Pro's, I keep my mouth shut on stuff I don't know anything about.  Computers/specs/how to use one is something I know a good bit about though.

I would suggest steering away from buying a 300-500 computer.  Those are not quality mobos, specs are deceiving.   If you like I would suggesting buying parts and putting together a more powerful computer yourself or id even do it for you, no cost, just buy parts.  I would suggest a larger budget though for some real results.  It's all up to how future proof you want to be.  There is nothing hard about building a computer yourself really.  I can guide you if you need.  You'd end up with better quality and ability to upgrade it more in almost every case.

[Gilligan]

What Brandt says.

Unless you spent the same money on your PC as you did your Mac then you can't compare apples to apples.  Ok, actually you could spend about 50%-75% on the PC and be more apples to apples... you pay quite a premium for that little logo on there.

I have a 600mhz laptop that I could fire up right now... the hinges are all busted and the screen literally falls out if you move it wrong... but it's still running like a CHAMP!  Slow as hell by today's standards so it sits, but just saying you will always have scenarios that are like that or opposite.  If you are buying HPs, Dells and the sort for your computer then you are playing with fire.  I'm sure they make some decent machines in the high end... but why even play around.  Get a shop to build you a good pc (a buddy would be better as we could give you the specs on what to get) and you will have a beast that will run circles around a mac for a fraction of the cost.  Aside from your odd ball problem that any computer might have (bad hard drive or ram chip (which would have a lifetime warranty)) you will not have any more problems with hardware then you would a Mac.

Go to any photoediting website and they will all tell you to get a massive amount of RAM... working with Photoshop it would just LOVE to have the RAM.

Oh and Dan.. having the other hard drive isn't so much about space... it's a performance thing.  If the OS is accessing files and such on the hard drive to operate (like functions of PS, maintaining the million other systems going on in there) and you are trying to manipulate files on the same hard drive they will have to share access.  A hard drive is very much akin to a record player.  If you want to hear two songs at once you will have to bounce back and forth with that needle and it just won't really work right?  Same thing with the data.  But if you had two record players then poof, problem solved you can beat mix to your heart's content.

This stuff holds ESPECIALLY true if you are doing video or music production as those things are constantly feeding off the hard drive while you are working on them.  In Brandt's(?) case if he is listening to music all day it makes sense to have it on a separate drive as it's constantly reading that music off the drive (ok, more so sporadically as it buffers but that's not the point).  This allows him to not have his music hinder his ability to retrieve or manipulate the data on another hard drive.  I personally just keep all my music on my server and it streams over the network for me but that's all the same point.

[Dottonedan]

That is a very nice offer and I would take you up on that. Currently, I have Pierre guiding me in the PC world for now. He seems to think these PC's he can get me are equivalent to $1000-1500 PC's like you said but I don't know the details


I never work off of my external drive. I use that for storage or back up. If I want something from that, I copy it over to my work drive (my main drive) being the C drive. But from what I read, I will move all that over to another drive inside my PC rather than my C drive.

[Gilligan]

Right.. that is the way to go... two drives INSIDE.  Granted this new USB 3 spec is pretty fast but might as well stick with internal as you don't need to worry about having a mother board with USB 3 (it's still fairly new).

I seen that he recommended a Lenovo on another thread and though I don't have a LOT of experience with these machines I will give you the limited experience I have had.

My wife bought one for her father (before we met) and it was problem problem problems... they had to change out the motherboard (under warranty)... still problems... so we built him a new machine (no issues now, but not my point).  So that Lenovo sat around collecting dust to be used for parts.  I fired it up and it worked... it's fairly new so had some decent specs.  I formatted it and and started using it for my personal machine here at the office... I really only use it to dick around with.  Well, poof... crash... poof crash... basically would never stay up over night and often locked up during the day.  I said, OK lets change out the RAM (I got tons laying around here)... even though the RAM tested fine (sometimes it's still bad).  Still problems.

I've determined there must be something wrong in the memory controller section on the mother board because if you start it and don't run any programs it will run forever.  But if you start making it use up some RAM at some point it will get flaky.

This is across multiple installs of various flavors of windows... same copies of windows and same software that runs rock solid on various other machines.

So, though I have no extensive knowledge of Lenovo products, I just have a bad taste in my mouth with them from this one.  Granted, I get mad at my brother for doing the same thing with Seagate HD's... he hates them because of a few bad experiences.  I don't like them because of their warranty process but they make a decent drive.

[GraphicDisorder]

That is a very nice offer and I would take you up on that. Currently, I have Pierre guiding me in the PC world for now. He seems to think these PC's he can get me are equivalent to $1000-1500 PC's like you said but I don't know the details


I never work off of my external drive. I use that for storage or back up. If I want something from that, I copy it over to my work drive (my main drive) being the C drive. But from what I read, I will move all that over to another drive inside my PC rather than my C drive.

No worries I am sure what he is recommending is ok, but I remember checking them out in a link he posted i think, price was decent, but they weren't that wonderful on specs if I remember right, I think I even posted a comparison to the processor in those compared to what I run and it was drastic.  But at the same time it seems like you want something that isn't as beefy as me, to each their own.  I prefer raw power.  Do as you like, but be informed before you make your choice...

Yes rock a SSD internal or the fastest drive you can afford 10kRPM Vraptor or at the very least a WD Black 7200rpm for your os/programs.  Stay away from 5400rpm drives, or any drive with low cache on it, or green drives, read SLOW.  Keep all data on a second internal, this will also act as a safety feature as well.  If you have to reload windows, your data wont be affected. 

[GraphicDisorder]

That is a very nice offer and I would take you up on that. Currently, I have Pierre guiding me in the PC world for now. He seems to think these PC's he can get me are equivalent to $1000-1500 PC's like you said but I don't know the details


I never work off of my external drive. I use that for storage or back up. If I want something from that, I copy it over to my work drive (my main drive) being the C drive. But from what I read, I will move all that over to another drive inside my PC rather than my C drive.

Comparison:

Here is a benchmark score for the processor I just bought vs the one in the one you linked (guessed a little at which c2d it was).

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600K+%40+3.40GHz

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Extreme+X9100+%40+3.06GHz

[Chadwick]

Secondary physical ( not a partition ) hard drive should be mandatory for every computer.
I run my OS's page file on the second drive. I still use XP.

Not sure how windows 7 is utilizing page files..which leads me to this:
Gilligan, could it be a page file or scratch disk read/write error you are experiencing?

[Gilligan]

Possible... her OS drive which is her page file is a 60gig SSD.  I shrunk the page file because it originally tried to make a 16 gig one... a little stupid.

BUT, it really doesn't touch the page file.

Now scratch discs, maybe.  I just moved it last night.  I used it today a bit on the office layout and didn't have any issues.  I don't task it ANYTHING like she does though.

I can pride myself on knowing more keyboard shortcuts than her.   But I know probably 2% of what she knows about illustrator.

[ScreenFoo]

Ha... Nice cat.  I wasn't trying to reiterate--just wondering if I was the only one not alpha testing CS6.

That link Pierre posted was for a used computer at an utterly amazing price, right?-Wasn't the whole computer selling for what that i7 2600 goes for?  And those Quadro cards *are* pretty sweet.

Inkman:  Hit Win+R and type "resmon", you can get info on memory, disk, and CPU usage. 
I only have six gigs on the new-ish laptop, and I can't seem to use over half of it without trying really hard.  Go figure.  Anyone have screen shots of resmon, and how they're killing ten or twenty gigs of memory?

Dan:  It's quite possible, as discussed in the other thread, that the power supply had something to do with your Mobo being fried, if that's what happened.  Bad power can fry just about anything, and a power supply that's going bad can do amazingly crappy things to your computer.  You can destroy just about any electronic component with 'dirty' power, or power that is out of range--many would-be techs have discovered that with their own body's electricity.
It's really too bad more power supplies don't have proper line filtering capacitors.

[Chadwick]

Did alot of reading on win7 tonight, as I'll be running it soon enough.
win7's pagefile is supposed to be equal to your ram in size.
( 16gig sounds ridiculous, but let'er go for it )

I run 1.5x my ram in XP ( 4 gig on the board ), which would be 6 gig.
I let the system manage it, on the secondary drive,
and it usually hovers around 3.5 gig,
which is what I can access of my physical ram anyway.
( 32 bit OS restriction, and a 512meg dedicated vid card sucking up some addresses as well )

Love to hear any progress you make on this issue.
What works, what doesn't, whatever.
Cheers