[gerainte]

My computer is giving up, very slow. I'm taking RAW photos. Has any one any suggestions as to what to replace my computer with? I don't really want to go over £500. I know nothing about computers.

[EdMak]

What part of the world are you in? Do you need a new operating System, what version are you using at the moment. How much memory do you have, what size hard drive. For £500, you should get a very good system, a Tower only may suffice, if you are happy with your monitor etc. Lack of Memory, can slow up a computer. Ed.

[gerainte]

Hi Leeds, England. I think so, Windows 7 is what i have now. memory, 2GB ram, 219 hard drive of which 10 is empty.The computer is a Compact which I've had for 4 years. Now I've started taking pictures a bit more seriously and using RAW the machine is struggling.

[EdMak]

A new Hard Drive or an additional one, if you have a spare bay, and more Memory, is the way I would go. Both are now very cheap to buy. Is there a local shop you can ask for a quote. MotherBoard would perhaps dictate parameters. £100/130 would do a lot. My thoughts. Ed

[gerainte]

A new Hard Drive or an additional one, if you have a spare bay, and more Memory, is the way I would go. Both are now very cheap to buy. Is there a local shop you can ask for a quote. MotherBoard would perhaps dictate parameters. £100/130 would do a lot. My thoughts. Ed

Thanks will check out that option, certainly could be a lot cheaper

[John M]

Raw photographs are HUGH. Get the biggest hard drive you can afford. My first digital camera gave files of around 2 Mbytes my current one gives files of nearer 30 Mbytes. My next camera will give even larger files, I expect.

Lack of RAM will slow you computer down more than a slow processor will, so go for as much RAM as you can afford.

Next thing to think of is that your hard drive will fail one day. Mine did and lost me 2,000-odd photographs. I now have an external hard drive as well and back up my internal hard drive once a week to the external hard drive.

So, I am agreeing with Ed - get a large hard drive and lots of memory - either as an upgrade for your existing computer or as a new one - and get a back-up drive as well.

[EdMak]

Run this,
http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/
It will tell you what your Motherboard will support, and an idea of prices, I would not go past them. Ed.

[gerainte]

Run this,
http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/
It will tell you what your Motherboard will support, and an idea of prices, I would not go past them. Ed.

Thanks for the helpful advice everyone.

[gerainte]

Raw photographs are HUGH. Get the biggest hard drive you can afford. My first digital camera gave files of around 2 Mbytes my current one gives files of nearer 30 Mbytes. My next camera will give even larger files, I expect.

Lack of RAM will slow you computer down more than a slow processor will, so go for as much RAM as you can afford.

Next thing to think of is that your hard drive will fail one day. Mine did and lost me 2,000-odd photographs. I now have an external hard drive as well and back up my internal hard drive once a week to the external hard drive.

So, I am agreeing with Ed - get a large hard drive and lots of memory - either as an upgrade for your existing computer or as a new one - and get a back-up drive as well.

Thanks I go for as much as I can get memory wise

[johneccles]

My computer is giving up, very slow. I'm taking RAW photos. Has any one any suggestions as to what to replace my computer with? I don't really want to go over £500. I know nothing about computers.

Hello Gerainte, you can get quite a decent laptop for about half that. My wife bought me a HP 255 from ebuyer for £239 and it handles my RAW photos as quickly as my main PC. I can manage quite well with the 15" screen but if necessary I plug my 24" monitor in for a better workspace. Most PP software tends to take up a large proportion of the screen with the editing panels.
John

[RoadratNI]

Hi Gerainte
If your PC is for years old I would suggest that it is possibly a quad core and running ddr2 ram. If you were to increase the ram it would certainly help but you may find it hard to find similar ram to what you have. Most Pc's are now running DDR3. You would also need to find out if your power supply will support an extra hard drive.
If buying a new tower unit I would always advise getting the highest spec you can afford as they get dated very quickly, If you Google "Overclclockers" and look at a gaming spec I5 I believe there is one at approx £500 and that will run your processing with ease.

[Fumangord1]

My computer is giving up, very slow. I'm taking RAW photos. Has any one any suggestions as to what to replace my computer with? I don't really want to go over £500. I know nothing about computers.

I would suggest you contact a reputable company like Mesh computers or Cyberpower, Talk to the techs there, they will advise you on what the best spec for picture processing you need at the right price.
Please don't be led by the fast talking salesman at your local computer shop, no names mentioned.
Bear in mind that at the speed technology is advancing if it is sitting on a shelf in a shop then its out of date. Cyberpower will build you a NEW PC for you to your specification. Also you do not need a gaming PC you need processor power and RAM, The Graphics card need to render the image not do mega framerates which the latest games require. That's why top gaming machines are so expensive, a single top end card can cost upwards of £800 by itself. Shop wisely and be careful don't be sold something you do not need.

Gord.

[johnytrout]

I just bought my wife a Toshiba laptop with 8MB ram with a 1 Terabite hard drive for around £325 which will house all her photos.
You can get external drives 1T or 2Terabite quite cheap now which plug into the USB port...... They should hold more than enough photos

[WesternGuy]

You note that you are using Windows 7. My questions is 32 bit of 64 bit, because if you are going to add memory, your operating system will determine the total amount of memory that you can install in addition to what you already have.

WesternGuy

[Wall-E]

You note that you are using Windows 7. My questions is 32 bit of 64 bit, because if you are going to add memory, your operating system will determine the total amount of memory that you can install in addition to what you already have.

WesternGuy

The 'Crucial' website will take that into account when it recommends additional memory.

[Fumangord1]

You note that you are using Windows 7. My questions is 32 bit of 64 bit, because if you are going to add memory, your operating system will determine the total amount of memory that you can install in addition to what you already have.

WesternGuy

The 'Crucial' website will take that into account when it recommends additional memory.

Good point WesternGuy, a 32bit system can only support 3 gig of ram so go for a 64 bit Operating system then you can add lots of ram as you expand. you are only really limited by the number of memory slots on the motherboard.

[gerainte]

Thanks for all the advice and information, a lot to digest and investigate. Hope I don't take too long doing that as I prefer the photography which is why all your advice is so helful

[gerainte]

I just bought my wife a Toshiba laptop with 8MB ram with a 1 Terabite hard drive for around £325 which will house all her photos.
You can get external drives 1T or 2Terabite quite cheap now which plug into the USB port...... They should hold more than enough photos

Hi do you mind telling me what model and where from?
TA

[Fumangord1]

I just bought my wife a Toshiba laptop with 8MB ram with a 1 Terabite hard drive for around £325 which will house all her photos.
You can get external drives 1T or 2Terabite quite cheap now which plug into the USB port...... They should hold more than enough photos

Hi do you mind telling me what model and where from?
TA

Gerainte, please note you need Gigabytes of ram not megabytes, that's gb not mb.
The computer has to hold the image selected for editing in ram and as you know RAW images take a lot of memory. so get as much ram as you can afford in gb, I would recommend at least 8gb for image processing and at least a dual core processor.
One of the reasons there are so many choices out there is because one size definitely does not fit all, A workstation desktop is not the ideal solution for image processing as is not a gaming PC.

Gord

[Artoorthethird]

You could try something much cheaper - Norton Utilities - Software that will return your PC to near as new condition. It gets rid of loads of clutter on the hard drive, and all the start up programs that have found their way into your start up folder. I use it all the time, (run it once a week) and my 5 year old PC is as fast as new.
Cost is around £30. You could try the Norton Symantec website to download a trial version.
But believe me, the full paid for version is well worth having, even on your new PC if you go that way.

[Wall-E]

You could try something much cheaper - Norton Utilities - Software that will return your PC to near as new condition. It gets rid of loads of clutter on the hard drive, and all the start up programs that have found their way into your start up folder. I use it all the time, (run it once a week) and my 5 year old PC is as fast as new.
Cost is around £30. You could try the Norton Symantec website to download a trial version.
But believe me, the full paid for version is well worth having, even on your new PC if you go that way.

I haven't gone NEAR any Norton software in a number of years.
I used to be a subscriber to their Anti-Virus product, but stopped when it became bloat-ware, and slowed my XP machine to a crawl.
I now use AdvancedCare for optimization, AVG Free for Anti-Virus, and SpyBot Search and Destroy to look for browser exploits. None of those cost anything. You *can* upgrade to their 'pro' levels, but the freebies work fine for me.

[gerainte]

You could try something much cheaper - Norton Utilities - Software that will return your PC to near as new condition. It gets rid of loads of clutter on the hard drive, and all the start up programs that have found their way into your start up folder. I use it all the time, (run it once a week) and my 5 year old PC is as fast as new.
Cost is around £30. You could try the Norton Symantec website to download a trial version.
But believe me, the full paid for version is well worth having, even on your new PC if you go that way.

I haven't gone NEAR any Norton software in a number of years.
I used to be a subscriber to their Anti-Virus product, but stopped when it became bloat-ware, and slowed my XP machine to a crawl.
I now use AdvancedCare for optimization, AVG Free for Anti-Virus, and SpyBot Search and Destroy to look for browser exploits. None of those cost anything. You *can* upgrade to their 'pro' levels, but the freebies work fine for me.

Thanks for the info on these probably need to look at this stuff either to sort out the present mess and or if I get a new laptop.

Still looking nad scratching my head, any one just want to suggest a model?

[EdMak]

Johnny Trout's Toshiba deal looks great, perhaps he will elucidate. I would be interested at that price/spec. Ed.

[Artoorthethird]

You could try something much cheaper - Norton Utilities - Software that will return your PC to near as new condition. It gets rid of loads of clutter on the hard drive, and all the start up programs that have found their way into your start up folder. I use it all the time, (run it once a week) and my 5 year old PC is as fast as new.
Cost is around £30. You could try the Norton Symantec website to download a trial version.
But believe me, the full paid for version is well worth having, even on your new PC if you go that way.

I haven't gone NEAR any Norton software in a number of years.
I used to be a subscriber to their Anti-Virus product, but stopped when it became bloat-ware, and slowed my XP machine to a crawl.
I now use AdvancedCare for optimization, AVG Free for Anti-Virus, and SpyBot Search and Destroy to look for browser exploits. None of those cost anything. You *can* upgrade to their 'pro' levels, but the freebies work fine for me.

Thanks for the info on these probably need to look at this stuff either to sort out the present mess and or if I get a new laptop.

Still looking nad scratching my head, any one just want to suggest a model?

Since you will need Norton Utilities within a few months even on a new computer (depends how many programs invite themselves into your start-up directory, with your knowledge or otherwise) you could consider buying Utilities now and hopefully it will work wonders on you existing PC. I rely on Norton Utilities all the time on 2 PCs and both run RAW files (21-Mega-pixel) fine.

[EdMak]

Geek Uninstaller, free, http://www.geekuninstaller.com/download will remove both the Programme and all leftovers, I look at it every time I install a prog. Norton may have cleaned up it's act, but at one time, they had to make an Uninstall Programme, to remove it, even worse to remove if it was a free trial, and not removed before the trial was up. Pops up's to buy continually, even after it was removed. Ed.