Search light

[jgolo]

Whenever I click on "my computer" I get a search light for 1-4 minutes until all of my drives show up. Photoshop takes even longer to load anymore. Any ideas on where to start?

I have defragged, tried restore, re installed windows and no luck.

thanks

 

[signswi]

If you completely wiped and reinstalled Windows and you still have that issue you could have bad RAM. Run MemTest as a place to start. http://hcidesign.com/memtest/


Other generic tips, make sure you aren't running too much active anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware...one product only, doubling up eats system resources like crazy. I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials or Nod-32.

 

[OldPaint]

would help to know:
1. what ddr & gigs of ram you have.
2. what processor and speed of it.
3. video card specs
4. operating sys.
5. hard drive conection, IDE or SATA.
6. hard drive size
you just might need to upgrade to something that can handle your programs.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Other generic tips, make sure you aren't running too much active anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware...one product only, doubling up eats system resources like crazy. I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials or Nod-32.

That's even if both of the products get along. Some do not.

I would suspect that it might be something failing on you if you have done the normal, unload and re-load everything. De-frag and all that.

Test your memory to see if they are still good to go. It might be a memory stick going out on you.

Have you done any type of updating? Both in terms of hardware and software?

 

[signswi]

Yes, hence eating system resources. They'll be trying to heuristic scan each other and go nuts, among other things. Defrag won't do anything as a clean install will reformat the disk, it's not fragmentation. I'd guess something to do with network share slowdown (disable auto-search for network drives, uninstall windows search 4 as well) but photoshop also loading slow indicates ram, gpu, or hd. Check your SMART readings for the hd and see if it's dying, run memtest, and you could try stressing your gpu to look for errors there with something like Furmark.