gah! photoshop is still really unstable

[dpopiz]

recently this graphic designer started having problems with the computer I built her. she says photoshop 7 crashes constantly and sometimes gives her a disk write error. the old hard drive had some bad sectors, so I just finished replacing her hard drive (1200JB) and reloading everything on it a few days ago. I did a full ntfs format. I also replaced the low quality 512mb pc133 with some kingston valueram pc133. it's running a the lowest speeds and al the other bios settings are set at very stable ones. I'm using the latest bios on her iwill kk266plus mobo. running winxp home. what could be the problem? apparently no other programs give her so much trouble. please help...she's getting furious and I don't know what to do.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

interesting stuff over here

 

[corkyg]

This was on the Adobe Web Site: "You need to clear your preferences. Hold down Alt, Ctrl, and Shift keys (Mac: Command, Option, Shift) while starting Photoshop. A dialog box will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences file."

A BIOS upgrade might be in order as well.

 

[dpopiz]

I don't think that prefs thing will work because she just installed ps7 and hasn't messed with the settings. it's also not a problem with it loading. I'm using the latest bios for that mobo (albeit sorta old).
please more suggestions. I have to go over and try to fix it at 4pm today.

 

[Snoop]

maybe try the latest 4in1's.

 

[xboxist]

Man, sorry about your troubles. I hate post-sale complications with a customer. PC problems can be so up in the air sometimes, and you're just expected to know what's wrong. Regarding your situation; I have no idea.

 

[Dug]

Its easy for the prefs to get corrupted. It doesn't matter how long its been installed or if you uninstalled/reinstalled the program. Delete them as suggested. It's a 99% chance that is the problem.

 

[dpopiz]

but I thought corrupted prefs only cause program loading problems, and her probs are after 2-5mins of using it. am I right about that?

 

[gdtaylor]

What is the error message that she is getting when Photoshop crashes? What is she doing when the crashes occur?

I had some problems with Photoshop crashing and it turns out that it was caused by the printer drivers I was using. (Solution here).

See also: Adobe Photoshop Support

 

[Dug]

Originally posted by: dpopiz
but I thought corrupted prefs only cause program loading problems, and her probs are after 2-5mins of using it. am I right about that?

Corrupted prefs can cause anything from strange cursor movement to incorrect color displayed. Crashing or hangups are also a symptom.

 

[Spicedaddy]

-Upgrade to 7.0.1

-Put scratch disk on a separate partition (or even better, on a 2nd HD)

-Update chipset & video drivers

 

[Dug]

Also a disk write error is common if the image was originally accessed from a nonwritable media such as a cd. And the user doesn't change the path to save it.

 

[TheWart]

bump for ya and suggest that this gets moved to software or tech support for more replies.

 

[Markfw]

"it's running a the lowest speeds and al the other bios settings are set at very stable ones."

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but set your memory timing at 3t. I had a motherboard that had problems at 2t with cas2 micron memory. I set it to 3, and problems went away. What other settings are "at the lowest speeds"?

 

[dpopiz]

I don't know the other settings...anyway it's running at al the slowest memory settings in the bios. I went over yesterday and reinstalled 4-in-1s and then moved the scratch to another partition. after that I wasn't able to recreate her problems, but I'm still waiting to hear from her if it was successful. before I made those changes however, she was able to demonstrate one of several problems she had been having: she opened a photoshop file and it gave a messsage like "operation could not be completed" then the second time she opened the file, it flashed a bsod for a split second and restarted.

 

[jackschmittusa]

That's a pretty lightweight rig for a graphic designer. My wife sometimes works with fullpage, color newspaper ads and goes nuts when she has to do it on a slow machine at work (Emachines xp1600 w/sdr ram and 5400rpm hd). She will sometimes even bring the work home to do on her computer as it is much faster. She uses Photoshop and Corel.

 

[Dug]

What OS? And what photoshop file is she working with when she gets the error?
Are any other programs causing errors?

If no other programs are causing errors, then I would say that it is user error, or the file that she is showing errors with is corrupted.