Slow Laptop

[CandiceC]

Hi Brian, I'm having some issues with my HP laptop. It's running Bridge and Photoshop extremely slowly. Both programs take a while to launch and don’t run well for long. I often need to shut down the computer for a couple of hours, which helps temporarily, but after a few edits, the performance drops again. I'm currently saving for a new laptop and need this one to last me until the new year. Do you have any advice?

here's my details:

I have a PC laptop running Windows 11 pro and Photoshop 24.5. It is over 3 years old, and has 12GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 760GB free out of 952GB, and it runs a Nvidia Geforce Mx 250 graphics card. The last time I shut down was last night. I run a cleanup program about once a week. (glary)

[Brian]

20 hours ago, CandiceC said:

"it runs a Nvidia Geforce Mx 250 graphics card."

"and has 12GB of RAM."

Plus Windows 11 and Photoshop 24.5.

*Sigh*

You're killing me smalls!!

Your laptop is completely under-powered for the current versions of Photoshop. The Graphics Card is not what Photoshop 24.5 requires and you are lucky it works at all. Take a look at this list.  I recommend for a Graphics card to have a rating at 10,000 or better. Your Graphics Card isn't on the list, and the closest one, the GeForce MX 570 A (which is a bit faster than yours,) only has a rating of 2623. RAM is an issue as well. 12GB is not enough. 16GB barely cuts it now, and you really need 32GB of RAM headed into 2025.

HP Laptops are the ones that I avoid at all costs. Please don't buy another HP Laptop. 20 years ago they were awesome, now...notsomuch.

Chances are, the fans / cooling vents are probably gunked up causing a heat issue, which is why you only last for a few hours or so. Combine that with all of the other things and you really need a new laptop.

So what can you do? Either live with the problem, only open 1 or 2 photos at a time, no batching for you...and keep saving, OR downgrade to an older version of Photoshop CC that last worked well and stay there. I do not care how many times the Adobe Mothership App bugs you about an update, keeping Photoshop current on a old / under-powered laptop is just going to make your life difficult.

Before you ask, here is a laptop that I recommend and the specs you should be looking for. Lenovo Legion Pro 7 with NVIDIA RTX 4080 Graphics Card.

As time goes on, Photoshop requires more hardware, especially having a beefy video card, in order to function well. In fact, the choice of GPU is more important that the CPU. The thinking of, I just got a new computer! It has a fast CPU, lots of RAM and a BIG HD...those specs were important 30 years ago. Now you need to have a high-end graphics card with its own dedicated Video Memory, at least 8GB of VRAM in addition to everything else. As AI technology is being implemented more-and-more, so do the hardware requirements increase as well. The "$999 Special" from a Big Box Store that was "Good Enough," those days are over.

You aren't the 1st person to run into this issue. The problem is, and I often say this...your computer/laptop isn't "bad," it's just not "enough."

Now, onto Windows 11. When is the last time you ran Windows Update? I know in the past with Windows 10, if there was a lot of updates queued up to install, computers would run extremely slow until they were installed. I'm not saying that this is THE problem, but it could be A PROBLEM in addition to everything else.

Regardless on what laptop you end up buying, I'd recommend saving up or have the ability to spend $2500. This way you can pull the trigger when you find a good deal in the next few months.

 

[CandiceC]

Thank you so much Brian! this is exactly what I needed to hear to push my timeline up. Appreciate it

[CandiceC]

Hi Brian! I did it—I pulled the trigger and got that laptop! It should arrive within the next two days. I read that you recommend keeping all drivers up to date. How can I make sure they are updated? Any other helpful tips to ensure that my laptop runs well and lasts a long time would be appreciated.

[Brian]

Lenovo has a built-in Utility Software in Windows that will go out and scans for any Hardware Driver Updates. I usually search "Lenovo" in the start menu and you should see some sort of program. I believe it is called "Lenovo System Update." After that, you run Windows Update.