Need to know the BEST system for CS2

I currently have a Compaq Presario SR1312NX with Windows XP 2002, Intel Pentium 4, 1GB RAM...and I continue to experience problems with CS2. Most annoying and recurring problems: it freezes and runs far too slowly. I need to purchase a new system for my office, so I'd like to know from my fellow CS2 users (who are NOT experiencing any problems at all) what hardware/software you own. Thanks! :D

Your system sounds OK... Do you have a cluttered hard drive, or lots of free space.

You could also look into getting a system with more RAM if you are using huge image files or CPU intensive tasks (then a better CPU would be on the cards).

But basically you get what you pay for.

I use CS2 on a Sony Vaio 512 Meg RAM, Pentium M740 !.73 GHz. And have no problems. It's a little slow loading up, but for my needs (which are quite simeple), it is OK.

[QUOTE=Rich]Your system sounds OK... Do you have a cluttered hard drive, or lots of free space.

You could also look into getting a system with more RAM if you are using huge image files or CPU intensive tasks (then a better CPU would be on the cards).

But basically you get what you pay for.

I use CS2 on a Sony Vaio 512 Meg RAM, Pentium M740 !.73 GHz. And have no problems. It's a little slow loading up, but for my needs (which are quite simeple), it is OK.[/QUOTE]

I have tons of free space, and I primarily use CS2 for graphic design work, but I've heard from other CS2 users that it seems to work differently from system to system. Thanks for your advice! I'm just about ready to scrap CS2 and switch back to plain old CS! Never had a problem with that!

You're worrying me Pamela... I just purchased CS2 for work (moving from 7.0).

If I could only get my CAD application to run on OSX, I'd SWITCH for the Adobe stuff!

Well I'm running a custom built:

P4 3.0 Ghz 2Mb Cache Hyperthreaded Processor
2Gig RAM
Radeon X800 256Mb PCI-Express Graphics Card
200 Gig SATA Western Digital Hard Drive

and a backup 80Gig SATA Hard Drive

Photoshop and Illustrator fly, and I do photmanipulations that are often over 1Gig in file size. Only thing that takes a while to load are the filters in PS (which I don't use that often anyway).

You could probably drop another Gig of Ram in there, or possibly look at a new GFX Card depending on what you currently have.

Windows XP

There's your problem :rolleyes: hehe just kidding :p Your hardware seems to be pretty "up to par" with the requirements that come with Adobe CS2. Here is the system requirements for a windows machine, according to the Adobe site:

Windows
* Intel® Xeon™, Xeon Dual, Intel Centrino™, or Pentium® III or 4 processor
* Microsoft® Windows® 2000 with Service Pack 4, or Windows XP with Service Pack 1 or 2
* 320MB of RAM (384MB recommended)
* 650MB of available hard-disk space
* 1,024x768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video card
* CD-ROM drive
* Internet or phone connection required for product activation

And by the sounds of things you really surpass these requirements. Is it only CS2 that is cause the problem, or are you having some slow down with other CPU entinsive applications? Maybe check to make sure you have the latest updates of both CS2 and your hardware.

If all else fails you can try to reinstall the application. It might have a memory leak of some sort or something. Which brings me to my next set of questions. What is the CPU usage before running CS2, what is it WHILE running CS2, and what is it after running CS2. This can be done using the traditional CTRL + ALT + DELETE