Photoshop CS hangs when I try to use tools on several pcs. In fact the computer freezes completely and must be re-booted with the soft power-switch.
All of the PCs have Windows XP, 256MB memory and 80GB harddisks. Four of the PCs are brand new, out of the box yesterday, fully pre-installed software. The others are about a year old. All of them hang when I run Photoshop and try to use the draw or paint tools, or the lasso tool or whatever.
I’ve been through the Adobe troubleshooting docs and tried everything suggested, including installing the software in safe mode. The only thing I haven’t done is update the video drivers, because I couldn’t find updates. The video cards are crappy integrated S3 Graphics Pro Savage DDR, 32MB. They should work, but perhaps there is some problem I don’t about.
I’ve run Photoshop CS on Windows 2000 machines with 128MB memory and 4GB harddisks and it works fine.
I also have the same problem and was about to ask about it. I’ve installed all the Photoshop versions I have, namely 6, 7, CS and CS2 and all freeze-hangs. I’ve also tried to re-format the HDD and had a clean installation of Windows XP and reinstalled, edited (then freezes), rebooted, uninstalled each of the versions. It is really a pain – I did not experienced this in my old PC, which is very inferior compared to my new PC (slow as hell loading time)…that is what i noticed. A close friend of mine also have the same problem and she is always annoyed that her new PC freezes whenever she is editing her artwork. Another friend, who did not upgraded his PC or bought a new one (even though the loading time is slow as hell) had no problems with using new products of Photoshop. Please help, I really don’t know what to do… Jason, have you fixed the problem?
Please read post one. If the entire computer freezes you have a problem with your computer. We’ll be in a much better position to help you post your complete system specs.
Thanks for the feedback. At least it narrows it down.
I spent two hours after work today on one of the PCs. I reinstalled everything on one PC, using the manufacturers OEM disks – windows XP, the drivers etc. I also downloaded and installed the service packs etc etc. Installed Photoshop in safe mode, only to have the exact same thing happen. It’s very frustrating.
The funny thing is, one of the PCs has not exhibited this problem. It’s exactly the same in terms of hardware and software, and yet it never crashed. Just as AIs said.
I’ll post my specs fully tomorrow. The computers in question are actually hired, not bought, so if it is a hardware problem, then the company who hires them out should fix it I guess.
I’m having a freezing issue also. But LenHewitt and Robert Levine, just because the whole system freezes, does not conclude a hardware issue. When my system froze, I opened the Task Manager (took a very long time) and saw that the Photoshop process was using 98 to 99 % of the system resources. When that happens, there are next to no CPU resources left for anything else, causing everything to lockup (or become agonizingly slow to perform).
Also, why doesn’t Adobe have a patch for CS like they do for previous versions? If you look at the downloads for Version CS, you see a bunch of patches that mean little to the average Photoshop user, yet if you look at the downloads for Version 7.0.1, you see an update for the program.
Adobe’s support sucks just like most other large companies. They want me to give a credit card number just to talk to someone. This is a Photoshop issue specific to version CS on my system, because the previous version I had (6), had no stability issues in the two years I used it.
Machine lockups are usually caused by bad hardware. The exact mechanism of the lockup is frequently timing related — so it’s not easy to reproduce, and some machines may show it more frequently than others.
But what PapaWhiskey describes is not a machine lockup – just an application lockup. There are lots of things that can cause that, but it’s usually bad drivers or corrupt preferences.
CS doesn’t have an update because there weren’t enough bugs to necessitate an update.
"CS doesn’t have an update because there weren’t enough bugs to necessitate an update."
There is a big bug and it is SP2 related.
I have several notebook computers with Ati Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics card. With Win XP Pro SP1 Photoshop CS is working perfectly.
After installing SP2 or fresh installing XP Pro that has SP2 included makes the freezing start. I can reproduce this on several machines and it’s the same every time SP2 is involved.
Trying to use Polygonal Lasso Tool freezes the program and menus go white. I have to kill the process. Other programs work fine.
It could be a chipset issue but SP2 triggers it and it renders Photoshop CS practically unusable. Updating graphics card drivers or removing hardware acceleration doesn’t help.
I just find it odd that the problem surfaces with SP2. With SP1 everything works flawlessly.
Now with SP2 Photoshop CS freezes. On the other hand Photoshop 5LE continues to work as before so I’d still be looking for a fix from Microsoft and/or Adobe in the first place.
The computers work flawlessly otherwise, as mentioned.
The problem has now been fixed. It was the motherboards that needed their BIOS updating. Annoying to have to do this with brand new, out-of-the-box computers.
To update a BIOS you need a floppy boot disk with Flash program on it, and also the BIOS update on it (usually a .bin file)
You can get the BIOS updates from the motherboards manufacturers site.
I can officially reinforce Jason’s findings. I have had the same problem with CS ever since I got upgraded to a new PC at work. I am currently running on dual P4 3.0 w/ HT, XP Pro SP2, APCS. I have tried everything I can think of to fix it and read Jason’s post about the motherboard. Did some investigating and upgraded the BIOS from Intel and voila. Haven’t had a problem with Photoshop all day (as opposed to the freezing up every 2 minutes before).
You’re welcome and glad to be of help. I’ve since found out some more. Apparently the problem is on certain motherboards that were manufactured before Windows XP Service Pack 2 came out. Even if the new PC comes with Windows XP SP2 pre-installed, the problem can still be there. The Bios must be updated too, but most distributers and hire comapanies don’t bother to check this.
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