BleepingComputer.com: Ps Cs3 Crashing/unstable Issues?

Not 100% if this subject has been covered before, but I've been running into a few problems recently. I'm starting to think and lean towards a hardware related problem, but I thought I'd throw the case out there to see if anyone else has come across it before.

As long ago as I could remember I use to be able to run Firefox, Dreamweaver, MSN, Warcraft, Winamp and Photoshop CS3 all at the same time. Recently though I've only been able to run PS CS3 Only if I shut off every single program I have open, and inactive programs as well - such as winamp and msn even if they are off line and or not doing anything. Otherwise any attempt to open CS3 with anything else running causes it to beep several times before locking up and shutting itself down almost instantly. Otherwise it'll stay open, however I won't be able to open any projects (The box won't even appear) an attempt to create a new project will just show a window with empty white pull down bar's and zero text or buttons. Even with everything shut down this sometimes happens if I have more then a couple files open at any one time. God forbid I even push on the preference button - that just blows the software up.

I also sometimes experience this problem with Dreamweaver CS3 and After Effects CS3 - but less often.

Now, I do not have this problem with anything else. I've run several instances of Warcraft well browsing the net and chatting up on IRC and I've also ran Sony Vegas Pro at the same time. Seems the only programs that give me issues are Adobe. However once I did experience a slight issue with Sony where on one occasion it didn't want to continue and locked up.

So what the hell is wrong? Memory loss? Bad hard drives? CPU gone to hell? Faulty Install? outdated Drivers? Well I know Memory isn't an issue, there's 4gigs. CPU 'might' be possible, but it is only a year + old. It isn't the install, because this has happened on 2 different versions of Photoshop and several reinstalls. Drivers have all be updated as of a week ago... Hard drives aren't old either, possibly the C drive might be going bad since I use to store 'massive' amounts of Raw video footage on it and then delete it off later... but a defrag did nothing for this issue.
Sometimes before crashing or being 'stupid' the software will pop up a warning message that states something along the lines of "To many files open in workspace" or something stupid of these sorts even though nothing is open..


Help...

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.4Ghz 106Mhz FSB 4MB L2 Cache
4 Gigs of Memory G-skill I believe
1 - 140 Gig Raptor HD, 1 - 500 Gig WD, 1 - 240 Gig WD
ASUS P5B Deluxe MB
Sound Blaster
Nvidia- 8800GTS
Windows XP

...anything else just ask.


Thanks to everyone that helps out. I'm near the end of my rope on this one.

P.S. If you're curious to why I would use all this software, have mega loads of raw video footage, and several WoW accounts running at one time... I make Machinima's for the WoW Community. Exciting.

This post has been edited by fishspit: 10 March 2008 - 10:26 PM

bump^

Tsk Tsk, bumping is naughty...

I would have thought faulty/outdated drivers.. You tried repairing photoshop/dreamweaver cs3 programs?

Although you do have a lot of RAM and processing power, it's not advised you have so many running processes at the same time.
Most of the time CS3 suddenly crashing relates to fonts. Have you installed fonts lately? If you did it's probably filing them... and considering all those other programs you have on, it's not surprising if CS3 crashed.
Also see if you have the latest updates.

Yes, I don't run any programs with it anymore. It still seems to be faulty, and I do have a lot of new fonts on my computer. I'll clean house on the fonts. As for drivers being outdated, I've updated everything and also updated my Adobe software. My best guess would be the fonts, I'll attempt to erase all the extra fonts I added recently and see what it does for the program.

I'd erase your fonts that you don't use, or will not use. It only takes a few seconds to install fonts, so delete them and install them as you need to. This will also help Windows to run faster, too.

With that said, make sure that your primary scratch disk is set to C:/ if you only have one drive (not set to startup), and leave everything else to "none". If you have two drives, then set it to your drive that Windows does NOT reside on, and set your secondary to "C:/" (or the drive that Windows DOES reside on). Photoshop can be picky when it comes to scratch disks and Windows....it doesn't like to share a scratch disk with Windows.

Also, up your Ram to 85%, defrag your computer and run a checkdisk. Do a search for ".tmp" and delete whatever photoshop .tmp's you find (I have them on my computer at work all the time....I just delete them without issues). If you have multiple users on the computer, then you'll have to log in and search within each user (or log in with admin rights and you should find them all...if any).

Oddly enough, the only time I've had issues with PS is when I've had a gazillion fonts on my computer.

Let us know how you fare.

Changed Memory to 85%
1 Scratch disk is now G
2 Scratch disk is now C

Deleted ALL custom fonts.


Started to work a little better.... At least I was able to open things and don't seem to get a memory issue anymore. However (example) when I clicked on a layer to edit the blending options it just automatically shut PS down. Any thoughts?