How can I use my old computer to run CS6 well please?

[shellyb70808432]

Hello Adobe,

I just have a simple question please. I can’t say the answer will be simple but I’ve been more or less beating my head against the wall over here, so I have finally decided that I absolutely needed to come to you and pray you’ll be able to give me some advice.

Long story short-ish, after being a workaholic for years, one day I fell off my chair at work and felt paralyzed from the waist down. The squad came and I was required to have urgent spinal surgery. I’ve since had two more spinal surgeries all from what they think was just very poor desk posture. So be good to YOUR back please. I am now disabled and sitting for periods of time more than 10-ish minutes is excruciating, BUT I am sick and tired of not being able to work and contribute to society, so I’d really, reeeeally like to start doing some graphic design again, even if it’s just very part time from home to start.

Due to my issues, I have not even been my desktop PC (where CS6 is installed) for many years, but even years ago, my system was very slow and had some loading problems in CS6. I would love nothing more in the entire world than to be able to go out and purchase a new computer; however being that I am currently only receiving very small monthly disability wages, I definitely can’t even begin to think of it; however, I was considering saving up to purchase (and learning to hopefully install myself) some more RAM to see if that would help. So finally (sorry!), my question to you please is... Would RAM be the most important thing that could (hopefully) help my computer’s performance in CS6? Also, is there anything else that I could possibly purchase, at this point, for this old system to possibly enable it to perform better?

Info: I imagine this is appalling 😕

HP Pavilion a6554f PC

Windows 7

intel graphics media accelerator 3100

intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600

hard drive 750GB

system memory 5120MB

I also had a graphics card put in many years ago but I cant seem to locate that information.

As I said, I wish more than anything in the WORLD, I could just purchase a new system but so sadly, that’s completely out of the question right now. I would love and so deeply appreciate, any help or advice that you may be able to share with me. Not to be overly dramatic, but I know that to you, I’m just another question, but to me, your help could be life changing.

Geeez, I’m sorry this got so lengthy, but thank you so very much for reading my message/story! Ha

My Kindest Regards,

Shelly

[Peru Bob]

Unfortunately, just more RAM will not likely help.  You would need a better and faster processor and more fast hard drives.

[Peru Bob]

Moved to the Hardware Forum.

[KeelerJ · Accepted solution]

Hi Shelly! I'm sorry to hear about your troubles.

Which CS6 software will you be planning to use? I know of someone running a Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, and InDesign CC on a similar computer with a Q8400 processor, which runs only slightly faster (2.66 GHZ) than the 2.40 GHZ of your Q6600. With 8GB of RAM, the system is able to run Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign CC with acceptable results -- it's not lightning fast, and you can't do anything else while the Adobe software is running, but the performance of the software is fine and productive.

I would think that adding a few extra gigabytes of RAM could make a big difference -- a while back, I took my laptop (which I use primarily for internet browsing) from 4GB to 8GB, and it has made a huge difference. I also know of a computer that was running Adobe CC software just fine under 8GB of RAM, but when the RAM was doubled to 16GB, its performance improved significantly. Going from 5GB of ram to, say, 8GB certainly couldn't hurt.

Of course, since your computer is old, you would want to be careful to purchase the right type of RAM. I'm just guessing, but your computer is probably running DDR2 RAM, which I don't think is very expensive these days. Looking quickly on Amazon, it looks like you could get 8GB (in the form of four 2GB chips) for around $30.00.

Hopefully this is somewhat helpful -- perhaps someone else can jump in with more thoughts on whether a RAM upgrade would be a good idea, and if so, what type of RAM or combination of chips you might want to look for.

[shellyb70808432]

Hello!

Thank you so very much for your great reply! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time and effort to help.

As far as which CS6 programs I’d like to use, I primarily will be using Photoshop,  Illustrator and Indesign.  Possibly some others in the suite but those are the only three I know well so far. I may brush up on Dreamweaver and Flash at some point down the road, but I also may just forgo that and just focus my efforts on relearning the first three mentioned. I’d like to do a very basic website for myself and I may use Adobe’s Muse. I have just begun to read about it tonight. I have about $220 in digital reward credits from Amazon and I think I may be able to pick up the digital download! Too bad it’s not toward things other than digital, but still it’s nice to have. 🙂

I’m so appreciative of you educating me a bit on RAM because truthfully ( and embarrassingly),  I work(ed) with computers a great deal but I don’t know as much as I’d like to yet, about their inner workings. I didn’t realize you could buy a RAM in individual pieces that add up to the total that you desire. That’s great to know! I’m going to have to watch video about RAM, then how to even install RAM because I don’t know where it physically goes inside and how much physical space it needs vs. how much physical space I have available inside mine.

Thank you again soooooo very much!

Shelly

[KeelerJ]

I'm happy to help! I also got to thinking that what would really breathe new life into an older computer like yours is a solid state hard drive. They're so much fastest than the hard disk drives that were the standard for so many years (and are still very common), and they can make a huge difference in the responsiveness of a computer -- you'd probably have much fastest startup times for the Adobe software, in addition to the computer itself starting faster and being able to open large files quicker.

Unfortunately, solid state drives aren't very cheap, but if you could get away with 500GBs (maybe saving your 750GB drive for files that you don't use as often), the Samsung 850 EVO 500GB is $140 on Amazon. Installing hard drives isn't very hard -- you'd need a little adapter since solid state drives are smaller than hard disk drives and your computer case probably doesn't have an empty space of the right size, but beyond that it would just be a matter of screwing the solid state drive (in its adapter) into one of the empty bays of your case and plugging in two cords, one to the power supply and one to the motherboard. Then you can use software to clone all of the data on your current hard drive to the new one.

[Peru Bob]

You should check the BIOS before trying to update to a SSD and make sure that your BIOS supports SSD.  If it doesn't, you may be able to update the BIOS.

[shellyb70808432]

Hi Bob! Thank you again for all of your help! I just gave you 3 Helpful votes. I hope that does something good for you. Sorry I didn't click them until now. I didn't even know that they existed from my ipad, but I can see them here on (still) my dino-puter.

[shellyb70808432]

Thank you again SOOOO much for your help a while back!

I JUST finally clicked "helpful" and "like"! I'm so very sorry, as well as embarrassed, that it took me so long to do that. I sure hope that you didn't think I was ungrateful, or too lazy to click- No way! I'm so appreciative of your help!! I just had no idea I was supposed to do that, or even COULD do that. Maybe it was because I was on my iPad (previously) and now I'm on a desktop and HERE at least, the "like" "helpful" and "Best Answer" are very easily seen. Anyway, thank you so much again!! I sure hope that you get something great for all of the points I imagine someone as great as you, has. Even if not, hopefully just the satisfaction of knowing you're so smart in this area and that you're helping folks and then them appreciating it, should be nice!

  Big thanks again!

[RjL190365]

You can't really do much with that antique PC:

1) Support for that PC has already ended, as far as the manufacturer is concerned.

2) The last "officially" supported version of Windows for that PC was Windows 7. And Windows 7 is already well into it's "extended support" phase, which means that only critical security fixes are available for free, and even bug fixes are only provided on a volume paid basis. Plus, Microsoft is under no obligation whatsoever to continue supporting software for any PC that's that old. Lastly, Windows 7's EOS (End Of Support) date is set for January 2020, which is less than two years from now.

3) If that PC is still running Windows Vista, and you have never updated to Windows 7, be advised that all support for Vista has ended back in April of last year. That means that there will be no more security fixes for that OS (outside of what was already released prior to its EOS date).

In other words, you might as well scrap it, and continue doing nothing. Especially since newer, more fully supported technology is now much more expensive than it was a couple of years ago.