15" MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz CPU Failure?

[markturnip]

Hello.

I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro 2.4GHz with 2GB of RAM.

I can't say it's ever been magnificently fast, but I always blamed it on the memory. I've always intended on upgrading it, just never got around to it.

I've also been away for 6 months, so haven't been using my computer.
But today I've been trying to use Photoshop & it's hideously slow!

Even the simplest task such as a desaturate command can take as long as 2 minutes! Admittedly on a large size document.

I have iStat in the menu bar. When performing these tasks I would assume it would display some sort of indication it's processing in the CPU. But it displays Photoshop only using at much as 16% CPU & the memory having 500MB of inactive memory?

My brother had been using my computer away & was constantly complaining of the speed of it. He suspects it could be a CPU issue.


Am I correct in thinking Photoshop should be using more CPU when processing a task?

Any help suggestions would be really appreciated!


Mark

 

[spinnerlys]

Try this: Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test, and see if you get any errors.

Photoshop should at least access both cores. Try the radial blur on a bigger image (1600 x ....) with settings like ZOOM, AMOUNT=54 and see how much CPU is used. My version used 172% CPU.

Also try some benchmark tools like XBench or GeekBench or Cinebench and compare the results with similar machines. GeekBench offers a result browser on their homepage.

 

[markturnip]

I'll try an Apple hardware test this evening, thank you.

On your suggestion I used an image around 1600x1200, It processed it a bit too fast to see the CPU usage. But it looks like it uses around 54%...

Thanks.

 

[markturnip]

Is Photoshop limited to the percentage of memory it can use?

My memory displays that Photoshop is using 1.22GB & has 500mb Inactive, with 21Mb Free.

Also displays that I've swapped 2.53GB (3.00GB) with 1,300,000 Page Ins & 650,000 Page outs, since this morning around 11am - It's now 2:30pm. Is that a lot for that amount of time?

Thanks.