What will my MBP support?

[stevo8]

I have a older MBP that has served me well, but I am getting more and more into photography and as I do I am finding that my mbp is having a considerably tougher time keeping up. I had more ram installed(from 1gb to 2) about a year and a half ago. At that time I was told that my computer would only accept 2gb and wouldnt recognize anymore. I was wondering if this is true and/or if anything has changed? Im trying to put off upgrading as I just really dont have the money to right now so any suggestions would be great.

heres my specs.

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08
SMC Version: 1.2f10
Serial Number: W8610037VJ1
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled



BANK 0/DIMM0:

Size: 1 GB
Type: DDR2 SDRAM
Speed: 667 MHz
Status: OK


BANK 1/DIMM1:

Size: 1 GB
Type: DDR2 SDRAM
Speed: 667 MHz
Status: OK

 

[forrestmc4]

We are running the same machine in the same configuration (though the video card my be different in mine, it was an upgrade at the time of purchase). It is true, our machines can only use 2GB of RAM. As I understand, the 2 GB is a chipset limitation, so you're stuck.

What exactly is your machine having a hard time keeping up with?

 

[stevo8]

We are running the same machine in the same configuration (though the video card my be different in mine, it was an upgrade at the time of purchase). It is true, our machines can only use 2GB of RAM. As I understand, the 2 GB is a chipset limitation, so you're stuck.

What exactly is your machine having a hard time keeping up with?

I have a dell monitor hooked up to it about 95% of the time which I use to edit photos on(CS3 and LightRoom) and then I use the 15" monitor to watch TV and movies on. When I have more then one pic up in CS3 and im jumping back and forth I get a lot of the spinning rainbow thing.

 

[pnyc]

There really isn't much you can do. If you're working on hi-res photos in Photoshop and have some other stuff running at the same time things are gonna get slower.

 

[stevo8]

There really isn't much you can do. If you're working on hi-res photos in Photoshop and have some other stuff running at the same time things are gonna get slower.

Yeah Im thinking about moving to a 2.4GHz or 2.66GHz 20" Imac and going with 4GB ram. I think that would be plenty to keep the wheel from spinning. Its really not a huge deal yet, but it does get rather annoying.

 

[hhlee]

crucial.com is a good site to get your ram information (for the future). i've edited photos on my mini and/or my SR mbp. they're both slower but i think its mostly due to the hard drive speeds rather than the actual crunching. i'm in the same boat as you though, i'm thinking about getting an imac for better flow in editing.

 

[BioCore]

If you are plugged into the adaptor which I am sure you are then you could make sure that you have "Best Performance" in the energy saver settings.

System Preference >> Energy Saver >> Optimization >> Best Performance (from menu)

I have noticed that when my macbook pro is slow I can usually just enable the best performance and it will speed things right up.

 

[firestarter]

Check out Activity Monitor while you're working on particularly slow photography stuff. Are the CPUs maxed out?

A lot of photography work involves big files, and a lot of it is limited by hard drive speed. Laptop drives are slow at the best of times, and as your drive fills up it will slow even more.

Have you considered running your photos off an external eSata drive? You'd have to buy an eSata adaptor (alternatively go Firewire 800 - unfortunately your MacBook Pro doesn't have this built in).

 

[forrestmc4]

Check out Activity Monitor while you're working on particularly slow photography stuff. Are the CPUs maxed out?

A lot of photography work involves big files, and a lot of it is limited by hard drive speed. Laptop drives are slow at the best of times, and as your drive fills up it will slow even more.

Have you considered running your photos off an external eSata drive? You'd have to buy an eSata adaptor (alternatively go Firewire 800 - unfortunately your MacBook Pro doesn't have this built in).

I recently purchased this eSata Expresscard for my MBP and it works great. Firestarter is right, your HD could be a bottleneck.