PC crashes when playing music with Photoshop running

You get a black screen or the blue screen commonly called the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)?

If black screen, what operating system?

It is most likely an error in your sound card driver that doesn’t really have to do with PS, but is more because of the amount of memory you are using. But the BSOD would give more info, I’m not sure that a black screen is.

Nope, it’s not the BSOD, not seen that for years. There’s just a sudden monitor click and the whole screen goes black. Actually it’s more like a dark grey, not quite the same as if the monitor was switched off. Thenm I can’t get anything to work until I presss the reset button. CTRL+ALT+DEL does nothing.

No error messages, no warning, no "recovered from serious error" after the reboot.

I’m running XP, 1024 DDR memory, AMD Athlon 2200, 2 hard drives with space on all partitions.

It’s really frustrating…

"Pat" wrote:

You get a black screen or the blue screen commonly called the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)?

If black screen, what operating system?

It is most likely an error in your sound card driver that doesn’t really have to do with PS, but is more because of the amount of memory you are using. But the BSOD would give more info, I’m not sure that a black screen is.

For the sake of arguement, you should make sure you turn off all of the visualizations in whatever media player is going. It doesn’t sound like your computer crashes, more like there’s something physically wrong with your video card.

wrote in message

Nope, it’s not the BSOD, not seen that for years. There’s just a sudden monitor click and the whole screen goes black. Actually it’s more like a dark grey, not quite the same as if the monitor was switched off. Thenm I can’t get anything to work until I presss the reset button. CTRL+ALT+DEL does nothing.

No error messages, no warning, no "recovered from serious error" after the reboot.

I’m running XP, 1024 DDR memory, AMD Athlon 2200, 2 hard drives with space on all partitions.

It’s really frustrating…

"Pat" wrote:

You get a black screen or the blue screen commonly called the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)?

If black screen, what operating system?

It is most likely an error in your sound card driver that doesn’t really have to do with PS, but is more because of the amount of memory you are using. But the BSOD would give more info, I’m not sure that a black screen is.

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On 06 Feb 2006 00:00:21 GMT, wrote:

Looking for a little help.
I can use Photoshop for hours with various
other programs running alongside it, no problem. But if I try to play musci while I’m working on an image, any image, after a short time the whole machine crashes, I get a black screen and can only continue with a restart (reset button). This happens with several different media players, including MMJB & Winamp, which work perfectly without Photoshop.
Any ideas?

Thanks In advance.

Gotrek

I dunno about music players in the background etc.,
But awhile back my PC was doing something similar.
At first I thought it was my monitor going on da fritz… but it turned out, it was the video card.
The fan on it died, it was overheating, and producing the same effect. Ya could check to see if your vidcard fan is going.
That’s my 2 cents.

A click followed by a black screen sounds like it is turning itself off. That’s weird.

I agree with Kinmotsu that the first place to look is at the video card. Try uninstalling the driver and reinstalling them. Make sure the vid card is seated properly. Also, make sure the RAM is in okay. If you have two ram cards, remove one and see if it happens or goes away, but its unlikely to be RAM.

When it goes black, does the computer shut off? You said you have to push the reset button (which is also generally the start button).

If none of that works, open up the box and leave the cover off. See if you hear anything else and make sure all fans, etc. are working. Maybe even blow a small desk fan into it and see if that works.

Your video might be one the motherboard and not a card. If so, not much you can do except make sure everything is plugged in okay.

If you have any different monitors, you may want to swap out your monitor. But again it is unlikely.

In the end, I think you might need a video card.

If you do need a new video card, my suggestion is to get one that will handle two monitors. It’s a great convenience for doing photo editing, etc. to have two monitors in front of you. Then your palettes and windows, etc. don’t get in your way.

wrote in message

Looking for a little help.
I can use Photoshop for hours with various
other programs running alongside it, no problem. But if I try to play musci
while I’m working on an image, any image, after a short time the whole machine crashes, I get a black screen and can only continue with a restart

We could start by trying not playing music or musci.

Ok, another of my many typos ;o)

Thing is though that I can play music for hours with no problem, I can use photoshop for hours with no problem but if I do the two together, CRASH!

I can play graphic heavy games for hours with no problems.

"Helen" wrote:

wrote in message

Looking for a little help.
I can use Photoshop for hours with various
other programs running alongside it, no problem. But if I try to play musci
while I’m working on an image, any image, after a short time the whole machine crashes, I get a black screen and can only continue with a restart

We could start by trying not playing music or musci.

wrote in message

Ok, another of my many typos ;o)

Sorry, but I love other peoples’ typos!

Thing is though that I can play music for hours with no problem, I can use photoshop for hours with no problem but if I do the two together, CRASH!

Certainly PS likes plenty of memory. I have also found that Winamp likes a fair bit of memory too (which is what I use). I wouldn’t think of using anything else with PS running, and anyway, I think music would put me off when I’m really concentrating.
You could always use an ipod or something similar if you need music while you work.

I can play graphic heavy games for hours with no problems.

Hmmm, games. Pass on that subject.

Yeah, typos can be funny ;o)

I have quite the opposite approach to music. I find some loud rock through my headphones helps me focus on whatever Photoshop project I’m attempting, and it’s far less distracting than hearing my kids squabbling & fighting each other.

I thought 1024MB RAM should have been enough to run both proggies but maybe that’s where the problem lies after all. Now, if I can just convince my better half that it’s time for an upgrade…

Gotrek

"Helen" wrote:

wrote in message

Ok, another of my many typos ;o)

Sorry, but I love other peoples’ typos!

Thing is though that I can play music for hours with no problem, I can use photoshop for hours with no problem but if I do the two together, CRASH!

Certainly PS likes plenty of memory. I have also found that Winamp likes a fair bit of memory too (which is what I use). I wouldn’t think of using anything else with PS running, and anyway, I think music would put me off when I’m really concentrating.
You could always use an ipod or something similar if you need music while you work.

I can play graphic heavy games for hours with no problems.

Hmmm, games. Pass on that subject.

wrote in message

Yeah, typos can be funny ;o)

I have quite the opposite approach to music. I find some loud rock through my headphones helps me focus on whatever Photoshop project I’m attempting, and it’s far less distracting than hearing my kids squabbling & fighting each other.

I thought 1024MB RAM should have been enough to run both proggies but maybe
that’s where the problem lies after all. Now, if I can just convince my better half that it’s time for an upgrade…

G,

Have you tried running Task Manager simultaneously with PS and Media Player? Click on the Performance tab and watch the cpu usage and commit charge values.
A couple of links that explain what things mean in TM.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2Fdirectory% 2Fworldwide%2Fen-gb%2Ftask.asp http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/329/24/1.html

HTH
MH

Thanks Mike,
tried Task Manager and during certain functions (liquify, Corel Knockout etc) the CPU goes through the roof, sitting right up at 100% even without Winamp running. Also watched the memory drop from 650,000b to 51,000 at various times.

Seems it’s just a case of CS2 being very power & memory hungry, especially when I have several very large images open at once.

Luckily my Hifi plays mp3 cds, so I guess I’ll be using that now. ;o)

Thanks to all for the help.

Gotrek

"Mike Hyndman" wrote:

wrote in message

Yeah, typos can be funny ;o)

I have quite the opposite approach to music. I find some loud rock through my headphones helps me focus on whatever Photoshop project I’m attempting, and it’s far less distracting than hearing my kids squabbling & fighting each other.

I thought 1024MB RAM should have been enough to run both proggies but maybe
that’s where the problem lies after all. Now, if I can just convince my better half that it’s time for an upgrade…

G,

Have you tried running Task Manager simultaneously with PS and Media Player? Click on the Performance tab and watch the cpu usage and commit charge values.
A couple of links that explain what things mean in TM.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2Fdirectory% 2Fworldwide%2 Fen-gb%2Ftask.asp http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/329/24/1.html
HTH
MH

G,

Have a look at your error logs. Go to Start>My Computer and right click on it.
Then left click on Manage>Event Viewer>Application Error Records. This is a list of all the stop/starts and hangs for all your programs. Look for the red circles with a white X in. They could coincide with your system hanging when using PS and Media player. Click on the red circle to view the dialogue and any error codes listed can be pasted into Google to see what turns up.

Regards
Mike H

Seems it’s just a case of CS2 being very power & memory hungry, especially when I have several very large images open at once.

Gotrek

You got that right 😉

Have a look at your error logs. Go to Start>My Computer and right click on it.
Then left click on Manage>Event Viewer>Application Error Records. This is a list of all the stop/starts and hangs for all your programs. Look for the red circles with a white X in. They could coincide with your system hanging when using PS and Media player. Click on the red circle to view the dialogue and any error codes listed can be pasted into Google to see what turns up.

Regards
Mike H