CRASH MY WAY TO A NEW PC?

[Simon Silverstein]

I currently own a Dell XPS pc, running with Vista , 4GB ram, 350GB HD, Intel Duo core E6550 2.33GHz processor. I am using Premiere Elements 7 to do my video editing. Using HD material USB-transferred from my Vixia HFS100 SD card, the projects I am working with crash repeatedly, even after I recurrently close them down and open them again as instructed somewhere in this forum. It does not seem to matter how long the project is. And a few times I experienced a crash while doing nothing at all but playing the material in the project.
The questions I have are these: (1) Is there something else I can do other than constant shut-downs to alleviate this time-consuming mess? (2) If I were to go for a new desktop or laptop, is there one configuration and/or brand/model someone might suggest--hopefully one that would alleviate the "crash" problem and also wouldn't beak the bank?

[Steve Grisetti]

I don't know how old your Vista machine is, but it might not hurt to do a Restore of the operating system -- which is kind of like a reinstallation except that you don't remove anything. It can refresh Vista nicely -- although you'll then need to do all of the Windows Updates. It can take an afternoon to do but, when you're done, you'll likely find Vista SP2 running as efficiently and as bug-free as Windows 7. But that's up to you.

Beyond that, your processor is a bit light for working with AVCHD. But that shouldn't lead to crashes. That should lead to such sluggish performance that it can drive you buggy.

Regardless, you can try converting your AVCHD video to HDV (and make sure you're using an HDV project preset then) and see if that makes things run any better. Here's some free software that will do it.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/390605?tstart=0

Meantime, do you do regular maintenance on your computer? You'd be amazed how many temp file gunk and ragged registry entries gather on your computer over time. My books include my regular weekly maintenance -- which takes less than half an hour. My computer is in its 6th year now and still runs better than the day I bought it!

Here's the short version of my recommended maintenance schedule:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/390602?tstart=30

Yours is an adequately powered system for most video editing. With a good tune-up, it should run pretty well, and you shouldn't be seeing regular crashes.

But if you're already committed to upgrading, Chuck published some excellent hardware suggestions in Computer Issues sub-forum.

[George Tyndall]

If I were to go for a new desktop or laptop, is there one configuration and/or brand/model someone might suggest--hopefully one that would alleviate the "crash" problem and also wouldn't beak the bank?

The machine in my signature exemplifies an EXTREMELY happy "marriage of the three 7s":
--Windows 7 Home Premiun
--an Intel i7-930 processor
--PRE/PSE7

Here is a previous post regarding the capabilities of this machine.

viewtopic.php?f=57&t=7744&p=69168#p69168

Here is the URL for the HPE-380t (formerly the HPE-180t)

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=High+performance&series_name=HPE380t_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/desktops/High_performance/HPE380t_series

[Steve Grisetti]

That definitely is a beautiful set-up, George!

[George Tyndall]

That definitely is a beautiful set-up, George!

Steve, I was at Costco on Los Feliz here in LA earlier today, and I saw a similar machine but with an i7-860 processor AND a 25-inch HP 1080p monitor for $1245 + 10% sales tax, however, I could not ascertain what GPU the machine offers.