Why is my computer freezing and sending me blue screens? I guess I should run some system diagnostics. I ran them recently and I was assured everything is hunky dory.
If it’s so hunky and dory, why does it keep freezing?
FREEZE!
No, Marilyn! You cannot run diagnostics while surfing. Bad Marilyn.
MORE FREEZING!
No. You must not check email. Okay, check it, but don’t send anything. Shoot. Frozen again.
PUZZLEMENT
Why is it prompting me to update the drivers I just updated? Should I do it again? Nah. Waste of time.
BAFFLED CONFUSION
Why is Dell installing the software again? This is the fifth time. It’s installed. Geez. It’s just doing this to aggravate me.
HEADACHE, POUND, POUND, THUD
I need lunch. Afraid to leave the computer. Who knows what mischief it might get into?
STOMACH GURGLING
Bathroom, I don’t care what’s going on. I gotta go NOW. Computer? Sit! Stay! Don’t do anything while I’m gone.
FREEZE!
I guess no matter how boring it is, I should NOT play Bridge while running diagnostics.
ANOTHER FREEZE!
I suppose this means running diagnostics is not a perfect opportunity to thoroughly clean the keyboard.
HUH?
My system is fine. Absolutely nothing wrong. So what’s with all those Blue Screens of Death referencing my video card? Let’s stress test the video card.
ZZZ
This is more boring than watching paint dry. Are we there yet?
RESULTS!
Everything is freaking fine. I’ll tell myself that the next time it locks up. Thanks for nothing. Another afternoon I can never get back.
EPILOGUE
It turns out that the fancy sound I use is part of the video card. This is the “fancy” sound most people only use when they are playing video games. I use it all the time because the sound is so much better than the standard sound. But, that means I really am using my video card for the sound I’m playing — while I’m photo-processing.
So if I’m listening to an audiobook while trying to process photographs using both Photoshop and Topaz filters, everything runs fine unless there’s a particularly big draw on the memory. Then, it just locks up the computer. Sometimes it brings up the blue screen, indicating a video card problem. It isn’t video or at least, it isn’t only the video.
It’s the combination of video and audio together.
The answer? I could choose to not use the fancy audio sound which runs on the big graphics card. Except, I don’t like the other sound.
Better yet, I can play the book on my Kindle and process photographs on the computer. The audio doesn’t use much memory, but Photoshop with Topaz uses a ton of it. And I’ve got 16 gigs of memory on this computer. It was a lot worse on the old computer which had a mere 12 gigs.