which hardware should i upgrade?

[heffer]

i'm reading PDFs on my computer. they're large and filled with lots of high res pictures and I find it pretty annoying having to wait a couple seconds whenever i go down a page for the contents to load. so here's my question: software issues aside, which computer hardware is the bottleneck? is my cpu too slow? or my memory too slow? or my hard drive too slow? or something else.

my computer:
core 2 duo E4500 2.2GHz
2GB DDR2-800
160GB 7200RPM 8MB cache
8600GT 256MB

 

[peterhuang913]

It's the software's problem I think. PDF's are also slow for me sometimes.

 

[eyeCpc]

PDF files are simply everyone's headache to start with. When you think you can simply scroll through page after page... surprise it's still downloading more information. The simple tip is to simply let it sit for a minute or so and then you use the arror button to go through page after page or simply download the complete pdf file to a folder and view it much faster on the drive!

Well that's if you have the option to save the file in question to a folder and not limited to online viewing only like many are. Urgh! GGrrr...!

 

[Trotter]

Foxit Reader. It is a lot faster than Adobe Reader, especially in initially starting up. And it is free. Google it, or just go to MajorGeeks and find it.

 

[Kharn]

.PDF files are a pain, espcialy when there is a large on with info you need they take ages to use an hammers your bandwith. And you can't edit them so it makes distributing eforms that way pointless.

 

[eyeCpc]

You got that one right! Even with an Adobe substitute you'll still sit there and wait and wait due to the volume that has to be loaded at the server's rate wherever you are at the time. Your bandwidth does take a pounding especially when trying to look up something rather quickly and the wait is on!

Someone else pointed out Sumatra as another alternative to Adobe 8.1 as a better reader. That's great for files stored on the hard drive but simply won't do anything for online viewing.

I've worked with Foxit Reader at times and never found any problem with it being on. But Chris Chadwick summed up things well there with the point on seeing the bandwidth clobbered when going to view pdf files online there.