As of today it's taking up to 2 minutes to load a photo, a good 30 seconds to crop or do anything else. Yesterday is was fine. Any ideas? It's even taking 20 seconds for the histogram to come up.

Please help before i put my foot through the screen (I'm not kidding).

If you want more info on my computer here it is
http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=HNX9LWBEE1US4CSE

There's perhaps lots of reasons for your problem. One suggestion is to go to Tools: Options, and delete files. Others will have other recommendations.

cheers
Dave

May be a RAM problem....

From the web:

When your system does not have enough RAM to perform an operation, Photoshop and ImageReady use a proprietary virtual memory technology, also called scratch disks. A scratch disk is any drive or a partition of a drive with free memory. By default, Photoshop and ImageReady use the hard drive that the operating system is installed on as its primary scratch disk.

You can change the primary scratch disk and, in Photoshop, designate a second, third, or fourth scratch disk to be used when the primary disk is full. Your primary scratch disk should be your fastest hard disk, and should have plenty of defragmented space available.

The following guidelines can help you assign scratch disks:
* For best performance, scratch disks should be on a different drive than any large files you are editing.
* Scratch disks should be on a different drive than the one used for virtual memory.
* Scratch disks should be on a local drive. That is, they should not be accessed over a network.
* Scratch disks should be conventional (non-removable) media.
* Raid disks/disk arrays are good choices for dedicated scratch disk volumes.
* Drives with scratch disks should be defragmented regularly.

To change the scratch disk assignment:

1. Choose Edit > Preferences > Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks.
2. Choose the desired disks from the menus. You can assign up to four scratch disks of any size your file system supports.
3. Click OK.
4. Restart Photoshop or ImageReady for the change to take effect.

Important: The scratch disk file that is created must be in contiguous hard disk space. For this reason you should frequently optimize your hard disk. Adobe recommends that you use a disk tool utility, such as Windows Disk Defragmenter or Norton Speed Disk, to defragment your hard drive on a regular basis. See your Windows or Mac*OS documentation for information on defragmentation utilities

If that does not fix your problem, try resetting your preferences. Many times that is all it takes to fix PhotoShop when it's acting up. The preference file can become corrupted, leading to all sorts of mysterious and unusual Photoshop behavior. If you delete the file, it forces Photoshop to create a replacement file the next time it runs. Without a preferences file available when it starts up, Photoshop uses the factory-set defaults.

Among the clues that the preferences file has gone bad are:
• Freezes and crashes.
• Unusual tool behavior.
• Menu commands unexpectedly not available.
• Missing or blacked-out icons in the Toolbox.
• Unusual colors for interface items.

Reset Preferences
PhotoShop 6 and later: Hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (Mac) immediately after launching Photoshop. A prompt will ask if you want to delete the preferences file. Click Yes.

Note: Resetting your Preferences restores it to its DEFAULT setting. Meaning all custom presets will be lost. (Like actions, brushes etc) So its best to Back them up/ Save them as indivual preset libraries and move them to a temporary location. Then reload after the Preferences have been reset.

Another possibility, is that you have used a plugin, or other software, that is hogging your memory resources, even after you close them.

Another problem sometimes is that you have too many fonts loading. To speed up performance move unused fonts to another folder until you need them.

Also don't load too many actions at once as this will cause problems too. Only load the ones you need to use, and keep the others in a folder.

I have 1 gig of ram and haven't added any fonts or plug-ins.

Also Ctrl+Alt+Shift isn't working. I did it as soon as PS opened up and nothing happened. I have PS CS

It also says my scratch disk is "startup" no idea what that means.

I changed to scratch disk to the C drive and it seems to load the image faster. But the histogram is still taking over a minute to load.

Hmmm

I have PhotoShop CS and tried Ctrl+Alt+Shift and it didn't work either although it's suppose to.

To re-create the Photoshop preferences file:
1. Quit Photoshop.

2. Drag the Photoshop preferences file to the Trash:
-- Photoshop CS: Drag the Adobe Photoshop CS Prefs.psp in the Users/[user profile]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS Settings folder to the Trash.
-- Photoshop 7.x: Drag the Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Prefs in the Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop 7.0 folder to the Trash.

3. Drag the com.adobe.Photoshop.plist file from the Users: [user name]; Library: Preferences folder to the trash. (The com.adobe.Photoshop.plist file is a Photoshop preferences file run at the system level. Like other Photoshop preferences file, it's re-created when Photoshop opens.)

4. Restart Photoshop.
If this doesn't work try going through the steps listed here:
Troubleshoot system errors or freezes in Photoshop (7.x, CS on Mac OS X) (http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/2bca2.htm)

Have you done a virus/worm scan?