Right now, running Skype, Live Messenger, Outlook 2003, Word 2007 Beta 2, & two IE 6 windows open (with Virusscan 8 & MS desktop search 3 and a few other things in the background) my system has 50Mb of physical memory free.
Every now and then my system slows to a crawl - just using office applications - it seems to hang for 10 to 20 s - it's really annoying. Recently the PC got unresponsive when downloading a lot of POP mail. It doesn't seem to happen on the more powerful computers I use, so I think an upgrade would help.
The machine's not used for gaming.
The existing hardware's a 866 PIII, with 2 x 256 PC133, ATI All-in-Wonder 128 AGP, Netgear GA302T pci ethernet. D-Link DU-520 pci card for USB 2, the boot disk is a Deskstar DTLA-307015, the main board is an ASUS CUSL2-C (which has an i815EP chipset), and it was an aftermarket PSU, though I don't know what rating.
I'd like to make use of as much of my existing system as possible, mostly to keep the price down.
Cheers
2006-11-26 21:56:02 · 10 answers · asked by Sacha B 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
ok first off, have you any software that can find and delete redundant files on your pc, if not try cc cleaner, free and awesome, secondly defragment the drive if you haven't already, thirdly try and limit the amount of things running in the background as this is guarenteed to slow things down. If you have taken all these steps already with no improvement it may be worth getting a new mainboard, CPU and memory possibly a new hard drive aswell. all in all cost around £200-£300.
2006-11-26 22:03:17 · answer #1 · answered by passion_fruitx 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Seeing Manitou's answer, I was going to not answer, but some of the other posters don't appear to have a clue. The X1950 is an excellent card (my old beast had two). It is the last dx9 card ATi made, and was one of the best cards on the market when it was released. nVidia couldn't compete until they brought the 8800's in almost two years later. I will be the first to admit that even with dual 1950's you'll never be able to see High or Ultra-High settings on Crysis, but if you don't mind playing at Medium settings at no more than 1200x800 or so (and the graphics will *still* be first rate). I've played the game through with a 3.2 dual and twin 3870's with a grand total of 3-5 seconds of stutter over a what? 4 HOUR campaign? Just make sure you have the newest drivers installed, and you should be fine! (And hopefully you have a 700w PSU!) As for the game itself...it is one of the top 5 games used for benchmarking systems, because the demand is so high! If you've ever played Far Cry, it was (if memory serves) made by the same people that produced Crysis...and they used similar attention to detail on the graphics! Good Luck!
2016-05-23 08:41:09 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
These older P3 machines are great for the simple stuff and should handle all that stuff you mention and more.
Firsts things first, is there more running than you know?
Download and use Security Task Manager and see if there is anything running but hidden.
Secondly, see if your hard disks are set for indexing. Right click on a disk and select properties. Uncheck the "index this hard disk for quicker searches" box, this slows your machine when relatively idle.
Then switch off useless services. Look this up on Google, there a few site that tell you what's needed and what's just a useless feature.
If all else fails, see what speed your hard disk is running at. You may have an older hard disk controller (like ATA66). There is a programe called DriveTest which will benchmark the speed of your hard disk. Buying a new hard disk and an ATA133 PCI card could whizz up your startup and any other lag.
For simple stuff like this you don't really need more than 512MB of RAM, plus the PC133 stuff gets expensive nowadays.
Also, if you use broadband get a router because the constant USB connection sucks some of the CPU resources away too.
Otherwise, forget upgrading and get yourself a cheap AMD Athlon XP computer. Avoid P4s at all costs. For fun, learn how to build a PC and do it all yourself...save a fortune.
Enjoy
2006-11-27 00:11:29 · answer #3 · answered by KENNY G 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
You could probably scrounge some memory from someone with an unused PC of a similar age. I wouldn't bother investing any money though.
Defragment the drive - that will help.
Run some anti-spyware. Spyware Doctor will tell you for free if you have stuff running that is slowing you down. You'll have to pay for it to have it remove the offenders. There are loads of other anti-spyware utilities around.
My main laptop is a 400MHz machine with 256Mb RAM and XP Pro. I keep it clean and it runs Firefox and OpenOffice no problems. I don't think I would consider putting Skype and Messenger on there at the same time though.
2006-11-27 01:07:26 · answer #4 · answered by fletch 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The slow point in your system is undoubtedly the processor at 866 mhz (which is pretty slow by most standards). To run the software specificed you really need to update the CPU. The cheapest solution is find out what motherboard you're running, look up what socket the processor is in, and see what you can upgrade to. You may also get a performance increase if you reinstall windows XP.
2006-11-26 22:01:06 · answer #5 · answered by Gavin S 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The ASUS CUSL2-C is a Socket 370 suitable for old Celerons and PIII's. You may be able to get a cheap Socket 423/478/775 motherboard from somewhere and then you could get a cheap P4, maybe secondhand? Get some extra RAM too.
Alternatively, for extra points, try Linux with a lightwieght GUI (XFCE) at no extra cost. http://distrowatch.com - any of the top 5.
2006-11-26 22:52:22 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
do you really want to keep the price down??? If so you can try to buy more ram if your mother board has slots for it or try to buy two 512 ram chips, but in all reality your stuff is out dated, when you upgrade to new mother boards will use double data ram and most of your components are obsolete, new video cards are now PCI interface...desktops are very inexpensive these day you need to do a little shopping to get the best deal or if you are computer savvy build your own and get an even better price like i did...
try these links for good deals...
2006-11-26 22:01:15 · answer #7 · answered by joy ride 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you ask me, It'd be cheaper to buy a new computer. To be able to upgrade you're gonna need a new motherboard and processor... which is a couple of hundred quid alone... can be more.
Get a laptop... they are dirt cheap! Failing that Dell are doing some good deals on desktops... but ring them for a better price.
2006-11-26 22:05:50 · answer #8 · answered by tera_the_giga_dragon_bytes 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is a fairly old machine - but I would suggest adding (or changing the memory) to 1Gb ... at least.
That should help to keep things running more smoothly for a while.
You should also make sure that your harddrive has sufficient free space.
2006-11-26 22:00:33 · answer #9 · answered by Robert W 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
better make defragmentation
disk cleanup remove unwant mails,software
delete what r they u not using
dont u lots of files on the desktop
in System partition leave minimum 500 mb of free space
after doing these check u feel any different
if not then upgarde
2006-11-26 22:01:45 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋