Need help to upgrade my pc please!

[russbeer]

Hi all,

I'm looking to upgrade my pc bits and was hoping some of you clever guys can help. I haven't kept up with technology in pc's since leaving Maplins Electronics 2 years ago (horrible place)

I currently have a Pentium 4 2ghz cpu, ASUS motherboard P4S8X, 512mb pc2700 ram, 180gb hdd (which is fine) and a radeon 7000 graphics card (i think) using windows xp pro

I don't use the pc for games much but now as my xbox is becoming defunct i will have more call to play games on it instead of the xbox.

I went to a pc parts shop the other day and said that my pc runs very slowly at times when a couple of programs are running together, and sometimes if i watch a video file on power dvd whilst connected to my broadband (aol) it freezes and i need to reboot. He said i need a new graphics card. Is that the case? Would i also benefit from getting more, faster memory? Which graphics card would be a good one to get, AGPwise? ( under £60-70?)

I'd like to try some of the more current crop of games. Last fps i tried on my system was soldier of fortune!!

Thanks for any help

[/dev/null]

Hi,
Your graphics card isn't great however the rest of your setup, whilst not blisteringly fast, is certainly not "slow" by any means... You may find that a new windows install and disk defragment will work wonders. For 60-70 quid you're not going to get anything too fancy in terms of graphics cards... I'd personally do the re-install, defrag it and then try again... Also, are you using AOL's own software? Could well be a sign of trouble! :S

[russbeer]

A lot of people slag aols software, but whats the alternative? I use it to log onto the net, but otherwise i use IE.

The reinstall was done not too long ago, and i defrag on a regular basis. Any other thoughts?

[Mule]

I don't think you'll get a marked improvement from upgrading any one component. Ideally you'll need to upgrade all the components since the lower spec components will hold back the higher spec components from performing as well as they could.

[blacksheep]

graphics card won't make sod all difference to running several progs at once. You will find more memory will help - but the speed of it won't matter as long as it is matched to your CPU (you won't find fasters any better), so for a cheapish quick fix another 512mb or 1gb ram will help.

Also have a check for spyware/virus etc that may help speed things up. Also set the page file to one size - usually its set to between x and y, just set it to the larger of those values.

oh and stop using ie - use firefox

what antivirus/firewall you using?

[russbeer]

Antivirus i use norton. Firewall i'm using Sygate personal firewall.

Another thing i forgot to mention is when i close my connection to aol, and shut the program off it takes ages for my icons on the desktop to appear.

Mule, what are my lower spec items? I thought it was just the gfx card that was poo?

[{{909}}]

well like he says russbeer, nothing you have is overly bad, so if you really wanted to see a difference you would need to upgrade everything. the ram could be slightly faster and 1 gig is recomended if your running a few apps at once.
If you want to run the latest games your going to need a far better gfx card, but for general use its fine. Your machine is much the same as mine, the only difference is i dont use AOL and i have 1gig of ram and my system is fine for my needs, nothing visiably slow as such.

Do AOL still need you to use the shitty browser to connect? im sure i read that they were considering stopping that now. Running AOL is using up your resources afterall, and its crappy software too so ditching that would probably make a difference, but as someone already said, a format and fresh install will make the world of difference.

[blacksheep]

and get rid of norton its a system hog

[OrangeJuicey]

Yeah your best off install AVG free edition, using windows firewall and using foobar for playing music as it uses a lot less memory. The system your on is pretty old to be honest, 2 gig is not a mighty system. Be careful when upgrading you might have compatability problems.

You best bet is to upgrade the graphics card to a x1600 pro 512mb for about £100 (www.microdirect.co.uk) that'll defo improve things.

My personal advice is to wait it out a bit as things are changing quite quickly at the moment, AGP is outdated, and you probably want to have atleast 2 g-cards to play the newest games. In november the playstation 3 comes out which is a power house, don't know the exact specs but specs of xbox 360 are 3x 3.2gig processors, so multi processing is going to become a lot cheaper by november time to keep up with the consoles.

You've got a monitor and keyboard etc, so you'd have to buy a new motherboard, ram, G-card, and probably stick 2 large sata disks in a raid array since its much quicker. I think you could do all that in november time for about £400, its all up to you,

If you just buy a g-card now you'll only have to buy another one later as it won't work on a new motherboard. Same with ram.

[russbeer]

thanks all

[ramtec]

would recomend you fire up msconfig (start, run type in msconfig and press enter) then go to startup tab and get rid of any progs you don't need. If I don't recognise a prog I google the name to see if it's a bit of crap that's been put on. It will speed up your system no end

[russbeer]

Ok guys. did the lot. Got a radeon 9550 256mb agp gfx card and an extra 512mb of memory, installed them then reformatted the pc and defragged the drives. My pc now goes like shit off a shovel and plays games!! Played F.E.A.R last night for the first time it was GRAND!

Many thanks to all who helped!

[coolieo]

and get rid of norton its a system hog

I agree with blacksheep on this one!!! Get rid of it its really not good for your system!

Yeah your best off install AVG free edition

Please stay away from this unless you want your computer to get viri!! It doesn't block alot of things that you will NEVER notice running in your computer that you dont really want there.

I recommend Nod32, ask ANYONE that uses it, once you have used it and had a few threats blocked you will realise that all other AV progs on the market (paid or free) are really quite shockingly poor!!!

You can get a trial of Nod32 at www.eset.com and it will last 30 days. It only costs £23 a year with updates sometimes twice a day.

I love NOD its the only one i use and its not expensive like the other ones out there that dont catch half the stuff!!!