Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

I'd say try getting a better video card, like a 6800 GT (last semi-decent card I know of that's AGP and probably next to nothing in cost). Make sure your computer has an AGP slot... if you're lucky, it might even have a PCI-E slot, in which case things can be even cheaper.

It's still going to be shitty, but it should provide a significant performance boost over what you have.

This would work if your computer has AGP.

I never really considered the graphics card would slow my computer down.. but now that I think about it, something must be out of whack, since whenever I try to run a game (which is rare), my computer restarts. :S

I'll post a pic of processor state if the comp starts being a biatch again (seems to be managable now, for some reason).

edit:

If you get rid of Windows, problems magically go away!

You could probably swap out that P4 with a 3.2ghz (or is it 3.0?) hyperthreaded one. Thats pretty much the best you can do without swapping out the motherboard and then having to switch the ram along with it.

Adding more ram would normally give you a nice boost but 2gigs seems like more than enough for the setup your running (plus i dont know how hard it is to find ddr ram now-a-days).

If you want a graphics boost to help with HD media, look for something like an Nvidia 7600GT (the version with an AGP slot but dont hold me on it, I dont think your motherboard would have PCI-e seeing as your running a 6000 series card)


Hope that helps in anyway!

EDIT: I saw a post recommending a 6800, totally crossed my mind. That would probably be a better choice and dont quote me on this, might even draw less of a load from your power supply.

Originally Posted by Twelve Chars

I don't fully understand everything that it does, but I've been using this program for months now and it's done me solid.

Btw, this program is amazing.. it improved my performance subsantially.

Also: It appears that the same function that activates to restart my computer when I try to run a game is the same function that activates when System Requirements Lab does a scan of your computer...any idea as to what the problem probably is? Was thinking of replacing the hardware this week, but I need to know what the problem is before I waste money on something that might not solve the problem...

Some programs I'll recommend: CCleaner, Auslogics, and Glary. All of which you can install together on Ninite under the "Utilities" section here.

Just get a linux distribution. It doesn't have those useless windows services.