Hi, I'm an annoying newbie that knows nothing about computers, other than the fact that mine sucks, which I blame wholeheartedly on said inanimate object.
Basically, I bought a computer, and it had Windows XP already installed, and I sort of assumed everything else would be too. But, ummm, the driver for the motherboard and/or graphics card wasn't, and after a while, it started crashing. When I eventually installed them, I restarted the machine, but never got back into windows; it wouldn't run in safe mode, or the previous working configuration. I contacted the seller (warranty), and they told me to format the drive, and reinstall windows. So I did that, but ever since then my computer has been much slower than it used to be; dvds and cds take about four times as long to rip/burn, and if I'm running a program which uses up any significant amount of the system's resources, it can do very little else (it used to be better; if it has one program running and I try to play music, it, like, stutters it all now).
Just to fiddle with things, I went into control panel>system>advanced>performance>advanced, and switched the memory and processor settings to adjust for best performance of system cache and background services respectively.
This was a really, really bad idea, and the next time I restarted, I was hit with dozens of error messages about programs not loading, data being missing/lost, and files not being found. I got back in safe mode and changed it back, and it loads okay now, but it's still slower than it used to be.
Oh, I also increased the amount of virtual memory available, even though I have no idea what that is, but I changed it back to the previous settings in safe mode, but it seems to have returned to the customized ones now.
So, I just want to know why my computer may be slower than it used to be, and whether or not there is anything I can do to fix it.
Any ideas?
Basically, I bought a computer, and it had Windows XP already installed, and I sort of assumed everything else would be too. But, ummm, the driver for the motherboard and/or graphics card wasn't, and after a while, it started crashing. When I eventually installed them, I restarted the machine, but never got back into windows; it wouldn't run in safe mode, or the previous working configuration. I contacted the seller (warranty), and they told me to format the drive, and reinstall windows. So I did that, but ever since then my computer has been much slower than it used to be; dvds and cds take about four times as long to rip/burn, and if I'm running a program which uses up any significant amount of the system's resources, it can do very little else (it used to be better; if it has one program running and I try to play music, it, like, stutters it all now).
Just to fiddle with things, I went into control panel>system>advanced>performance>advanced, and switched the memory and processor settings to adjust for best performance of system cache and background services respectively.
This was a really, really bad idea, and the next time I restarted, I was hit with dozens of error messages about programs not loading, data being missing/lost, and files not being found. I got back in safe mode and changed it back, and it loads okay now, but it's still slower than it used to be.
Oh, I also increased the amount of virtual memory available, even though I have no idea what that is, but I changed it back to the previous settings in safe mode, but it seems to have returned to the customized ones now.
So, I just want to know why my computer may be slower than it used to be, and whether or not there is anything I can do to fix it.
Any ideas?