General PC Slowdown

[Bull Buchanan]

Hi, its been a common thing for me since I bought this PC that afetr a few months after a hard-drive reformat(which ive used to restore performance) that quite frankly, my computer goes to hell.
I'm running a

customized Dell 4550
Intel Pentium 4 Processor 2.4ghz
1024 DDR RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200
Western Digital 60gb HDD

While my PC does run decently, it doesnt run as good as machines with half its specs. While I'm not new to the world of computers by any means, ive dealt very little with the actual computers themselves and more with things like web-design and SQL etc.

Im not looking for the worlds next super computer, just the ability to play semi- new games like Call of Duty, Need For Speed Underground and stuff like that. Whether or not my game slowdown and my pc problems are two different things, i have no idea.

So thats basically it. I know i'm not giving you guys alot to work with, but if you could help walk me through this problem, I would be very much obliged.

Thank You - Bull Buchanan

 

[Bull Buchanan]

btw, I'm also running a Lite-on DVD+R Drive, A Dell Stock CD R/RW
and Soundblaster Live!

Now I dont know a thing about what I'm about to suggest but im gonna throw it out ther anyway

Could it be a Power Supply Issue? I read somewhere that if you are using all or most of the bays on your motherboard that your computer may not work properly without a better power-supply, and Im just running whatever Dell gave me.

 

[ThirtySixBelow]

Well, windows does have a tendancy to slow down on its own. Are you experiencing the slowdowns in boot speeds and general usage, or more in games. If you are experiencing the slow down in your games only, then its your graphics card that is giving you the problems. Call of Duty ist that intensive and can be played on what you have, but I have Need for Speed Underground and I couldnt play it on my Radeon 9000 pro 128 MB, I upgraded to a Radeon 9600XT and it plays a lot better. If you are not the kind of person that is going to get upset by the small gitters in your games then I wouldnt worry about it. Otherwise if windows in general is slowing down there are a few things you can do to speed up your computer. Run a tool called bootvis, defrag the HDD, go into msconfig and make sure under the startup tab that only the programs you want are running on startup, check to see how many processes you are running with the task manager to make sure your ram isnt an issue which i really doubt with a gig. If you go to the website www.blackviper.com there are som tips on speeding up windows. As for the power supply if you bought it with the dell then it should be enough to run your system smoothly. Its either a windows slow down or if you are experiencing the slowdown in games then its your graphics card.

 

[Target]

You might have accumulated a lot of spyware too. Try downloading and running AdAware http://www.lavasoftusa.com and/or Spybot Search and Destroy. These are programs that help with spyware removal and are both free.
-Target

 

[kboy]

I run Adaware & Spybot, Ya might want to check your Resources to see what's running in the background & also what Boots up @Startup.

 

[Bull Buchanan]

Ran a defrag the other day and have had limted success. I also freed up 30 gb on my hdd, leaving it only about 45% full. I have ad-aware 6, and also nothing. I'm thinking the HDD might just be junk, as it seems to run ok after a reformat, and maybe thats what i'm gonna have to do until I can get a new one. I'm just wondering how much more cash im gonna have to put into this thing to be able to run relatively new games without lag spikes that cause me to run into walls etc.

 

[Bull Buchanan]

Should I look into overclocking.(KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT) Because it seems that while im getting these problems I have at least 600 mb free RAM.

 

[Bull Buchanan]

After a reinstall of my video card, and a paying attention to all of the "little things" , I am pretty confident that it is not my card. On opening loging screen on windows XP Home, the animation of when an icon is clicked is somewhat choppy, and when logging out, it sits at the windows is shutting down screen for at least 25 seconds. Also a bit more insight on my problems, my games experience spikes, not overall issues. Ive had a computer with a lesser video card before and I've seen the symptoms of running too low a card for your games. This isnt it, and to back my own opinion is thatthe game/ system runs exactly the same regardless of what options are enabled, or what resolution is set. Can't even stop the problems on 640 or 800x600. This doesnt appear to be a common problem and thus common solutions like spyware,not enough ram, fragmented HDD, do not seem to be the issue. By the way, I really appreciate the help given thus far, because while it hasnt solved my issue, im sure it was for the better of my computer in general.

Thank You
Bull Buchanan

 

[Bull Buchanan]

CPU-Z Report

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU-Z version 1.21.


CPU(s)
Number of CPUs 1

Code Name Northwood
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
Family / Model / Stepping F 2 4
Extended Family / Model 0 0
Brand ID 9
Package mPGA-478
Core Stepping B0
Technology 0.13 µ
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2
CPU Clock Speed 2392.0 MHz
Clock multiplier x 18.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 132.9 MHz
Bus Speed 531.6 MHz
L1 Data Cache 8 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Trace Cache 12 Kµops, 8-way set associative
L2 Cache 512 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 2392.0 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 256 bits



Mainboard and chipset
Motherboard manufacturer Dell Computer Corp.
BIOS vendor Dell Computer Corporation
BIOS revision A08
BIOS release date 09/23/2003
Chipset Intel i845G rev. A1
Southbridge Intel 82801DB (ICH4) rev. A1




Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 1024 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 166.1 MHz
FSBRAM 4:5
CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 3 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 7 clocks
DRAM Idle Timer 16 clocks
# of memory modules 2
Module 0 Infineon DDR-SDRAM PC2700 - 512 MBytes
Module 1 SpecTek Incorporated DDR-SDRAM PC2700 - 512 MBytes



Software
Windows version Microsoft Windows XP Workstation Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)

 

[Target]

Is it possible that there is a conflict with the onboard video. Is the onboard video turned off in the BIOS?
-Target