slow loading on amd DC custom computer

[homcidalsanwich]

my uncle recently came into possesion of an amd dual core computer which had been built by his friend and sold to him,

there is a problem with it, although. The exact specs of the computer are and AMD Dual Core 2.0 ghz per with 2 sticks of 512 mb ddr (2?) ram and a Maxtor 80 GB ATA HDD and im not 100 percent sure but i think a VIA motherboard also with a nvidia geforce 7800 256mb graphics card.

The problem i am having is that , whenever something inolving a large amount of loading is involved, the computer acts very slowly,
for instance, when running a really low memory virtual tour (which is his business) he find that the loading screen for a map on par with myabe..duke nukem or doom 1 takes way too long to load, i find myself waiting for a good amount of time for HalfLife 2 as well, maybe 5 minutes to load the demo's 1st level and when i play it..it freezes up to reload some more every couple of seconds making it almost impossible to play since its freezing up again and again.

, if you have any info its all helpful, thanks in advance
please help!

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Have you downloaded the latest Vid drivers? Also are the specs in the BIOS set right. You might try to go into BIOS and check to see if your vid settings are set proper and that all your other settings are right also.Do you have the motherboard book?

 

[Elbatrop1]

I would make sure of the following:

a) The hard drive is not highly fragmented.
b) The hard drive is not super-full
c) There is not a lot of RAM/virtual memory being used while the computer is at idle. At idle, my computer uses about 200-250MB of RAM/VM.
d) The CPU isn't being used much while idle either. At idle, my computer uses 0-1% CPU.

C and D can be checked using Task Manager.

 

[homcidalsanwich]

i cant really figure out how to get the right drivers http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

 

[basketballstuds]

First thing i would do, check aperture size in bios, if you have the option. Most the things you listed sounded like high texture programs. I was amazed that something so easy and so little could make such a difference. Set it to atleast 128 no more then 256. what this does is once your graphic card fills up with space it allocates your ram to help out. Changing aperture in bios does not take away from system ram, all it does is when your systems graphics card is overwelmed it says hey you *points to the idol ram* and makes that ram work up to 256mb or whatever you set it too. if you have gig of ram 256 is nice, 512 ram i would go with 128