'My computer sucks' thread by annoying newbie

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Dominic

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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?
 
As far as I'm aware, the processor is 2.6 intel, the memory is 512, the hard drive is 80gb...
 
Did you format...install motherboard drivers...install AGP Drivers...then do all the windows updates in that order? Do you have onboard video? That should be disabled in the BIOS otherwise you'll have conflicts. Perhaps somehow the BIOS was reset to default so you should check if your computer is indeed running at a slower speed than it should. Other than that, if you've reseated everything and formatted I don't know what else to suggest at the moment
 
Nubius said:
Did you format...install motherboard drivers...install AGP Drivers...then do all the windows updates in that order? Do you have onboard video? That should be disabled in the BIOS otherwise you'll have conflicts. Perhaps somehow the BIOS was reset to default so you should check if your computer is indeed running at a slower speed than it should. Other than that, if you've reseated everything and formatted I don't know what else to suggest at the moment

Errr... what windows updates? I mean, I installed the other drivers from windows, and generally accept any auto-updates as they come about. The other drivers were all on one disk, so I don't know in which order I installed them, I just went down the list... what are AGP drivers?

I don't know if I have onboard video, and I don't know what BIOS means? How do I go about checking it? And thanks a lot for your help, it's appreciated.
 
Basic Input Output System. This provides the basic instructions for a PC's hardware, and is coded into the computer's ROM (or Read Only Memory). The operating system and applications access BIOS in order to enhance compatibility.
You can acces its settings by pressing "Del" at startup. Don't change anything and make sure you don't save settings when exiting. Look for FSB speeds.
 
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