Computer Question

[gavrilo]

My old computer died a few days ago, built by a friend. Specs were something like 1000mhz, 256mb, had a newer video card installed though.

I looked on dell and it said they couldn't ship a computer until like the 26th, so I really didn't want to wait, so I just went out to the store and bought one. 2200mhz, 512mb. Use mainly for poker, internet, chat, etc, Nothing big.

My problem is my computer is really bogged down, programs will freeze for a second or two, cursor dissapears for a second while I'm typing this, while playing poker, the cards get dealt out and sometimes people have folded before I can even see my cards, something is wrong to say the least.

I have cable connection, same connection as last computer, never had any problems, but this computer which has better stats runs much worse than my old computer.(at first I thought it was the connection that was bad, but programs offline are weird too.)

I'm not very computer savvy, but the only thing that I can think of is that the video card is crappy and my old one had a nice one. Does a nice video really affect your computer that much??

Like I said I'm not very computer literate, so if you say something like go into bios blah blah blah, use detail please.

Thank you in advance.

[t_perkin]

Sounds like it is knackered.

Seriously though. If it is that new then just take it back to where you bought it from.

There are a million things that could be causing those problems.
Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and post on here what you get in the "Processes" tab. It is a list of all the programs running, and it should be able to give you a first clue as to whether it is a software or hardware problem.

Tim

[MiloBloom72]

If you haven't already, I'd suggest you make sure you're protected against viruses and spyware. One of the little nasties floating around the net could easily be what's eating your CPU cycles. And I read recently that somebody determined that an unprotected Windows machine will usually be compromised by some kind of worm or trojan horse in under a half hour.

I would suggest the following if you haven't already..

http://www.grisoft.com - antivirus software; they have a free version for home users
http://www.lavasoftusa.com - Adaware; good for cleaning up adware/spyware
http://www.spybot.info - ditto; run both of these as each can find things the other misses

In addition to that, run Windows Update and apply all critical updates from Microsoft, and then set it to automatically remind you of future updates.

Finally I'd suggest a small router with a builtin firewall; there are many different models available in the consumer market from companies such as D-Link, Netgear, and Linksys.

[jasonkm1]

Hi,

I don't know what's wrong with your computer but i'm pretty sure it's not because of the video card. All my computers (4) don't have any kind of video card installed, they just runs on an integrated graphics card. I never play video games and stuff so I never bother with video cards. I've never had the kind of problems you seem to be having with my junky video card.