Why is My PC Slow?

[Punkster]

These are my PC specs:

CPU ------> Pentium 4 3.20ghz (with hyper-threading technology)
Graphics Card --------> XFX geforce 8500 GT 512MB 400Mhz
RAM ------------> 2GB DDR2 (2 x 512MB at 300Mhz and 2 x 512MB at 500 Mhz)

Is it my CPU that's too slow?

I'm confused why i can run games like Battlefield 2 on all high settings (no AA) and get average of 30 fps, but when i lower everything to minimum i only get a bit of an improvement and get 50-60fps. surely the frame rate would be higher?

I know that i wouldn't be able to see any difference if the game ran out 100fps, coz my monitor is limited to 75hz, but surely lowering all graphical settings would increase frame rate a lot wouldn't it? - and FRAPs would tell me that i'm getting higher than 70 or whatever framerate.

I'm just confused as to what is limiting my gaming performance - is it the CPU or something else?

P.S. I think I have Windows XP optimized for good performance, as i have switched off nearly all unnecessary background application and switched off anti-virus software.

[halo-fan-4ever]

so how much fps was u getting in all high setting???

p.s games arent all about graphics, oh and 1 other thing, maybe u should have left installing the 8500gt to a professional, im not critercising u but u may have done something wrong while installing it

[Nintengod]

Lack of dual core processor is probably the main issue.....also quite slow RAM (i do believe the faster RAM will throttle back due to the slow RAM, so it may even be worth just taking the slow stuff out!)

[EdBug]

four ram slots? bloody hell never knew they done that, i would try getttig 2 x 1gb?

[Nintengod]

four ram slots? bloody hell never knew they done that, i would try getttig 2 x 1gb?

Er, I thought most PC motherboards had 4 RAM slots.....

He's got enough RAM, but maybe the RAM is a bit too slow I dunno, plus his motherboard may be too old for the latest and fastest RAM anyway.

It's a hard and expensive game to keep PC's up to date. You can't just throw £60 quid at it and suddenly expect to play all the latest games as nature intended.

[Punkster]

i think it's mainly the the processor that's limiting my gaming performance. I think RAM makes the frames per second more consistent, but doesn't really increase it.

and yeh, my motherboard is limited to 500 mhz so there's no point of getting more RAM for me.
Oh well, I'll just look forward to the next PC I get.

Btw, I don't think I've damaged my graphics card and I wouldn't like to pay someone to do something as easy as installing a graphics card when i can do it myself.

EDIT: ooh, also I realized that actually lowering graphics does make a difference (i do get at least 60 fps, sometimes 100), it's just that i nearly always play on 64 player maps, so there's a lot going on so it would put more stress on CPU as well as GPU i guess.

EDIT2: Plus i'm pretty happy with the upgrade, coz its boosted game performance quite a lot loading times has decreased significantly. Also, I can use my new graphics card in the next PC I get until the current top-end graphics card go down in price.

[THE FÜ®¥]

You've got too much of this loaded on your computer...

[arcadeplayer987]

Have you made a defragmenting lately?/

[Punkster]

yeh, i've defragged quite regularly. i followed pretty much everything suggested by the tweakguide for windows XP.

I'm just wondering if i can get any more out of the hardware i've already got. i think it's the beset it'll perform at, so i'll leave it.

[pablo222]

There are four main reasons for a slow computer that you noticed suddenly it got slow.

1. Your temporary folder has a large amount of content along with cookies. Also IE history uses up much memory. Remember to never delete folders but just the content in those folders. They are normally items with "tmp" extensions.

2. Hard Drive reaching more than 94% capacity

3. adware spyware or viruses

Not all antivirus/ adware/ spyware protectors are the best. I find having one as the main protector with a second which just does a scan every so often does very well and catches some items the main one misses which all do miss a few.

4. too many active programs running in the background. Run Msconfig and then click the startup tab and uncheck those programs that you do not need. But only check those programs you can identify. Some of those programs have to run or XP/ Vista may crash needing a reboot into safe mode.


Also, other items which slow a computer down are:

1. Mismatched Ram sticks. Ram will only run as fast as the slowest stick no matter how fast the others may be.

2. Ram speed set at higher than the motherboard bus can handle which causes a bottleneck when the CPU swap is being taxed. This can also cause blue screens every so often making people think that they have a virus when they don't or that the motherboard is failing when its not.

2. Improper overclocking that although works just works poorly.

3. Not defraging the hard drive as a part of regular maintenance.

4. weak or bad CMOS battery.

5. too much heat on the CPU or motherboard because of lack of air, too much dust has settled on the motherboard or having a fan go bad.

Generally if you fix the items if they apply from both lists, you will find that your computer runs much faster or as fast as the day you got it.

Those who started with mismatched Ram will see an incredible significant improvement in over all speed of the computer.

There is 4 main things that make a computer run fast or slow from a build stand point.

1. CPU type and mhz the CPU runs at.

2. Matching the ram sticks as in same type and speed and manufacture makes an incredible difference and is the main item of speed. This is why some people who seem to have identical computers as far as CPU and other hardware but is slower than another. this is due to the fact that matched Ram Sticks are important.

3. Speed of the Ram can not exceed the swap speed of the Bus. This is more a factor on older computers than newer ones. This is because most new computers have bus speeds of up to 2000mhz and most people have DDR 800s as the industry common standard. Thus the bus is never maxed. On older CPUs the bus speeds can be 500, 800 or 1000. Thus faster Ram just does not get the speed it should.

4. Size of the hard drive and speed which the data can be retrieved. This is a problem with hard drives that are 400 gigs or more in combination of the type of ware is used as in SATA or whatever was used to control. This also causes bad sectors and undeleteable sections. This leads to problems where data loss can happen. Mainly this deals with loss of RPM which changes how data is written and recovered and eventually leads to a hard drive failure over time. This is noticed significantly when you hear the hard drive spinning for long periods of time as in more than 10 to 20 seconds when clicking on a program or game. In game play if you hear the hard drive spinning to gather data to keep up with game play causing hitching or slowing of the game, this is the cause.