hi

david_cougar

trying to find out how old my computer is and if its worth updating... so far its an acer amd athlon xp 2400 1.99ghz i.oo gb ram ...any help to find out more info

santer_2

What would like to do on the PC?

Download, install and run speccy by clicking the download latest version button here

http://filehippo.com/download_speccy/

Then you can post any additional specifications if you wish

david_cougar

MS Windows XP Home 32-bit SP3
CPU
AMD Athlon XP
Thorton 0.13um Technology
RAM
1.00 GB DDR @ 166MHz (2.5-3-3-7)
Motherboard
(Socket A) 40 °C
Graphics
DELL 1907FP ([EMAIL="1152x864@75Hz"]1152x864@75Hz[/EMAIL])
256MB GeForce 7600 GS (Undefined) 43 °C
Hard Drives
39.1GB Western Digital WDC WD400EB-00CPF0 (PATA)
156GB SAMSUNG SAMSUNG SP1604N/R (PATA) 29 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4480B
PHILIPS PBDV1640P
Audio
Realtek AC'97 Audio for VIA (R) Audio Controller

david_cougar

thanks have done as for use normall use..used to do games on pc but think system to slow...

santer_2

That's fine. Does it run and do everything you need?

You can visit windows update, click custom check for updates, see if there are any software or hardware ones

You can run update checker to see if the software is recent enough, (though it doesn't check for everything).

http://filehippo.com/updatechecker/

You can visit crucial and click their scan my system option to see if there are any reasonable upgrade options, though if the PC runs well without problems adding ram memory isn't essential at all

http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/

If you prefer to search manually to avoid installing anything, check here

http://www.crucial.com/uk/

david_cougar

thanks for help....leave the wife to downton abbey

david_cougar

ok results are remove the two 512 memory and replace with two 1GB ... questios what will this achieve and by removing the two 512 will i loose anything....

santer_2

You gain twice as much ram, which in theory will make programmes which use a lot of memory run faster, and the PC wouldn't slow down as much while they were running and you were doing something else, however, if you do not use any programmes like that, you wouldn't notice anything really

For me, if a PC does everything well most of the time, it can stay as it is

david_cougar

thanks ..do sometimes get low on virtual memory pop up... but not for a while is there a limit or how do i check virtual memory

santer_2

There is a system managed setting which works well, though it can be reversed and set manually if needed

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/sysdm_advancd_perform_change_vmpagefile.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417

When a PC needs more memory, if available, it uses the empty hard drive space to create virtual memory. Having more ram as per the crucial addition would reduce and probably eliminate the need for showing the low virtual memory warning. Try system managed for a while to see if you get the warning less. Also, click start, computer, right click the hard drive, click properties to see the amount of free space shown, then right click the drive, click disc clean up, click more options, clean up restore points. Then right click the drive, click properties to see how much has been gained

GunJack

david - follow closed's sticky at the top of the techie board to speed up your pc. Use this thread for posting logs/specific follow-up questions, etc.

p.s. 1 GB of RAM for XP is usually plenty

setting virtual memory - use custom setting and set for 2x RAM, i.e. 2048MB. You should never have a problem again in that dept.