Computer suggestions-Upgrade path

[MattGrass]

My computer, which I built before starting my masters degree two years ago is now showing some lag and it often bogs down when multi tasking. Excel, Word, and multiple surfing windows eventually cause a complete lockup which needs task manager to be used in order to shut down the offending, non responding program.

I was thinking about letting the kids have this system in the rec room while building myself a new tower. Any suggestions would be great. I currently play Warcraft and COD.

Athlon64 X2 4600
3 Gb PC3200
Geforce 9600GT
250Gb 7200rpm IDE drive

Any thoughts or hints would be great since I havent kept up on the latest and greatest.

Aaron

[willy]

Have you reformatted the system ever since you bought it 2 years ago ?

[Firestorm]

How much are you looking to spend? Although you really shouldn't be having trouble with what you do and those specs. Call of Duty might be a little taxing, but the rest should be fine.

I agree that if you can, you should try a disc cleaning, defragging, and if needed, a format (back up your data!). Right click C:, properties, tools to find those options I believe.

If you'd like to upgrade, you could look a these builds:
http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/s...d.php?t=760568

[MattGrass]

Sorry, should have mentioned. I just reformatted two weeks ago with WinXP Pro, SP3 installed.

Under $1000, shipped taxes in.

[ppl4golf]

My old trusty office PC has a 2GHz 3800+x2, 2GB RAM, same video card running XP Pro SP2 and it is as good as anything.

You may want to clean up some dust if you haven't, summer lock up may well be from overheat because of impaired cooling, and you have to blow the dust out of everything that has a fan/heatsink.

[gill2k]

Under $1000, your best bet would be to build an AMD rig (with the new Phenom II CPU's, ATi Radeon 4770/4850/4870/4890 video card etc.) You can also build an Intel Core i7 based rig but it'll be closer to your budget limit, most likely will cost $100 to $200 more depending on the parts you pick.

[saltyvinegar]

Excel, Word and a bunch of browser windows should run like a dream on that system. I run 3 browsers and about 18 tabs all the time and I still use a single core 1gb ram system. Sure it's a little slow but only when I have 6 more apps open on top of all that and that's with anti-virus enabled.

Be sure you have the latest chipset and video drivers installed.

[mr_raider]

My computer, which I built before starting my masters degree two years ago is now showing some lag and it often bogs down when multi tasking. Excel, Word, and multiple surfing windows eventually cause a complete lockup which needs task manager to be used in order to shut down the offending, non responding program.

I was thinking about letting the kids have this system in the rec room while building myself a new tower. Any suggestions would be great. I currently play Warcraft and COD.

Athlon64 X2 4600
3 Gb PC3200
Geforce 9600GT
250Gb 7200rpm IDE drive

Any thoughts or hints would be great since I havent kept up on the latest and greatest.

Aaron

The question is do you want two computers at the end of the process (one lesser, one gamer) or just one? Also, what is your case, PSU and monitor?

BTW, the problems you discuss are most certainly software related and not hardware. Just to be safe you can run memtest and check your mem modules (1 at a time) for consistency.