Well, about two years ago I decided to stop buying the stupid emachines every 1-2 years because they became so outdated so fast for me, so I decided to build my own computer. I had no clue what I was doing and didnt have that much money to work with, about 500 at the time, so i bought alot of the cheapest things I could find at the time, stressing on having a fast processor speed and the rest budget. I have a Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz processor and the rest was the cheapest stuff i could find on new egg that had good reviews. It worked great, and I still love it alot because its done everything I've asked it to do, but lately its starting to lag again, and because I built it myself, its really easily upgradeable. I play a game called Runescape, and it is a Java game. I cannot listen to music and play it at the same time, and when I try to open applications my song just sits there repeating over and over which is anoying until the application loads, and the game will freeze up for a second or two if someone messages me on msn. Would a faster processor fix this? or are these things problems caused by a bad video card and a cheap onboard sound card on the mother board? I want to be able to play music while playing playing the game and doing stuff without hearing the music lag and repeat constantly and have the game and when i watch videos freeze up until it loads it and stuff. Do I just need to upgrade to a newer more expensive graphics card and sound card? When i bought it the sound card was 7 bucks and failed immediately so i switched to the one on the mother board, and the graphics card was about 44 bucks, they're the cheapest things I have on it and I'm guessing they're the reason my computer is acting like this. I have 200 - 300 bucks to spend on something. I'm not looking for top of the line stuff, but counter strike and the Java games to not lag and I can play them while listening to music would make me really happy. Thanks for your time reading this!
things to consider, reinstall the OS. sound issue might improve with a different driver installation as well FYI. on another note, for a new sound card, almost anything will do if being able to run multiple streams simultaneously is your only concern. on another note, P4s always have an always will be the most inferior things which intel has launched. never once have they had the performance crown. on launch day the athlons dominated. by the time the athlon xps fell behind, the pentium Ms were still faster, and shortly afterwards the athlon 64s were out... takes a 3.0Ghz P4 to match a 1.8Ghz Pentium M or Athlon 64... also, just for general use, how much ram do you have?
oh wow... thats horrible... i have 2gig of ram. I format the HD and reinstall the OS every 2-3 months
you have plenty of RAM. your CPU is probably good enough if you have a PCI-e port, you might want a new video card, if you don't then ehh. you could potentially get a new motherboard(which would solve the sound issue in and of itself) which would also allow for future CPU upgrades(core 2 based CPUs are great) one set of questions LGA 775 or 478 DDR2 or DDR1 PCI-e or AGP. chances are all your answers would fall into either the left or the right. if your CPu seems fine though, then you can entirely disregard the concept of a board/CPU swap.
Well, it seems like your suggesting start from scratch and buy a new motherboard, CPU, and video card. If so, how much do you think a new computer build would cost? Where can I find the information you asked for. Like I said, I built it about 2 years ago and I cant remember anything on it pretty much. I have a 1.8 GHz processor that I kept out of my old emachines which was an athlon. If I were to buy a new mother board and processor, I'd want to use Athlon since I wasn't very happy with my P4 and I hear many good things about Athlon. Anyways, just the motherboard, CPU, and video card, do you think you could fine me some nice computable ones that aren't too expensive but I wont be disappointed with? I dunno though, I was thinking I could this to my mom since she just checks mail, but she just got a new computer about a year ago, so hers is fine still. I think I want to stick to upgrading this one. But that brings me back to this question, where can I go to find out the information you asked. I believe the ram is DDR2, but thats all I remember.
CPUz http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-140.zip download it. tell use the socket(either LGA 775 or PGA478) RAM type ddr2 or ddr1 basically what I'd think, assuming you wanted to do some gaming w/ it CPu/board combo on the cheap(~$100ish) + video card. if you're nto gaming though(3d) there'd be no need though. again you haven't really said what you're eneds are so it's mostly guessing. and Beleive it or not, keeping money for a later date is also an option.
LGA 775 or 478 DDR2 or DDR1 PCI-e or AGP. okay, thanks for the program, here is what it said 478 DDR1 AGP. CounterStrike is probably the most demanding game I play. If I upgraded my soundcard and video card to nicer ones, will it get rid of this problem? My computer is fast, but under a load it just bogs down and sits there slow. This is a screenshot of Runescape, Its in 3D, but I dont belive its the way you mean 3D games are.
your problem is entirely isolated to your sound solution. you would nto need to upgrade your video card. on another note, any sort of upgrade for you in terms of getting a faster CPU would require new RAM, a new motherboard and a new video card which is out of your budget(you're CPU is acceptable anway) basically a new sound card for like 20$ and you're probably set. save the rest for later.
