Computer performance HELP!

[Bertminator]

I have an ol Pentium 3 733 (Asus CUV4x with 896 Mg's of Ram (512 + 256 + 128)with an geforce 5200 video card, which worked fine up until 2 weeks ago, when my son told me that the video game he was playing was choppy all of a sudden.

I tested the computer with pcpitstop.com, and everything passed ok enough (for that older system), so then I went to You tube, and watched any videos, and they were ALL very choppy.

I thought maybe the latest video driver from Nvidia got re-installed somehow (something about that latest driver slowed down BOTH computers video performance), but when I checked, the video driver was the previous one to the faulty one. So ...long story short, I formatted the P3, and reinstalled XP, and before doing any updates from Microsoft, I went to Youtube,and STILL the videos / Video games were very choppy.

Anyone have any ideas? My guess is that the ram is no good, I removed the 128 stick which was one sided (compared to the others that were two sided). I don't know what to do next. PLEASE help and advise. Please don't say to upgrade, because this is NOT my newest system, it's just an older one that has worked fine up till 2 weeks ago.

FYI. The computer tower HAS been blown clean of dust as it's part of my regular maintenance for all the computers in the house, and I don't use any computers for downloading music or files from any file-sharing programs, and all updates are present on my Legal copies of xp home on both machines.

 

[porterjw]

Are all of the drivers up-to-date? When you open Device Manager, are there any yellow question marks? How old is the system year-wise? All original parts? Sometimes things just wear out. Older systems are more prone as they generally generate a bit more heat.

Your video card may be overheating? Does it have a fan? If so, is the fan working? Download SpeedFan and use it to check your temps. As for testing the RAM, minimum specs for XP is 128MB, so you can test all three sticks you have. Test each one by itself while watching the video. 1-sided vs. 2-sided shouldn't make a difference - it's just a different style.

 

[axgrinder73]

I am guessing that the youtube videos played fine on one of your other computers, so we can eliminate your ISP as a possible cause?

There are places on the web where you can download programs that will test your RAM like memtest86. Installed the lastest video card drivers, right? Have you checked the hardware acceleration in the display settings to make sure it didn't get changed somehow?

Are you sure the video card is good?

 

[AcetheGamer]

I have an ol Pentium 3 733 (Asus CUV4x with 896 Mg's of Ram (512 + 256 + 128)with an geforce 5200 video card, which worked fine up until 2 weeks ago, when my son told me that the video game he was playing was choppy all of a sudden.

I tested the computer with pcpitstop.com, and everything passed ok enough (for that older system), so then I went to You tube, and watched any videos, and they were ALL very choppy.

I thought maybe the latest video driver from Nvidia got re-installed somehow (something about that latest driver slowed down BOTH computers video performance), but when I checked, the video driver was the previous one to the faulty one. So ...long story short, I formatted the P3, and reinstalled XP, and before doing any updates from Microsoft, I went to Youtube,and STILL the videos / Video games were very choppy.

Anyone have any ideas? My guess is that the ram is no good, I removed the 128 stick which was one sided (compared to the others that were two sided). I don't know what to do next. PLEASE help and advise. Please don't say to upgrade, because this is NOT my newest system, it's just an older one that has worked fine up till 2 weeks ago.

FYI. The computer tower HAS been blown clean of dust as it's part of my regular maintenance for all the computers in the house, and I don't use any computers for downloading music or files from any file-sharing programs, and all updates are present on my Legal copies of xp home on both machines.

make sure you've installed the latest video card driver first,...then check it again if it runs choppy..