Ram/Cpu bottleneck?

SpringWater

Member
I have a pc with the following specs:
-ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2
-512mb of ram
-1.6 ghz sempron
-no dedicated video card
-one hdd and a 300w psu

When I put in an 8400gs everything was laggy (yes I did install the drivers). The question is can the rest of the specs be bottlenecking the video card? Would beefing it out (2gb of ram, better cpu etc...) make the lag dissappear? (I can do all the upgrades for something like 20$ and considering that it's an office pc I don't want to upgrade it completely so don't tell me that that would be cheaper etc...)
 
Nah the 8400 GS is just a bad card.

Trust me, I was unfortunate enough to own one. :(

I don't think you got me, it even lags on the desktop while I was using the notepad etc... not just in games (I know that that card sucks for gaming). I was thinking about getting something like a 7800gtx for this ps since that card matches the era the pc was made in. But first I have to know if the lag with the 8400gs is simply caused by the low amount of ram that is currently in the pc (512mb). So, is it?
 
Well i could run BF2 well on xp with an athlon xp, 768mb, and a radeon 9600se, so i dont think 2gb will be too beneficial, but it wouldnt hurt
 
Well i could run BF2 well on xp with an athlon xp, 768mb, and a radeon 9600se, so i dont think 2gb will be too beneficial, but it wouldnt hurt

And how many computers have you worked on? Don't try telling me that crap. To run the OS and an antivirus program and everything else, 2gb works wonders.
 
Was it doing this when using the onboard? When using onboard you even have less memory because of the GPU taking up some. Is the onboard disabled, check in the bios, if not do so. If it cant be, lower the amount of system memory its using to low as possible. Even disable it in windows device manager. Did you uninstall the onboard drivers? But anyway 512mb isnt much memory to deal with.
 
If you arent using it for any games or anything other than typing and web, I'd throw a copy of ubuntu or another simplified linux distro for beginners and call it a day.
 
The very obvious reason from my perspective is that when you add the GPU your are seriously underpowering the computer with a 300W PSU. That can cause all kinds of issues.
 
I'm using the pc for browsing the web only, but I'm going to get 2gb anyway just to help the pc survive another 2 years. And 300w is plenty for an 8400gs because that's what psu it came with from my other pc's manufacturer. I have seen 300w psus run 5670 with no trouble, sure it might not be safe but I looked at EVGA'S official website and they say that all that can happen is an unstable system. Thanks for all the responses! :good:
 
I'm using the pc for browsing the web only, but I'm going to get 2gb anyway just to help the pc survive another 2 years. And 300w is plenty for an 8400gs because that's what psu it came with from my other pc's manufacturer. I have seen 300w psus run 5670 with no trouble, sure it might not be safe but I looked at EVGA'S official website and they say that all that can happen is an unstable system. Thanks for all the responses! :good:

LOL ok. Trust me a 300W PSU is not fine and could easily be causing your issues. But you've been warned - good luck ;)
 
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