PC issues- help!

Crazyivan 1979

re-formatted PC (XP home). I re-installed office, AVG (trial), AVG PC tune up (trial), put a game on it (imperial glory), IE8, firefox, adobe flash player.

The issues are as follows:

1. PC seems slow at net or anything else.
2. Videos (youtube etc) are jerky.

Specs:

System Information

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Time of this report: 8/24/2011, 08:47:56
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.101209-1647)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Computer Corporation
System Model: Dimension 8300
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
Page File: 571MB used, 676MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode

Display Devices

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Card name: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce4 MX 420
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 64.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor

Sorry for the long winded question, but wasn't sure what info was required for a diagnosis.

Oh, internet is hooked up using an old cable from the office. seemed better before when i was using the xbox cable in another room, but that was also before I installed half that stuff.

Thanks in advance.

yoyo

Get rid of AVG firstly, its rubbish, download microsoft security essentials which is free, the youtube video problem is probably due to you not loading device drivers namely graphics card ones in this case, make sure you load all drivers, chipset/audio/graphics etc as the generic windows ones arn't always the greatest/latest

Nick

JonathanAnon

yoyo wrote: »

Get rid of AVG firstly, its rubbish, download microsoft security essentials which is free,

Agree with this.. I used to recommend AVG a few years ago, but it's gone off the rails in the last few releases.. MSE is much better...

the youtube video problem is probably due to you not loading device drivers namely graphics card ones in this case, make sure you load all drivers,

I'm not sure about this.. The issue could be caused by the adobe plugin or by simply a slow Internet connection.. Never been a fan of IE8 and Firefox seems get worse with every release... I would download Google Chrome and see if you have similar issues with this...

If it is still slow in Google Chrome, it may simply be the issue that your bband is not fast enough, for whatever reason..

yoyo

JonathanAnon wrote: »

If it is still slow in Google Chrome, it may simply be the issue that your bband is not fast enough, for whatever reason..

It could be that, but jerkyness is usually a sign of using windows generic video drivers, It always suprises me how many people think formatting a machine is just a case of wipe and reinstall, without chipset/video/audio drivers your probably going to end up worse off than before, alot of OEMs include drivers with their restore discs, but some of them don't

Nick

5uspect

That GeForce4 is a pretty old AGP card. The latest nvidia drivers might not work well with it so you might have to hunt online for older versions. The Dell support site is probably your best bet. Also consider adding another 512MB of RAM. 1GB is all those old northwood boards can take iirc. You'll see a big speed bump with 1GB tho.

Crazyivan 1979

Thanks for the replies.

My bb speed was 20mb which has now jumped to 25mb (UPC).

Got rid of AVG & McAffee and now using MSE.

Got a drivers disc for Dell and looking at it, it seems there are 4 or 5 drivers on it. There is a tick next the GeForce4 one, so I guess I am using the right one for the card. Anyway, since I deleted AVG/McAffee and that gamespy game which was taking up loads of room the video thing seems fine.

2 other things though:

1. When I look at my processes when I don't have anything open, there seems to be alot going on (screenshot attached), this is from before I deleted that stuff. But I checked it again after and it doesn't seemed to have changed much.
2. The other thing is, my pc and router are on opposite sides of the room. I wanted to run the internet cable around the outside, found some Cat 5e in work about 30m of the stuff. I ordered a crimping tool and some RJ45 plugs from Komplett and had a bash my self. I wired it according to 568B std color code (which is the same code as the shorter cable which i am using at the moment). Didn't work, as in no internet connection. So I thought, as this was my first time, that I had stuffed it up. Cut both ends off and repeat this process 4/5 times till I had run out of RJ45 plugs. Kept thinking I had somehow nick a wire or messed up the colours. Brought it in to work today used my work pc to hook it up to work internet. It bloody works, and it definitley didn't at home. Any ideas?

yoyo

Crazyivan 1979 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

My bb speed was 20mb which has now jumped to 25mb (UPC).

Got rid of AVG & McAffee and now using MSE.

Got a drivers disc for Dell and looking at it, it seems there are 4 or 5 drivers on it. There is a tick next the GeForce4 one, so I guess I am using the right one for the card. Anyway, since I deleted AVG/McAffee and that gamespy game which was taking up loads of room the video thing seems fine.

2 other things though:

1. When I look at my processes when I don't have anything open, there seems to be alot going on (screenshot attached), this is from before I deleted that stuff. But I checked it again after and it doesn't seemed to have changed much.
2. The other thing is, my pc and router are on opposite sides of the room. I wanted to run the internet cable around the outside, found some Cat 5e in work about 30m of the stuff. I ordered a crimping tool and some RJ45 plugs from Komplett and had a bash my self. I wired it according to 568B std color code (which is the same code as the shorter cable which i am using at the moment). Didn't work, as in no internet connection. So I thought, as this was my first time, that I had stuffed it up. Cut both ends off and repeat this process 4/5 times till I had run out of RJ45 plugs. Kept thinking I had somehow nick a wire or messed up the colours. Brought it in to work today used my work pc to hook it up to work internet. It bloody works, and it definitley didn't at home. Any ideas?

You should never have more than one anti virus application, that is a recipe for trouble. Also that processes screenshot looks perfectly normal, you can use msconfig (Start>Run>msconfig>Startup tab) untick stuff like ituneshelper, ipodservice etc.
I do notice some AVG stuff is showing in the process list, so run the AVG Removal tool download is here
Regarding the CAT5, not too sure, some older NICs can be sensitive to poorly wired/incorrectly wired cables, newer ones have some leyway I think, not entirely sure though, make sure you run the network card driver installation before trying obviously

Nick

Crazyivan 1979

Thanks, Only have MSE on it now. Internet is working fine with store bought Cat 5e, but not with my DIY job, but the diy job works fine at work.