Advice Needed - Slow & Crashing PC

[cnewton2k]

Hi just looking @ a mates PC, he is running a 700Mhz Celeron Chip with 192MB RAM, On board GFX, Sound and LAN, it is running XP.

It is very slugish and crashes all the time, to the point when it shuts down when downlaoding emails.

I have said that he needs some more RAM and a Faster Chip to run Xp and Office.

Aany advise or Sugestions would be great

[.jackson]

I would say them specs can run XP and Office..I used to have a celeron 500MHz, 128MB RAM onboard GFX and sound running XP for my college work and it was fine.

I would say if any hardware needed changing, I would go for a new hard drive, because that PC should run XP and Office.

Try and run an anti-virus, anti-spyware etc on that computer, it should not crash so easily.

[cnewton2k]

cheers

have done a full virus & Spyware scan and nothing detected, could be a fresh install.

More ram needed check your page file and you will see why.
Is the hard drive full? shutting down while downloading emails need more info on this one is it a full shut down or a restart???

[AndrewJ]

Also can I ask with it being a slow chip it is possible the cpu fan is failing? and because it does not run at blistering speeds it is possible it tries to run without it, and when under demand it overheats and crashes then shutdowns when it hits critical?

I would check the fans, if they are working perhaps clean them with a air spray and hoover up all the dust ( be very gentle ). May make a difference.

[cnewton2k]

it is a restart the comp stops responding, cant even do Ctrl Alt Del

Have to power down and restart HDD is about 50 % full

Defragging the hard drive may help also.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Minimum system requirements to Run Windows XP Home:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h...n/sysreqs.mspx

You'll see the PC is within specification. for Windoze

You don't say which version of Office is being run, or what is actually being done on office. Equally you don't say if other applications are also running.

I'd go with Zinglebarb's observation. Boost the RAM if you can, ideally to a minimum of 256MB. On board graphics alone will be using some of the system RAM perhaps reducing levels to something unsustainable.

Will be worth doing a defrag on the HD too. If the HD is low on free space, that restricts the PCs ability to operate smoothly.

edit: I've amended the thread title slightly to something a bit more descriptive.

[cnewton2k]

thanks everyone

will have a look 2night

[ntl customer]

Originally Posted by Rob C

Minimum system requirements to Run Windows XP Home:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h...n/sysreqs.mspx

You'll see the PC is within specification. for Windoze

You don't say which version of Office is being run, or what is actually being done on office. Equally you don't say if other applications are also running.

I'd go with Zinglebarb's observation. Boost the RAM if you can, ideally to a minimum of 256MB. On board graphics alone will be using some of the system RAM perhaps reducing levels to something unsustainable.

Will be worth doing a defrag on the HD too. If the HD is low on free space, that restricts the PCs ability to operate smoothly.

edit: I've amended the thread title slightly to something a bit more descriptive.

I would recommend Windows 2000 for old PCs. I was similarly in your situation and although I tried XP, the computer couldn't hack it terribly well. Although I had around 386Mb of RAM, the main sticking point was the 500MHz celeron processor.

Definately add as much RAM as you can afford. 512Mb on Windows 2000 ran perfectly and was pretty nippy too.

[FatSnake]

Need more RAM? maybe not.
Computers that run fine after a clean install can soon appear to need more RAM due to clutter, and progs running in the background that you never use. Good house-keeping and adept discrimination when downloading or installing new bits of software can help you avoid having all of your RAM gobbled up. The best part of a 256mb stick of RAM can easily be wasted by a badly maintained PC.

FS

Originally Posted by FatSnake

Need more RAM? maybe not.
Computers that run fine after a clean install can soon appear to need more RAM due to clutter, and progs running in the background that you never use. Good house-keeping and adept discrimination when downloading or installing new bits of software can help you avoid having all of your RAM gobbled up. The best part of a 256mb stick of RAM can easily be wasted by a badly maintained PC.

FS

to the forum .you are quite right in what you say,but IMO the OP is not running adequate quantity fo ram to run windows and 1 or 2 apps. Maybe if a static page file was used where max and min sizes are same might help as to reduce fragmentation of page file. A good visit to msconfig and stop most start up apps but I still think the result will be similar. 256 meg extra ram will make all the difference here as it will reduce page file usage and run a whole lot sweeter

[kronas]

i used to run xp on a 600mhz cleron with 256mb of ram fine.....however see whats running in the background, also what applications run at the start up, is he using antivirus or firewall if yes what type ? if its norton then that will choke your pc slightly...

[FatSnake]

Thanks for the welcome Zinglebarb.

I do agree with you that RAM upgrades are always a great investment(especially at current prices), but I was just pointing out that people waste a hell of a lot of RAM without realising it. You don't notice it so much on a powerful machine, but it is very easy to cripple one with old specs.

[goldchip]

Hmm, very suprised nobody mentioning the log files - the system could be trying to TELL you exactly what's wrong, than again it might not.
Should be the FIRST thing to look @ when a system is not working correctly.