PC Hardware Problem

Hi guys,

Just wondering if anyone could help me out, my PC always seems to be slower than my last model, despite a better spec, and also restarts itself quite often for no reason, often accompanied by a short sound from the PC. I have used different operating systems (2000 Professional, XP etc) but the problem is always there. I have a "sub-standard" on-board graphics card, so understandably, this could be partly to blame for the slow speed, but the system otherwise has good spec. I also used the windows memory check and it said that one of my two 512 Ram had errors, so this will be a problem, I just want to check whether the motherboard will need to be replaced, as well as the RAM. I also used to use the ASUS diagnostic tool, and found that the fans always said they were very high temp, but I'm not sure if this is true, as it said it was really high even when the PC had just switched on.

My Spec is
AMD Duron (or Athlon, I forget now) 2.1 GHz Processor
2 x 512Mb Ram
120Gb Hard Drive
Windows 2000 Professional at the moment
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum Soundcard

Thanks for your time,

Mike

 

If you do have a duron the lack of L2 cache can make for a bad performance hit.....

 

It sound like your processor is possibly overheating and/or yo have some bad memory or dirty connections on the memory.

Ventilation is absolutly critical in machines over 1Ghz. Also AMD processors have a history of running hot. Make sure your processor cooler isn't full of dust and that it is properly seated against the processor.

If your memory has bad connections on the board from dust or corrosion it can cause random reboots. Try removing the memory and cleaning the gold contacts with an eraser. (just an ordinary pink pencil eraser but don't over do it) then reseat it on the board. If you still have random reboots try using only one of the RAM Modules at a time.

If none of that helps, repost with more details of when the reboots happen, after its been on a while or does it sometimes happen right away, only happens when you open certain programs, etc. Details can be important.

 

Instead of windows memory, try Memtest.

http://majorgeeks.com/MemTest_d350.html

 

onboard video in conjunction with a low-end CPU like the duron is a bad combo because onboard video relies on the CPU for video processing.