Problem with PC

[ARMAN]

Guys, I dont understand much in PC's, I have a problem that when I play video or game every 20-30 sec the image freeze for a second or two then continues, just image, not sound. What the f*** could do it? What should I check? It is REALLY annoing especially in driving game :x:
It worked a month ago fine after reboot, but now its getting worse and worse. I have 2,6 256 RAM W98
Drivers updated using windows update.

No virus and no spy s*** found.

[Roadster44]

depends what games.. but a lot of the newer games require at least 512mb ram to run smoothly or it has to use the disk swapfile, and of course that would cause the pauses.. but there are other reasons why it could be doing that too :-/

[ARMAN]

NFS HP2

[T-Bird]

well I would get more memory since it is soo cheap. Make sure you don't have anything runninig in the background that isn't 100% necessary. What graphics card do you have by chance?

[v0od0o]

Yes it's the RAM, you should get urself at least another 128, the pauses occur when your system reads data from the Hard disk drive instead of the RAM

[ARMAN]

Again this RAM :? :mrgreen: I have uninstalled few programs to release RAM and no change :roll:

[v0od0o]

Again this RAM :? :mrgreen: I have uninstalled few programs to release RAM and no change :roll:
uninstalling programs won't free you any more RAM, unless these programs used to start with the computer.
Try to minimize the number of running applications, close anything that's in the system tray (beside the clock) it should free you a couple of MBs

[T-Bird]

RAM has nothing to do with installed programs RAM is only used when you are running something your programs are stored on the Hard Drive you need more RAM to run programs and more Hard Drive space to store programs.

[graywolf624]

Check your task bar and see whats running.. (the thing in the bottom right of your screen)
close some of them.. especially things like the virus scanner.

This is either a ram or processor issue and is directly related to too many things running for the computer to handle.

[RC45]

If the OS is needing to swap to disk, you need to be sure the swap file is on a partition that has enough freespace to allow unhindered growth in an unfragmented manner.

After you have unistalled the applicatyion (which will free up drive space) always defragment the harddrive, then minimize (as in shrink - not close the e=window.. ;)) or eliminate the swap file, restart and recreate the swapfile as an unfragment contiguous file.

This will allow foir the best performance possible with the limited RAM you currently have.

Any time a system has to page to disk you are already up-shit-creek without a paddle.. ao more RAM is always the first option though.

[graywolf624]

also look at the task menu and see what all processes are running.. it should tell you what is sucking most of the process and memory.. Look up any entries that are extremely high.. A virus scanner, especially a non updated one, can miss viruses, but a sure sign of a virus or trojan is a process using memory like no tomorrow.

And what rc45 is talking about is the virtual memory.. You should try to maintain at least 500 megs free harddrive space at all times to facilitate the growth of the swap file.

[ARMAN]

Wow, fas and lot of reply's. Thanx.
I have just diabled Spy Sweeper memory shield and everything is fine again http://www.arman.xz.cz/smilees/banghead.gif do that happen to you that you aks and a minute after that you have fixed it 8)

Another thing - I dont know what it is - from time to time in explorer(not IE) the file icons suddenly have different icon, example all images instead ACDSee icon have winamp icon or some other, it opens always in the same program as it should, only icon is different. After reboot everything is fine again. AdAware, Spyboot, AVG and CWShredder cant find anything... anyone had that problem?

[graywolf624]

Another thing - I dont know what it is - from time to time in explorer(not IE) the file icons suddenly have different icon, example all images instead ACDSee icon have winamp icon or some other, it opens always in the same program as it should, only icon is different. After reboot everything is fine again. AdAware, Spyboot, AVG and CWShredder cant find anything... anyone had that problem?

Sounds like another program is changing the icons. Could be a virus.. prolly just some pain in the ass program that wants control.

[ARMAN]

NOD and avast! cant find anything too :roll:

[v0od0o]

the icon thing is normal windows syndromes, happens more with win98, they even made a power-toy specially for it to fix icons... Don't worry about it :wink:

[ARMAN]

ok thanx :wink: I thought that it is a super deadly virus :robot: