[blue02celi]

Hi
I have a dell dimension 8300, got it almost 3 yrs ago I think so I know its not too crappy of a PC yet, but Im starting to have trouble with its speed. its getting a little sluggish when I want to use it for anything besides internet... ie I just got the sims 2 and an expansion pack, well I went to install it and start it up.... yeah It took forever for the game to pop up. I run defrag and clean up often but it just seems whenever I try running anything thats gonna actually make the computer work, it acts like its gonna die on me. If I get more memory will it help or is there something Im missing? I dont know the exact specs of the computer which is why I put what I have at the beginning, dont think they make the dimension 8300 anymore though
thanks

[turtile]

Its not memory alone. The speed of the hard drive majorly effects this.

You should get at least 1GB of memory a good video card (6600GT or higher) and a fast HD.

[SHAWN]

How much memory do you have installed? I would download the SpySweeper trial and run a scan. You can uninstall it when your done. I would do the same with Microsoft Defender. Its free from their home page. Also, run a free Trend micro online scan in safe mode with networking. Run msconfig and remove some startup programs that dont need to start up. Post back results when complete.

[blue02celi]

ok, did first two (spy sweeper and defender) not sure how to get in safe mode with networking or back into the startup programs list, i always forget. tried to open up game again, I get a little warning icon on task bar on bottom right that says virtual memory is low.... how do I raise that?

and how do I find out how much memory I currently have?

[tekie404]

click start, then click control panel, then click performance and maintenance then click system. a screen should pop up giving the basic info of ur comp. the memory should be in the bottom right corner.

[blue02celi]

256 MB of RAM

ok starting to remember how to get all my info

Pentium 4 2.8G
Creative SB Live
NVIDA Geforce FX 5200
40G HD

think I need to get some RAM befor anything, but should I think about upgrading anything else?

[b1gapl]

wow you really need to upgrade the ram, 256mb is really low in today's standards, at least upgrade to 1GB because everything else is fine, you should probably get a bigger HD too