I'm having a very strange problem with my girlfriends computer.

Its very VERY slow although the Processor is good (2.4ghz with a 4MB Cache) and the system is free of spyware/adware/malware and the likes.
The only thing i can think of is to get some more RAM into it as it only has 256 at the moment and some of that is shared with the Onboard Graphics.

Also when the computer is booted up, if you don't wait for about 10-15 minutes for it to boot everything up and leave it sitting for a few moments it blue screens or retstarts itself.

Do you think a little extra RAM would fix the slowness and is there any way that the bluescreens are to do with this?

Also when i open a couple of programs (I.E. Word, IE or AOL) the computer locks up them a "Virtual Memory Low" message appears in the system tray.

So...Will And extra say.. 512MB RAM fix it?... and if not HOW the hell can i fix it because its very very frustrating.

Hello Akujiki! Welcome to PCHF

My first question is, when does the unit start to get slow? Does everything go normally until it hits the Windows splash screen, then it just takes a ton of time for the desktop to load up? Or does it take a long time to even get to the Windows splash screen?

If the entire bootup process is slow, then I would start by doing two things. I would first reseat the memory, which means to take it out and put it back in. Then I would download this tool - Memtest86 - Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com - which is a great memory tester. You burn it to a CD then boot off of the CD. Let it go through 2 passes and see if any errors show up. If you see errors, then your memory is bad.

If your whole boot process is ok, but Windows itself is what is taking so much time, then besides bad sectors, you are likely to not have any hardware related issues. And btw, 256 megs of memory may be low, but in a healthy computer running Windows XP, it is enough if you are doing basic computer stuff.

If everything checks out ok with your memory, then my best guess would be that you have some operating system corruptions. It could be due to malicious software which you say you don't have. You could also have bad sectors which are corrupting some of your operating system files. You could try running chkdsk /r to help that.

That will be a good place for you to start. We can go from there.

Again, welcome to our forum. Hope that helps

Thanks for the warm elcome matey.

I'll do what you suggested when i can get to the computer this weekend.

You think a format would help if nothing works?.. The computer might jus be full of ****.

I'm going to suggest buying some extra RAM anyhoo

AH yeah, after the splash screen the computer loads up the desktop normally. Then...a major slowdown starts... If i wait a while it seems fine. But then when i start to do anything, open a folder, open a program, Whatever... It just slows down to a snail pace. Especially if i open WMP.. but i know this is because it uses alot of system resources.

What i find strange is that my computer is an Overclocked AMD to 1.25ghz with 700+MB of RAM (a 512 and a 256) and it runs absolutely fine. No blue screens or anything...

The only difference between the 2 is one has less RAM than the other.

Its just weird!

There are a lot of ways to tweak an XP system... so that it's not loading too much stuff at startup. If you click on the XP services guide in my sig-- you can improve this somewhat.
If it's a little low on RAM, it will affect performance. The computer has to use the paging-file (vitual-memory) which is much slower-- it is actually a section of your harddrive-- so it will slow down when trying to use anything RAM-intensive... such as display videos.
A RAM upgrade should boost this significantly.

Yeah, I guess if the computer has tons of stuff starting up with Windows, it will cause slowdowns. But you would have to have a ton of programs to cause it to work painfully slow. Startup programs usually just sit there after they have loaded up so usually it will be a slow bootup, then after all the programs have loaded, the computer will start to normalize a bit.

If the computer stays slow and keeps getting slower over time without you really doing anything, I would suspect malicious software.

If all your hardware is ok, of course a format and restore would help the computer, especially if it is malicious software causing the problem. Just make sure if that is your solution that you back up all of your important data because a restore will wipe your hard drive clean. Then if you add memory and follow ih8bills' instructions, the pooter will run like a champ.

Hi welcome to the forum by what you say

"if you don't wait for about 10-15 minutes for it to boot everything up and leave it sitting for a few moments it blue screens or retstarts itself"

I'd say your existing memory has a problem or a bad connection. Did you test the ram like Wadd suggested? Opps I see you said you were doing it this weekend try removing the ram and reseating it as well.

I suppose i should have though of that really. Making sure everythings connected fine.

It IS a Factory assembled unit so i'd suspect something isn't connected properly, I never trust those **** things...

Anyhoo thanks guys i'll try all the stuff you suggested this weekend and then get back to you.

Thanks alot.