my 1st built pc...and it isn't performing! please help if u can

[natural320]

hi all, I built my own pc last summer to take with me to college. I'm running on win98 S.E. a T-bird 1.2ghz, k7ama motherboard, 512 DDR pc-2100, a 30GB 7200rpm western digital HD, an 18GB seagate 5400rpm HD, geforce2 mmx 64mb video, soundblaster live value 5.1, cd-rom and a CDRW.
this should be an awesome system right? then why does it run like feces? it's slow, choppy video, skipping sound, random crashes? I'd be playing a game and the graphics would be skipping. or trying to watch a video file, but can't deal with it because the video skips. or get "the blue screen of death" out of the blue that shuts down the computer. this thing should run games and videos as smooth as a baby's behind. can someone please help?

[rextex]

How about the drivers you have?Do you update them?The bios updated?Do you have DirectX 8.1?Do you defrag?

[SPEEDO]

Hello natural320 and Welcome to sysopt.

Go into the bios and open the hardware monitor page.

Let it run for fifteen or twenty minutes and watch the CPU Temp.

SPEEDO

[Jimstep]

The two components that have a big impact on your symptoms are the motherboard chipset drivers and the video drivers. I recommend starting out with the drivers that came with the products. You can upgrade later if you want.

[SPEEDO]

Also if you did any bios changes you may want to try setup default and see if that improves your symptoms.

SPEEDO

[natural320]

I will try these suggestions ASAP, then let you know the results. Also, how do I update my BIOS? I've gone in and tweaked some aspects of it if that's what you mean.

and I'm currently using direct x 8.0, and yes I defrag once or twice a week.

[natural320]

I opened the hardware monitor in my BIOS and watched it for 20 minutes. these following temperatures were constant for that time period:

system temperature - 40 degrees C
104 degrees F

CPU temperature - 54 degrees C
129 degrees F


are these good or bad figures???

[Commandos]

You have a load on you PC ...,what about your PS?

[natural320]

I am sorry, but what do you meean by PS? performance settings?

[morpheus kain]

PS is your power supply buddy. I would recommend that you get the latest drivers for your graphics card and motherboard, and I would like to see your cpu temps come down. On another note, I feel that you would be well served to install windows XP on you computer. I was dead set against xp until a few days ago when I helped two of my friends install it on their computers. After we did all teh patching I experienced nary a crash and the systems had a good bit of "pop" in the performance aspect. So, I would suggest that you purchase windows xp, and that you buy some arctic silver 3 and visit the arctic silver website and read the instructions on how to apply thermal paste and install a heatsink. And to end my post I believe he wanted to know the rating and brand of your power supply. e.g. 300 watt sparkle

[natural320]

my power supply is 300 watts...I'm not sure waht brand it is though. it just came with my case, so I'd think it isn't anything special.

do you think that if I upgraded to a 400 watt PS that my performance would increase? what about 450 watts? what do you think?

[Andy72]

Hello Natural320

Sounds like you have powersupply big enough unless its underperforming. I'd not look for bigger one, maybe just test the one you have. Still, I dont really have experience with Ali chips (k7ama uses one right?) but this seems to me more like a system driver or compatibility issue ...



Andy