I'm going to make a massive generalization here, but when people come to me with pc problems and they are Facebook users invariably they have installed a whole slew of 'helpers', toolbars, add ons, stuff for emoticons etc. Also these type of dudes often have all their favorite stuff like Twitter, various messenger apps, mobile hookups blah blah set to load at start up. Poor old cpu has to do all this AND run Flash. Also toolbars are often a conduit for malware.
When I disable some of this cr*p the machine works again. Of course they eventually re-install all the 'extras'. I suggest the OP may have similar problems.
No offence intended to FB peeps.
Well, that's actually the first thing I checked, surprisingly, all startup applications are driver related except for Avira.
Also, even more surprising is that they have no extensions installed! That one really baffled me
Are you certain that the GPU won't have any significant effect on the system's performance? I really feel that the bottleneck is coming from that part.
Not for crappy flash games. Afaik, only smartphones have dedicated flash coprocessors, in a PC flash stuff runs on the CPU. In your case the CPU shouldn't get on its knees for flash stuff unless you are running it at an obscenely high resolution.
Track down whatever is eating CPU from resource monitor (task manager, performance tab, button for resource monitor) and startup (msconfig in the Start searchbox), as what 3D Jed said is probably the culprit.
Well, that's really not a good sign. I guess I will really have to look at how all the processes are affecting the processor usage. As discussed in my reply below, I've checked the resource monitor and Chrome was getting a good chunk of the usage (Always above 50% when on those games).
^^Edit - Didn't see your replies
Hi there
If your machine has only 2GB RAM in it the chances are that the built in Video is using reserving a significant portion of that for its operation - this would then cause the OS to start "Thrashing" (not enough RAM) and this in turn would cause excessive read and writes to the HDD. Even if the video card used a small amount of RAM - any reduction of the available 2GB RAM is significant -- whereas on 4GB and more it's much less important.
Resolving bottlenecks is not always easy -- but first (and the cheapest) is simply to install more RAM -- if your machine has a 64 bit capable CPU why not install 8GB as a minimum and update the OS to x-64. Your Windows 7 license should allow that swap.
Test that to see if it improves matters. I really don't think that playing a game on a Facebook type of application should cause any video problems at all if the video in the computer is even half way decent. I'm assuming the Internet speed is OK too.
What's the maximum resolution of your Monitor and the maximum video output the computer can provide.
It's also no point getting a top level video card if the maximum resolution on your monitor is a measly 1366 X 768. Check though as the monitor might be CAPABLE of better output than the current video the computer itself can provide.
As I said resolving bottlenecks takes more work than just "Guessing". It should be done logically otherwise you just spend hard earned money with no decent return.
Cheers
jimbo
Hi,
Yet another great insight! I will certainly suggest the RAM upgrade. She's using a 32 bit system from what i recall. I will have to look into tomorrow. My schedule just got really tight today. I just got home and I have to go out again!
Well, I doubt that stutters and performance degradation have anything to do with bandwidth but I AM in the Philippines so it's always an issue here.
By the way, one key factor I ignored to say earlier is that I checked the Resource Monitor. Only the CPU gets to 100% when on games on Facebook. Memory usage, HDD read/write all seem normal with no spikes.
Great points there mate!
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. Hopefully I can squeeze in some time tomorrow to check all these out. I will be reporting back here with the results.
