My old computer is slower than he should be

[blackdot]

I live in a shared flat, and we wanted to use my old computer for the living room, so set him up with the TV by s-video, which works pretty good. We wanted to use it for emulating n64 or watching movies that lay on our HDD's and stream them through wlan.

Now, to avoid problems with our win7-home-network, we updated the old computer from XP to win7.

But now, even after manually installing several drivers, and letting windows-update taking care of the remaining "unknown devices" in the device manager, the computer doesn't run smoothly.

Back when I was using him as my normal PC i played battlefield 2 and watched DVD's without any problems.

But now, when we try to emulate mariokart f.i., the video and the audio stutter extremely. Also when we try to watch a DVD.

The computer is from 2003, has 1 GB ram, amd athlon 1Ghz and radeon 9800 LE.

Anyone has a hint?


\\Edit: Sh*t, sorry, i wanted to post this in Performance & Maintenance, must have missed my click.

 

[gregrocker]

Troubleshooting fundamentals for Win7

Did the problems exist before changing out any drivers given by the installer? A good rule of thumb with Win7 is not to change any drivers until performance dictates doing so, except routine updates provided by optional Windows Updates. First enable hardware auto-updating: Automatically get recommended drivers and updates for your hardware

If after all troubleshooting steps performance still lags, consider upgrading your RAM to 2gb if mobo allows it. Your Media Center demands are likely too much for 1gb, although for normal use on my old laptop I have no hangs with 1gb.

 

[blackdot]

The problems did exist befor changing any drivers. Thats why we even did change them. The option to let him install driver software from windows update doesnt bring more optional-windows-updates to light, hence no improvment.

We kicked out the Media Center, only with wmp left. But also in vlc with a movie, that is less than 1Gb, it lags sooner or later.

 

[DustSailor]

I would recommend not letting windows auto download drivers for you, and instead manually searching for them and downloading them, provided your hardware isn't so old that it is no longer supported for newer operating systems. If you can't find a win7 driver, try vista. Make sure you only download 32 bit drives (My guess is you have 32 bit win 7, and I recommend it for your setup. if you have 64 bit, use 64 bit drivers).

you have everything downloaded, I would recommend dumbing down your appearance settings so it doesn't drain your computer, and setting your power options to high performance.

Try these: Virtual Memory Paging File - Change - Vista Forums
Use this to remove as many startup programs as you can: How to Change, Add, or Remove Startup Programs in Windows 7

 

[DustSailor]

Also, try not putting items onto the desktop. Go to the location of your paging file again: Control Panel > System and Security > System and on the left click Advanced System Settings. Under Performance, click Settings. Click Adjust for best performance or go through and choose as many as you can to unselect.

You might also try changing windows theme in appearance and personalization to a non-aero one: Disable Aero on Windows 7 or Vista - How-To Geek

 

[gregrocker]

This is not XP. MS spent a billion dollars getting drivers in the Win7 installer and quickly available via optional Windows Updates. Why would these not be used when Win7 is the clear authority on what drivers it wants?

Drivers should only be changed out if performance dictates it. Every week we help users start over with install because they've changed out a bunch of drivers thinking the old XPired rules still apply.

 

[DustSailor]

Right but microsoft can still get things wrong sometimes. If a company has a specific driver, updated and made for windows 7, I'd think that would be a better option than relying on Windows 7 update. If you are not sure of what you are doing, than I would recommend letting win7 take care of it for you. I know I've in the past recieved a wrong driver from microsoft. I don't think it is often, but microsoft just selects the best option it knows, not always the right one.

Every week we help users start over with install because they've changed out a bunch of drivers thinking the old XPired rules still apply.

Again, if you are unsure of what you are doing, listen well to Greg and leave it up to microsoft. It is a rare event that windows update gets the wrong driver, and it usually doesn't last long, as companies report their updates for drivers directly to Microsoft.

 

[blackdot]

Also, try not putting items onto the desktop.

Why not?

Go to the location of your paging file again: Control Panel > System and Security > System and on the left click Advanced System Settings. Under Performance, click Settings. Click Adjust for best performance or go through and choose as many as you can to unselect.

You might also try changing windows theme in appearance and personalization to a non-aero one: Disable Aero on Windows 7 or Vista - How-To Geek

...

...I would recommend dumbing down your appearance settings so it doesn't drain your computer, and setting your power options to high performance.

We did all that before I opened this thread.

I would recommend not letting windows auto download drivers for you, and instead manually searching for them and downloading them, provided your hardware isn't so old that it is no longer supported for newer operating systems. If you can't find a win7 driver, try vista. Make sure you only download 32 bit drives (My guess is you have 32 bit win 7, and I recommend it for your setup. if you have 64 bit, use 64 bit drivers).

As I said, we first tried it with manually installed drivers, but it didn't work, as the computer was running oddly unsmooth, so we let win7 do its best, which isn't enough too, as it seems.

... remove as many startup programs as you can

We did that too already via msconfig.

 

[DustSailor]

Also, try not putting items onto the desktop.

Why not?

If nothing else is working, than this wont. It is a way to potentially speed up the system, however it is likely very unnoticeable. Unless you have icons filling your entire screen, that is.

 

[blackdot]

Aha, no. A few icons, but not that many.


Anyway the problem still exists. Maybe emulators need extra requirements (although my computer is within them), but fact is, that I watched movies on that computer, and now I can't. Biggest difference, now I have win7 and back then win XP.

Do you think a downgrade to winXP might be worth a try?