reboot/reboot-bah- processor ugrgade ?

5 yrs old, for what it costs today it would most certainly be advisable to up grade to a new mb and processor. also 256 mb sdram ?28 from pc world not a bad idea either.
for game play 32 mb graphics card should be a minimum spec. Hope that helps
Allan

A 5 year old Aspire's motherboard won't allow you to upgrade to the higher level Pentium processors you mentioned. The entire motherboard would have to be replaced in order to upgrade your system to use one of those processors. You'd also have to upgrade your RAM to use one of them also.

Assuming that memory was the only upgrade you've done and also assuming you're connecting to the internet by dialing into your service provider, you'd honestly make out cheaper and would be much more satisfied by spending $600 - 800 and buying yourself a new system from a company like Dell and switching to DSL or cable from dial up.

If you're not ready to spend the money on the new system, then I'd still recommend switching to DSL or cable (an ongoing monthly cost of about $40). But before you do that, run Scandisk on your system and select to the option to automatically fix all errors. After that completes run the Disk Defragmenter. These two steps may solve all of the problems you're experiencing.

If they don't then finish upgrading the system by installing a larger (or second) hard drive and upgrading your video card to one that contains more built in memory than the one you currently have. These steps will definitely resolve all the problems you're experiencing, with the exception of the speed at which things happen relating to doing things on the internet. If that's still an issue, then go ahead and switch to DSL or cable for internet service. The VERY NOTICEABLE overall improvement in system operation you'll experience from your current system will buy you plenty of time to put money away to upgrade to that new system.

Best Wishes.

dec33162

More information about your computer would help.
To collect specifications about your Acer go to the following link. Post results.

http://www.acersupport.com/desktop/index.html

Have you checked the game's online support for suggestions aboutperformance and system requirements. They may have patches available that are for video etc.

Did the game ever work properly? If not then you may not have the resouirces. Has the system speed been degrading over time, did this suddenly start happening. Both could be the result of a virus.

There's system utilities like scandisk and defrag. Remove temp files, cookies, history and junk like that.

The PC will also run very slow if the hard drive is too full. You should at least have 200-300 MB of free space.

Acer loads the systems full of resource hogging software that runs in the backround. If you hit crtl-alt-del try stopping programs one or 2 at a time. Then try your game and see if there's an improvement. All you really need is Explorer and the systray plus any virus or security features.

Or you can run msconfig and select items to disable from the startup tab. You can allways go back and undo changes.

Depending on the system the Acer computers are limited with what you can do to upgrade. Some have a daughter board type of system meaning there's a motherboard with a board attached to it that the adapter cards plug in to. The system can only be upgraded so far. A better video card will help and may be one of the final upgrade options.

$600.00 can get you a speedy new machine with all the latest features.

Replace it all, You may be able to hang on to the cdrom. If you've got ids, here you go kids, great machine for non-internet old software stuff. Check out pricewatch.com, newegg.com, Krex.com, Tigerdirect.com, and you'll find a lot of options available as well as your local retailers. I would not ercommend throwing away more than $600 on a system, but I would make sure a minimum of 256 meg of ram preferrably 512 or more, 40 gig hd, 1+ghz processor, a good agp graphics card(this will add moreto the $600 but well worth it), and if possible a sound card SBaudigy. Good luck!

It's an aspire#6360-
has 7.29GB free space-
the WCPUID-(I almost could'nt find that tool!)-states it has a "GenuineIntel,type ID 0 ,family ID 6,brand ID Intel Celeron.
Gotta fly off to work now,can look into machine tonight or early AM-
Thanks ,back ASAP!!-T Mike in Seattle

playing todays on-line games [or todays games for that matter] such as DoomIII, Ghost Recon, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege,Unreal Tournament 2003, requires a system that is probably light years ahead of your 5 year old Acer.

Most new games today recommend 512 MB of memory, a MINIMUM Pentium 333 processor, a graphics card with a MINIMUM of 32 MB of onboard memory and capable of supporting Direct X 8.1b.

Your half picture on your screen is due, in part,to your graphics card not supporting Direct X 8 [or the current versions of Open GL or Direct 3 D]and your graphics card that is unable to process the advanced graphics used in these games [raster shading, bump mapping, bitmapping, clipping, lighting,]

Even the Voodoo 5 5500 that just a few years ago was the premier gamers grahpics card won't run these new games.

I'll recommend a relatively low cost, high performance system for gaming capable of playing most of todays [current and upcoming games].

AMD Duron 1.0 Ghz processor Retail package = about $35.00 from Newegg.com
512 MB PC 133 memory Kingston Valueram= about $50.00 Newegg.com
NVidia Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64 MB DDR = about $122.00
from Newegg.com

MSI K7T Turbo 2 [MS-6330-250] motherboard =about $78.00 Newegg.com
A Maxtor 30GB [7200 rpm] ATA-100 HDD =about $70.00 from Newegg.com

All set into a Chieftech Server Tower DS-01 SLD case [has clear side panel and USB on front of case] with a 450 w power supply = about $70.00 plus $18.00 shipping from Newegg.com

If your monitor is relatively old, a new 19" can be had for about $125.00 or a 17" for less than $100.00 [Fry's Electronics has the 17" for like $80.00 after rebates]. I suggest investing in a new one as the costs are just very reasonable.

So for about $450.00 plus the cost of a new monitor, you have a pretty decent gaming rig to run todays games.

If you want high end performance, go with an Athlon XP 1800 o

Thanks for the advice-but TMikes a little confused-The game IM playing is at Uproar and is cribbage-no laser blasts there lol. It worked fine for- about a week after we upgraded the memory-then started acting up again.I have ran virus scans-but nothing shows up. I just cant afford a new ststem right now-any other advice out there?

A 5 year old PC with a Celeron CPU is either a slot 1, or an early socket 370.
You can get some performance improvement by changing the CPU for the fastest Pentium 2 that the motherboard will support.

That said, you can get a better performance boost for free. (well some time is required)

How? Format the hard drive and re-install Windows and all your software.

Over time, Windows builds up a lot of overhead that slows the PC down.
There are extra un-needed files in numerous places onthe hard drive.
The system registry and other files grow in size with each boot of the PC.
Further, some software will leave bits and pieces in memory. (memory leaks)

To fix the problems, you need to start over from scratch.

Back up all critical files and settings.

Download and save all system driver files.

Create a Startup disk (add/remove programs, startup disk)

Boot from the startup disk.
Run fdisk/mbr
Run format c:/u/s
Run startup with the Windows CD in the CD drive.
Install device drivers.
Run Defrag from safe mode.
Install Windows updates.
Install application software.

A lot of work, yes, but the performance increase is often worth the effort.

Otherwise, I agree with the others that a new PC is the best hardware investment.

Chas

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