Welcome to Gaia! ::

Because Gaia dumb (as Iosef once said). Screw yer tip button! rofl

The only other thing I can really say is: Oh my lord, I'm not the only one to call "it" the Hoo-ha! xd

I think a lot of people are probably that way. I'm guilty of it as well. xd

So today of all days I decided to do some cleanup on my laptop's hard drive. Managed to delete a bunch of unnecessary files and then run the disk defragmenter. That was one lesson I learned the hard way with my old Compaq desktop. Well, that and to not overload your hard drive with a bunch of pictures and music. That is why I will be attempting to move my music onto an external drive to free up space on my laptop. I want this thing to last as long as possible, so that means not taxing it with a bunch of files. That, an always make sure your Intenet Security program is up to date. That is the one thing I like about Kaspersky over Norton. Kaspersky lets you know when your subscription is about to run out every day when you're down to 20 days remaining. Norton never did that (at least not when I was using it for my old Compaq).

Well, I've ranted enough about computer nonsense. Not like me at all, but today I have nothing better to say.

Will need the model number of the Compaq desktop, though, it probably won't be easy to find that. gonk If not, at least some screenshots of Device Manager with Processors and Display adapters collapsed. [Example is here. It is Win7 because I am not using my WinXP workstation, but Device Manager has not changed since Win95!] (Start Menu, click Run, type devmgmt.msc, press Enter.)

Wonder how much RAM is installed? System Properties will mention so. (Start Menu + Pause shortcut) [Example is here. Again, it is Win7, but WinXP is pretty general about it]

Interesting note: Windows XP's performance suffers in Pentium 4 systems when Service Pack 3 is installed. But, some stuff requires SP3. burning_eyes

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General stuff!:

Regarding the fan, for some reason, that reminds me of that computer I had to fix, and it was caked in dust in every crevice. The PSU was even filled with dust! gonk The system ran loud previously, but ran quiet after lengthy cleaning. Other than that, the thermal paste may finally need to be cleaned off the CPU and its heatsink and reapplied with new paste. Only recommended for those who know computer internals well. If it's the power supply, I'd rather use a can of compressed air if I were the average user, since taking apart the power supply, even to clean it, is actually dangerous. Worst case regarding the power supply would be if the fan is finally failing. In that case, it should be replaced.

The graphics probably are dated anyway. Probably some Intel graphics: i810/i815, 945/965 chipset lol. Onboard graphics use system RAM, and I assume the drivers are installed anyway. Flash is gearing towards graphics cards for bandwidth now in 11.x versions, known as hardware acceleration. Still would need a pretty good CPU, though. [I'm experimenting with older nVidia AGP cards for this as I know which ATI/AMD graphics cards use hardware acceleration. They're the Radeon HD series, which unsurprisingly have no PCI form factor, only the PCIe and AGP form factor.] If the system does not have an AGP slot, then the only more modern PCI graphics card would have to be a nVidia 8400 GS graphics card. But, you would probably need a power supply upgrade for this one, namely something with at least 15 amps on its +12V rail. This card is good for some 3D but nor gaming, but good for Flash and H.264 videos. There are some limitations regarding H.264 videos with this card, but it was fixed in newer nVidia cards. Radeon HD cards never had that issue, IIRC.

On system memory: Windows XP's minimum requirements are 64MB, but doesn't even do well with 128MB of RAM! Therefore, 256MB is what I recommend as minimum. Since most users have the 32-bit version, 1 or 2GB will be the maximum that most older boards will support. For more modern boards, PAE (Physical Address Extension) will be used, assuming the CPU has it, and you may use the full 4GB RAM, but the ultimate limiting factor is the chipset then.

Oh, there's quite a bit more... gonk

So the local fire department decided to annoy me by putting on a fireworks show tonight. I could see (and hear) it from my apartment. If you didn't know any better, you'd have sworn it was a heavy lightning storm....punctuated by burst of red, blue, and green. I couldn't half hear my music over the noise.

Thanks so much for all your help! Now at least I have a better idea of how to get this thing in better working condition.

I also discovered something odd about this particular computer (ever since the total system wipe and reload). Now we can't just use Star> Shut Down to turn off the computer, or it take forever for it to shut off. However, if I go Start>Log Off, let if log off (even though we aren't logged on with separate accounts at all) and then Shut Down once it "logs off", then it turns off really quick. What in the world is that mess about? confused