Bought New PC. Middletree (or anyone), HELP!

[The Unknown Gomer]

Okay guys. I specifically mentioned James in the subject because he seems to know about things like computers and OS's etc., and was really informative when I was looking for info before I bought the computer.

http://www.emachines.com/products/pr...tml?prod=T3646

My mother bought this PC last week, I hooked it up this weekend, and it ran like a champ, until she started running games that were unexpectedly a little more graphic intensive than we thought, and all of a sudden it started just chugging along at a snails pace during a transition scene.

Is that the 1GB of RAM coming into play? Apparently this machine is upgradeable to 2GB, and based on what we discussed here, I figured we might be having to upgrade it at some point, but since she was going from a 700mhz machine to a 2.2Ghz machine, she might not need it, and we were going to give it a try without it. End result: Vista LOOKS pretty, but gaming wise, it is running the games she likes either slower, or not at all.

Improvements being discussed here: Adding on the additional 1GB of memory (that would be the easiest, but trying to figure out if that would be enough to make the difference in the slowness of the gaming)...

Possibly wiping the hard drive and installing XP instead of Vista...

Also tossing around the idea of bringing the whole blasted computer back and getting a refund on it, and looking for something that she'll actually be happy with right out of the box...

The one thing that we HAVE tried tonight was to have Windows set itself up for "Best Performance" instead of best looking. It actually had NO effect on game play of that game so we put it back.

Really REALLY frustrated right now. Got everything hooked up just fine yesterday, installed the wireless card into it to get her online this morning, but now that she's trying to actually use it tonight, it's just not wanting to cooperate. At this point, her old 700mhz Windows 98 machine was performing better than the new one we just got.

Suggestions? WILL just adding on another GB of RAM be enough? Don't want to spend the money on it if it turns out to not be enough to fix the problem. Do you see anything else in the system specs above that we can tweak to give this thing a jumpstart?

Thanks, y'all.

*sigh* I am so bummed about this thing right now, as is my mom, who just spent a nice chunk of change getting a PC that is actually WORSE than the one she was trying to replace.

[middletree]

Vista is a huge RAM hog. I actually have a copy of Vista Ultimate that I am not even using, preferring to keep XP until Microsoft releases the successor to Vista. It most definitely slows things down because of the RAM requirement.

If I were you, I'd buy Windows XP, buy new RAM, or both.

[The Unknown Gomer]

Wow. This posted last night? I tried to post but it never went and it never went, and then I couldn't even get on the boards again until just now.

Guess it posted after all. Good. Thanks for spotting this, James.

We bought the PC with the idea that we'd most likely have to boost the RAM on it, so definitely don't have a problem with that, if we need to.

Now, since the computer as a whole seems to run speedily enough, but it's just the graphic intensive part of one particular game (so far) that she likes ("Bejeweled 2" by the way) that is too slow, could it be the fact that it doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, just an onboard graphics chip , that might be causing that problem? It's got a slot available for an actual graphics card, and since I never liked onboard graphics chips, I was going to install the card we had on the old machine that ran that game with no problem and see if that helped at all before I went out and bought more RAM. (Mom is nearing retirement and is starting to pinch a few pennies here and there, so would love to try a free fix first, before coughing up more $$ for memory.)

"How do I hate thee Vista? Let me count the ways.... I hate thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach..." Haven't used it much, thankfully, but what I've seen so far, I REALLY don't like.

Did get her networked and online okay yesterday, although I'm still trying to figure out why I had to un-WEP my router for her computer to connect to the network. Not sure what the deal is there, all the settings appeared to be correct, but apparently there's something I missed that didn't match. Still working on that.

And for the record, returning the PC is actually out of the question now. According to the receipt, it would actually have to go back tonight, and we're not ready to give up on it yet after spending all that time with it this weekend...

[Sam!]

Bejeweled 2 should not be taxing the 1 GB of RAM or your video card on a new PC. Check the machine's BIOS setup utility to see if you can increase the amount of RAM available to the onboard video. The option you selected to increase video performance really only affects what Windows itself is doing, not at the video subsystem level.

Oh, and make sure your video drivers are up to date. Don't rely on Windows Update to do that. There may be some ways to tweak your video performance, based on your specific onboard card. Check google.

[The Unknown Gomer]

Oooh, more advice. Good, thank you. My boss said the same thing, about going into the bios and allotting more RAM to the onboard video thing, he says they're frequently set to 128, and can usually be bumped up to quite a bit more than that.

So I'll give that a shot this weekend when I've got more time to tinker, and will do some googling in the meantime.

Hey, I got a free dinner out of all my fuss and bother. My mom says since I gave up so much of my weekend to get her up and running this past weekend, and the fact that I wasn't done YET, she treated me to dinner tonight. Olive Garden. That new 5 cheese stuffed rigatoni with Italian sausage. Man, that was good. I'd cuss out that new computer for a whole MONTH for another dinner like that.

[The Unknown Gomer]

Hey, when did PCI and AGP graphics cards become extinct!?! Unbeknownst to me, according to Wiki, intel came out with this whole new thing called PCIe back in 2004?

I just tried to add the graphics card from the old PC into my mom's new PC, and it wouldn't fit. Apparently PCIe is NOT quite the same thing as PCI. I had no idea that PCI cards were passe now, I've not had to buy a graphics card in YEARS, but I'm learning fairly quickly.

So... since we're going to have to buy a PC upgrade to get Mom's computer up to speed, and we don't want to have to upgrade twice, unless absolutely necessary, what's my best bet to get her PC up to snuff, more RAM, or a PCIe graphics card?

I know memory is cheaper, but given that for everything except the graphics on some of her games, the computer is plenty speedy, I'm thinking that she needs a video card instead, to replace the onboard graphics.

The one thing that I'm not too sure about is that the specs for her pc say "PCI Express (PCIe x8) slot available for upgrade", and a really cheap card I saw said it was a PCIe x16, what's the difference between the x8 and the x16, I'm not finding anything about that...

(And can't figure out where in the BIOS I'm supposed to change the amount of RAM available for the onboard video. I thought I'd try that first, before messing around with new graphics cards, but can't find anything in the BIOS that refers to that. I think they've got it well hidden. Any ideas there? The boot up process says Phoenix something or other when I go in to take a look.)

[Gandalf]

Your two issues are:
1. marginal amount of RAM - Vista runs beautifully with 2 GB or more, but 1 GB in Vista is about like 512 MB in XP - enough to get by, but not to really make the most of it. This isn't really your problem though, with regards to the symptoms you describe
2. low-end graphics. While an integrated NV 6100 chip is sufficient to run Vista's GUI, it's not a gaming chip, and integrated graphics typically uses shared system memory rather than dedicated video RAM - in this case, it can only use up to 128 MB, which isn't much these days for a video card. I use integrated graphics hardware on a system I'm using for a media center box (watch TV and movies on it), but it's not sufficient for gaming, regardless of your OS.

Unfortunately, if it doesn't have a PCIe x16 slot, you're not going to be able to get a decent video card for it, either. That emachines hardware is simply unable to be upgraded to run games well. The motherboard doesn't support the video cards that will do so.

And yes, PCIe has been around for a few years now. Most new video cards are PCe x16, though there are still some AGP cards on the market for people with older motherboards.

PCI Express (PCIe) is the successor to PCI and AGP. The smaller (PCIe-1) slots can be used for things like network cards, etc. that don't need much data bandwidth. Video cards require a PCIe-16 slot, and newer motherboards actually run what's called PCIe v2.0, which is backwards compatible with the original PCI-Express, but capable of faster data transfer.

Sorry, but that system simply wasn't built for gaming graphics - the video hardware just won't do it. Vista's not the problem, and going back to XP won't help. And the motherboard isn't compatible with any video cards that you could buy as upgrades. Next time, I'd suggest looking at HP or Dell, rather than emachines, and getting a step up from the base video configuration. That takes the cake for the least upgradeable PC I've seen in at least 5 years. I don't know what good they think a PCIe-8 slot is going to do anyone.

[Gandalf]

Ah, just noticed Sam's post and the game you're playing. It looks like the video RAM is capped at 128 MB according to the specs, but Bejeweled shouldn't really be doing any substantial amount of 3D rendering anyway. Is she running it as a standalone program, or a flash game on a website? The problem could be an old piece of poorly written software that Vista won't let get away with its attempts to do things it shouldn't have ever been doing ...

[The Unknown Gomer]

I was kind of afraid that that x8 thing might be an issue. I was a little hesitant about buying an eMachine before we got it, but she was trying to get the least expensive computer that would fill her limited computing needs, and it was tricky finding one that didn't come as a package deal that didn't cost more than she wanted to spend on her "almost ready to retire" budget. (for myself, I've always been a firm believer in buying the best PC you can afford at the time, the only thing I've really added to the one I bought 5 or 6 years ago was a tuner card and some additional memory, and I'm STILL happy with it.)

And we just figured that going to a 2.2ghz machine would be an improvement over the 700mhz machine that was my old handmedown when I bought the Vaio. And it IS mostly, now that I've got it fairly decrappified, it runs a lot smoother than it did. Man, there was a bunch of junk that preloaded on there everytime she started it.

But Bejewelled is actually an offline game, but it's through (and I'm sure I'll hear a snort from James when I say this ) Real Arcade. And the game itself plays fine, it's just those swirly transition screens between levels that look like your sailing through a wormhole (If you've never seen that part, it's really impressive, the first time I saw it on my 19 inch monitor, I actually got dizzy and a little queasy, there was so much going on graphically in it).

It turns out that that really IS the only game that she's got issues with, now that she's redownloaded a bunch of the ones that she likes and given them a try. The one that I thought would never cooperate on her machine, because it tended to do a little chugging on MY machine when I played it, at least until I updated the video driver and added more RAM - Luxor 3 - actually plays just fine on hers.

So at this point, she seem happy just to let things ride the way they are and hold off buying any more additions to it. General computing is pretty speedy, and if she does the right click, run as administrator thing when she plays Real Arcade, all the games seem happy.

Sounds like that's a good thing, if 8x cards are hard to come by. I really hate pre-built systems that are hard to upgrade. My first PC was a Packard Bell, and when I tried to upgrade that one, and discovered that nothing fit into the existing motherboard set up, I was REALLY irked. Looks like we ended up with the same situation here. *pththt*

The one thing I just can't figure out is why, in order for her computer to see the wireless network and get online, I have to actually disable WEP on the router. I've matched all the settings and keys and filled in all the blanks properly to match them to the WEP settings, but as soon as I set that back up, she suddenly can't get on the network, so I have to leave that unsecured, which I hate. Any hidden Vista places that I need to look, or something I need to do with the router on my machine, to get her PC to be able to access the secured network? My first thought was a driver upgrade, and that was next on my list of things to check on, but thought I'd inquire about that first.

Thanks for all the good advice and the bad news about the difficulty upgrading eMachines. Guess I won't be buying one of THOSE for myself when it comes time for me to upgrade.

[middletree]

Originally Posted by The Unknown Gomer

I'm sure I'll hear a snort from James when I say this ) Real Arcade.

(stifled, muffled sound)

[Sam!]

I'm not sure why you'r ehaving WEP problems. Have you tried using WPA (WPA-PSK) or WPA2? That uses a password instead of a 12-digit hex number and is a little more secure anyway. I've had fewer problems with WPA instead of WEP.

As far as RAM... it's possible that upgrading the RAM will improve Bejeweled 2. Otherwise, it probably is a graphics chip issue. Still, with 2-d graphics it really shouldn't have been an issue.

[Gandalf]

It is easy to mistype WEP keys. Strings of letters and numbers can be difficult to remember. Also, many times, people type O instead of 0 - check on that - the only allowed characters are:
0123456789ABCDEF
(capitalization shouldn't matter)

[The Unknown Gomer]

Hmmm... so there's no Oh in those keys, it's always a zero? I have no idea what I typed when I tried to log in Mom's pc. I'll have to check that. Good thinking.

And if that doesn't work, I will try WPA instead.

Thanks for the tips.

And James, I HEARD that!

[WeaselInYerFoot]

Are your video drivers up to date? If not click here [nvidia.com] to download.

A 6100 should have no problems running real arcade games. I honestly don't think it's a hardware issue that needs upgrading simply because those games are hardly that graphic intensive. If it's a resource issue, you may try switching her computer back the classic windows theme so that the dwm.exe process uses minimal amount of RAM. dwm.exe is in charge of making vista look pretty, if you go to task manager and then to the processes tab, you'll see it. It can take up to 300mgs of RAM just for aesthetics.