Slow PC, video and gaming

I recently upgraded to Windows7 and to begin with, it ran a LITTLE slower than XP had but apart from that, it worked just fine. Recently however, I have been running into more and more problems. To start with, it started to freeze or bluescreen occasionally which I just assumed was because I left it on all the time. In itself, that is no big deal but after one of the times it froze, I had to run CHKDSK to repair the drive so that it would run again. Needless to say, after I ran CHKDSK, windows ran fine as far as I could tell.
I soon noticed that gaming was running a lot slower and videos were lagging which worried me even more because videos NEVER lag for me. What do I mean by lag? I mean it gets to the point where the audio and video are out of sync. I suspected that this could have been my codecs but I reinstalled and updated my codecs to the latest 64 bit win7 compatible version which made no real difference. I also ran windows update and updated my graphics card drivers. None of this has made any real difference.
PC Specs:
– 5xHDDs with a total of 4.5TB of diskspace
– GFX: 8400GS (Old I know)
– AMD X2 4800+ (dual core 2.5ghz)
– RAM: 4GBs
I also changed over to my XP install to see whether I still had the same video problems… which I did. This was with a different install AND different codecs so this suggests it is a hardware problem.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I’m tempted to buy a new GFX card because it’s outdated and I think it is what is causing all my problems.
Answer #1
Has it ever been overheated?
This can cause a reduction in the life of chips.
Answer #2
got to nVidia and get the latest driver for your card
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
I'm tempted to buy a new GFX card because it's outdated and I think it is what is causing all my problems.
that is a low end card for gaming but it should run your desktop ok
Answer #3
Nope – it’s actually been really good in regards to cooling. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Answer #4
got to nVidia and get the latest driver for your card
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
I'm tempted to buy a new GFX card because it's outdated and I think it is what is causing all my problems.
that is a low end card for gaming but it should run your desktop ok
we posted @ the same time, you try the above
Answer #5
Haha sorry about that – “I also ran windows update and updated my graphics card drivers.” I wasn’t entirely clear but yeah I’ve updated the drivers from nVidia too.
Answer #6
try doing a bios reset with the “reset CMOS” jumper on your mobo
got another PC to try the vid card in ?
put
eventvwr.msc
into the run or search box and check your error log for clues