I have a 6 year old computer (new monitor) and when watching some online videos and even DVDs, the video skips. I was wondering if a new video card or more memory would help, rather than buying a whole new computer. Thanks.
These are some of my system specs that Belarc Advisor listed:
Your whole computer is bordering on ancient and I don’t think an upgrade is wise at this point. Decent new computers can be had from Dell for as little as $400 and $600 will buy a fairly good one for your purposes these days.
The other main question is what internet connection you have. Is it cable, DSL, dialup etc?
It is time for a new computer. Dells really are a safe bet for general home use and their massive buying power has made decent computers more afforable than ever. Any of them would be a big improvement over what you have but make sure you get at least 1 gb of RAM because they sell some low RAM models as a teaser with additional things that make it servicable for a fee. You can look online for specials if money is a big concern as well as the Sunday newspaper flyers. They always have something going on. Best Buy and the like often have good specials as well. The sweet spot for good budget computers is in the $600 - $800 range and there are some good computers to be had. Cheaper is possible as I mentioned but there is usually some trade-offs.
I know you are getting tired of hearing from but I just watched the video and it worked fine for me. I work in IT software and I do some hardware as a hobby. A (free) suggestion is that you download Firefox as a browser if you don’t have it. It is a lot less bloated than Internet Explorer although you get to keep both of them and there is no risk. Firefox tends to suck up way fewer system resources so it may make a big difference. It is just a <5 minute download and install. Worth a shot.
Are you running XP? 2000? ME? 98 2nd edition? 98? 95?
Here’s a thing to try with XP and 2000 and it costs nothing. Give the application playing the video a priority of “above average” using the “task manager” ascessable from task bar when right clicked. You can see the system total CPU usage in the task manager “performance” screen. You can see if the individual applications running and their share of the CPU usage. You would set the browser with a higher priorty for playback in a browser. In the case of a stand alone aplication set it’s priority higher. This is going down with the assumption that the player has the download done. This is a quick easy solution if it works. I found playback was much better on a lower end system after the video took higher priority over most operations executing. I believe the priority was something that could be set in the same way for Win 2000.
