Which Video Card

Hi all,

New to the forum.

So I guess it's time to change the video card I've been told & I tested a video & I couldn't watch it on my desktop as it kept stopping, so clearly it's an issue.

Here are my stats. http://speccy.piriform.com/results/jC4uohDbvT41HfnQ13IQvLl

Which video card do you recommend & why?

Nothing too expensive pls.

I am not a gamer, but I do watch some videos online (how can you not, they are all around us).

I'm a netrepreneur, so I'm creating more videos too, but I hire people to do that.

Thanks

Michelle

 

Hi,

A radeon HD5450 should work for viewing videos and normal office tasks. They were designed for home theater setups from what I have read. They have support for Blu-ray and HD playback. Just be sure if you order one to note whether your current card is a normal size or low profile card.

http://www.squidoo.com/best-new-graphics-cards#module155207510

Something else you may want to check too before buying a new video card is your system (from the link you provided) seems to have quite a lot of programs taking up your RAM. (Your system sees 3.5 GBs of ram total but you only had about 500mbs free) You may want to look into disabling certain programs from running at startup. Every program that runs on your pc, even ones in the background that are not actively on the screen are using up your systems memory. If you run out of RAM on your computer, it will start using virtual memory/page file which is basically an area on your hard drive to store information (when RAM gets full, it dumps information temporarily to the Hard Drive and then retrieves it when the processor needs it) which can slow things down. The stuttering you are getting with videos may be caused by a lack of free memory. You can disable items running at startup by using the msconfig command from the run line. An easier way to do it though is to use a program called CCleaner by Piriform. It is a software that has several uses, its principle use is to clean up temp files, temp internet files, and recycle bin. However, it has a feature that lets you choose what you want to run at startup as well. When you use msconfig, the next time you boot up it pops up with a window telling you that changes were made using msconfig, but using ccleaner you do not get that annoying popup!

You may also want to run a disk defragmentation if you have not done so in a while, as fragmentation on the hard drive causes slower response times as the hard drive takes longer to retreive scattered information.

 

Hi,

Ok, a few things:

Thanks for the tips, but I already know all about that.

I don't have anything launching on startup that I don't need when I'm working. All geeks say the same thing, but there's nothing I can do about it, this is what I work with on a day to day basis.

As for defraging, I heard only people who don't know what they are doing recommend that, so I stopped doing it.

I was also told on another forum that I need to know the make & model of my power supply b4 buying a video card.

Since I don't know how to open the case, that will take a while. I guess you didn't know that.

Thanks

Michelle

 

Hi,

Defragging a harddrive is a necessary procedure after a computer has been in use for a while. Win7 and windows vista supposedly handle file management differently however windows xp and earlier operating systems need it to be done fairly regularly or else there will be a performance hit. As files are written to the hard drive, the operating system tries to place the pieces of the file close together on the drive. However, over time after files have been deleted and rewritten, the file pieces when they are written are spread out because of the locations of open clusters on the drive. This makes the hard drive take longer to find and load all the parts of the file into memory (which translaters into a computer acting slower for a user). By defragging the hard drive, the computer moves the file pieces closer together on the drive so it can be accessed faster.

For the power supply, the manufacturer recommends a power supply wattage of a minimum of 300 watts with 30 amps on the 12 volt rails. The card has a fairly low power consumption and does not need any extra power connectors. If your current power supply meets the wattage and amps then you should be all set, if not, you would need to get another power supply if you wanted to go for the HD5450.