Tech Problems, help!

Recently my Pc has been lacking in the game playing department.
Compaq celeron D processor
ati 9250 radion (pci)
512 ram
windows xp home edition
..its not much buts is ran WoW:bc with little lag spikes and Ive played Gw And factions on this pc for the years ive had it.

so heres some problems ive been having with Nightfall.
#1 and most annoying - Logging in sometimes freezes my entire Pc with leaves me to restart it.

#2 - Frame rate drops, I can reach up to 30 but in dense areas im looking at 5+ most of the time (which makes sense) but in areas where its not as populated or not populated at all im still looking at a drop in FR. (comparing Factions experience)

#3- High ping, never had this before, I mean if my wow ping was 50 ms a second then why is my GW ping 300+ most of the time?


Ive tried may solutions to fix these things but to no avail. Updated the drivers etc
Im mostly concerned about numbers 1 and 2. Ill be happy for any help I can get

First thing, nightfall is more demanding on your computer than the two previous guild wars so it's normal that you experience a drop in overall performance.

As for your ping the problem might not be on your end as those issues are often related to your internet connection of something related to the anet servers.

Edit: Upgrading your ram to 1GB will surely help.

Nightfall is more demanding on your pc than Factions or Prophecies, especially the login screen. With your current video card, your only option for improving frame rate looks to be reducing the video quality in the in-game settings.

Upgrading your RAM is certainly a good recommendation.

I would also ask:

1. When was the last time you defragmented the hard drive?
2. How often do you defragment the hard drive?
3. Do you have an AGP slot on your motherboard?
4. How old is the current installation of Windows?

Defragmenting your hard drive is still the most important thing to remember on a computer. For a long time now, the slowest component in a computer is the hard drive. If you keep the files defragmented it can only improve your system's performance in all areas.

I would definately look at picking up a cheap AGP card if you plan on keeping this computer longer than another 6 months. I will be happy to send you some links to places to buy and what models to choose.