Computer Illiterate and need help...

I had been playing GW on a mediocre laptop, without a video card, and without any problems. That laptop recently met the business end of an open can of coke.

I got a hand me down desktop, which I thought would be better suited to run GW, but I was wrong.

It takes FOREVER to load in and out of every outpost. I can't even go to Lion's Arch, or other highly populated areas. The list of things I can't do is very very long.

My computer often freezes mid-battle, and a blue screen will pop up describing a driver error.

I'm trying to follow the technical support sticky'd thread, starting with defragging.

My problem is that I don't have enough free disk space to properly defrag, which is something I can't seem to get a handle on.

The computer has 28GBs, but has less then 1 free GB of space right now.

I go to add/remove programs, looking for additional things to delete, but they all seem neccesary, and more importantly, when adding up the total amount of space used by all those programs, it comes to less then 7GB.

I have no idea where or how the rest of the space is being occupied. I may be the least computer literate person to have ever played GW, and while I know this isn't a GW problem, but just a simple computer problem, I thought someone may be able to help figure out what all this &%#$ on my computer is.

Thanks!

Sounds to me like you should wipe the disk (format it) and reinstall windows.
What kind of computer are you talking about? What brand (if any) is the computer? What version of Windows? How much RAM, CPU ect.

Okay, according to the front of my hard drive, it's windows xp, dell, and intel pentium 4.

I don't know how to find out about ram or cpu. Really, I don't know about computers.

Okay to help you become more computer literate I'll go through and fix somethings. Without a video card you wouldn't be able to play GW, you have an on board graphics card.

That blue screen is called BSoD (blue screen of death) and it usually means a hardware failure or your OS crashed. And also it sounds like you're low on RAM

Seriously, if your computer has a 28gb hard drive it's time for an upgrade.

All the space is being occupied by programs or things you download like music for example.

I would love to get a new computer. We don't always get what we want.

The only thing I have put on this computer is guildwars. Where can I find all this downloaded stuff from the computer's previous owner? Perhaps there's 10GB's worth of music somewhere. But I have looked in all the "my music", "my downloads", and "my documents" folder for anything taking up alot of space.

Again, I appreciate your help.

i agree. the long loading time seems to be a very very low amount of RAM. intel pentium 4 isn't too bad for being able to play GW. i definately 100% blame it on your RAM. to find out how much you have do the following and then come back here and post what it says:

start -> settings -> control panel -> performance and maintenance -> system (under "general" tab)

384 MB of Ram
CPU: 2.20 GHz

well then there ya go. 384 MB of RAM is unbelievably bad. >.<

as for the CPU, that number is fine w/ running GW. on my rig before my last it was @ 2.17GHz and i didn't have issues.

the problem DEFINATELY comes from your low RAM. i personally wouldn't run anything less than 1 gig b/c anything less than that is very very very hard to work with with todays memory-hogging programs.

edit: sorry-- i didn't mean the low RAM *IS* your problem, i meant that it is a problem that will cause really slow PC performance.

My worry is that the PC uses RD RAM... if so, you are in a world of trouble for upgrading it.

Download this, and post the type of RAM here.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

One of your problems is your Hard Drive. All the symptoms described in your first post is caused by too little hard drive space. It appears there isn't enough free space for a decent sized swap file.

I would, in this order:

1) Buy a new computer. You can currently get a budget priced Dell or HP for under $400 and you will think you died and went to heaven compared to what you have.

2) If you can't afford that, for $40 you can get a bigger Hard Drive. And, for another $40 you can get 2 gigs of memory. Memory and storage are at an all time low, price wise.

3) If you can't afford anything, reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows XP. That computer has serious errors, maybe a virus or 2. You should do this anyway. Just plop in the XP disc and follow instructions when it asks you what you want to do.

4) Find a friend to help you. While your being helped, learn a few things so you can help yourself.

5) Get a job. In a few weeks you could be playing on a 22" screen with all the options maxed out, like the rest of us.

raku - last one (#5) made me laugh. xD

and i remember when 1 gig of ram cost like $80 ... :\

only one problem with the 2 gigs of ram part the bios in the motherboard and the board itself may not support that much

A few other things you can do to free up HD Space:
Turn off System Restore - Right click on My Computer>Select Properties>Select System Restore Tab>Put a check in the box
Amother thing you can check is turn off Standby and Hibernation
Open Control Panel>Power Options and turn off both
Thise two things can eat up as much as 5GB HD Space
Lastly, i would bet that the previous owner installed XP right over top of the old XP ... so now there are two XP Installs.
Most people dont know how to properly reload a PC, so this is a common error.
A full wipe and reload is definately in order.

Plenty of sound information there, Emperor Bush.

The first step should really be what Rahja the thief suggested - download that program (called Everest - I use it myself every day) - that will tell us exactly what your computer is made of. Once we have that info, we can tell you what your options are.

One thing - that 384MB RAM tells us you have at least two RAM slots - you have either one 256MB module and one 128MB module or you have 3 x 128MB. It is likely to be DDR RAM, which is getting more expensive due to its low demand - an educated guess would say you will get one GB in there happily, two at a stretch.

The question then arises: should you? There's only so much money you can throw at an old PC before it becomes financially redundant. You should look to save up for a cheap, cheap system that will still be way better than what you have.

With your current dinosaur, we need to free up as much HDD space as possible and streamline as much as we can. Capblye's suggestion about turning off system restore is very valid in your case. Generally, it's a bad idea, but in your case, it's only using up valuable space.

I think I paid $120 for 32 MB, the first time I bought memory.

Here's a good one though:

I have a PC World Buyer's guide for January 1989.

A 40 MB hard drive cost around $450. That's MB not GB.

In 1989 it was thought that computers would never need more than 640K worth of memory and that was standard on most computers. They were just discovering the advantages of greater memory and 2 MB of memory cost around $1200.

that ram is so low, im surprised you can even run GW, a slight exaggerator but you get my meaning, disable system restore, and completely reinstall, might wanna make sure you delete previous installations of XP so that you dont have like 3 versions running. but as snograt said buying a new computer might be better than upgrading the ram, specially since computers are becoming cheaper and cheaper.

I would rather see you format and reinstall Windows, it is much safer and should resolve most of your problems in one shot. Be sure to install an Anti-Virus software before you connect the computer to the internet.

To answer your question about how to delete information from previous users, you may not be able to. It all depends on what type of account you have on the system. Deleting accounts willy-nilly can cause problems for you, lots of them, so be careful in doing this.
Assuming you have an Administrator level account, press the windows flag key then press E release both keys at the same time. This will launch Windows Explorer with two panes. In the left hand pane, click the “+” to the left of your C drive (normally referred to as Local Disk (C:\)) then click the “+” to the left of “Documents and Settings.” In the right hand pane you will may see all the accounts on the system, you may see only your accounts. If you see accounts other than yours, you may be able to delete them without trouble. Do NOT delete the accounts titled “Administrator” or “All Users.”
If you would rather, click on “Start” then click on “My Computer” or, if you have a “My Computer” icon double click on it. That will open Windows Explorer with a single useable pane. Double click on “Local Disk (C:\), double click on “Documents and Settings” to view the accounts on the system.

Note: the performance of your system will be marginal at best. With only 384MB of RAM Windows does not have enough memory to function properly.

I hope this helps.

Since you don't seems to know, or care, what was on the computer before you got it, a simple reformat/reinstall would be the best solution. Easiest way is to boot the computer off the Windows CD and follow the prompts.

However, you may need to find out what OS is available for you to reinstall. If the computer came with a Windows disk and key, use that. If you don't have the key, check to see if there's one on a sticker on the machine. Check that someone else isn't using that key (the original owner may have migrated the OS to a new system, so the key may be in use).

Another approach would be to use the OS and/or product key from the laptop. You may need to call MS and get the OS "authenticated" after the install, since it's an entirely different machine. But, there's really no sense in just trashing the laptop's OS along with the hardware. On the other hand, if the laptop used Vista, you may want to keep that for the next machine, since your current one doesn't sound like Vista would run very well. (But it does mean that you could get a new system without an OS to save money.)

You need more RAM. Open the thing up and see what's in it, and then cruise around to local flea markets, small computer shops/individuals, and/or online swap sites to find the same kind of RAM cheap. You want to get at least 1gig of RAM. Let us know what's in the machine and we can advise on what can be used speed-wise/type-wise.

Do not do any of the quoted items, unless you want to intentionally cripple your Windows XP.