RAM or Video card.

[atlanticjim]

I can provide more information later about the specifics of the machine but basically a ACER desktop, 2x512MB RAM, Vista home basic with updates.
Client has been having trouble with lockups and freezes and has to reboot at least once a day. I cleaned it up and turned off unnecessary startup items and processes, and turned off some vista features and it worked well for me. She called me the next day to say that it was still locking up. I found that Norton 360 was chewing up memory and cpu so I slimmed it down to its basic functions. (I had advised her not to renew but it had just renewed automatically, she is going to call them and try to get them to cancel it). Then I asked her when it locked up. She showed me that she plays three or four online games via facebook . . .all at one time in different tabs of the Firefox browser. And she is faster on the mouse than I have ever seen.

Question: Which is the better approach, upgrading the Mobo Ram from 1GB to 2GB or to add a cheap PCIe16 video card (GEforce 8400 with 256mb )? Will improving the graphics capability help with ONLINE games that are all Flash? I guess the salient question is . . . what is the limiting factor when we are talking about rendering flash animations / games.

 

[mraikes]

I can't address the Flash animation vs video card question, but 1gb of ram makes for a pretty poor Vista experience.

Now add Firefox that slurps up memory like it's the only program on the computer and I could easily see it causing lockups and freezes.

I'd bump the memory before adding a video card.

 

[joydivision]

If its a T180 I've seen a couple of with motherboard problems causing this issue. In this case though the system needs more RAM. In fact I would ditch the 2 x 512 and replace it with 2 x 1GB that way you also take out faulty RAM being the issue.