hmm i have used roxio in the past, does take a lot of power, but 1.5 gig should be more then enough memory, as I have used it on 256 meg of ram with a 1.8 ghz intel celeron in the past. and yes 2x2 gb ram chips would be faster but i doubt it would solve ur problem. id watch ur task manager to keep an eye out for programs using a lot more processing power then they usually do or should, and I would try running an antivirus software package on it. also, I know with XP the registry corrupts itself on a regular basis, especially with intel processors. with my old intel setup, I had to reformat every 6 months. on my AMD laptop, I have had it over a year and just now needing a reformat. this may also be a problem with Vista, though I have not noticed it on my desktop and ive been running vista ultimate on it for at least 6 months now and not noticed any issues with that problem, but like i said it may be more of a problem with intel processors. thats one possibility, a virus may be another, or possibly, and this is not likely, but possibly, your power supply. if it doesnt have enough juice to run everything all the time it may cause a system slow down like what your experiencing. and im not talkin just wattage, but also amperage. so check ur hardwares power consumption, (all of it) and how much your PSU is putting out, that may tell u, though my money is prolly on a virus or spyware, or corrupt registry. like I said, my old intel celeron, after about 6 months of standard use with xp slowed down just like yours is doing, and a reformat of the HD always fixed it. I dont know if vista has the same bug or not, but being microsoft I wouldn't put it past them.

What is the make and model of the motherboard?

Only two RAM slots?

I would speculate that your hardware is not up to Vista requirements.

Thanks to you both for your replies.
It has given me a lot to think about and try.
I also thought it could be a virus or spyware so i ran both the anti spyware and antivirus i have the day before yesterday and found nothing.
The motherboard i have is- gigabyte S-Series GA-945GCM(X)-S2
I bought this computer in july last year pre installed with vista basic and it has been fine till now.
My Nana gave me her old xp home computer and with your great help i have managed to reformat it so if it comes to it i should be able to do it to the vista computer now ive had some practice.

Only two RAM slots?
there is only 2 slots for the rams to go in, in the old pc i had 4 slots.

That motherboard is very minimal to handle Vista. Microsoft was not very particular on what they certified as to Vista.

You should have a least a matching pair of 2 x 1GB RAM. The motherboard max is 2GB. The RAM BUS is also below norm @ 667:

http://www.sybaritic.co.za/store/pro...ducts_id=14645

Who made this computer?

Also Vista should have at least 40GB on the hard drive dedicated to itself.


That being said if it was running OK for you try just cleaning it up.

A Repair Install if it comes to that.


Try running a HijackThis log by our Pros over in that section if you like:

HijackThis
--------------------------------------------------
Please read THIS and after completing the steps outlined post a HijackThis log over in that section along with a brief description of your problem.

Do not post HijackThis logs in this section please.


..................................
The security / spyware section of D-A-L works a little differently to the rest of the site. We currently only allow Head Security staff to reply to others threads to ensure a high level of support and quality is maintained with the daily issues which require a certain level of knowledge in this area.

Hi again, heres what im doing, i have ordered a matching 1GB DDR2 PC667 so i will replace it with the 512MB ( ill put that in my other pc ) and then i will have a matching 2x1GBram in. I think this will make a difference in running a bit faster.

The computer was made from leading edge computers and only had 512MB ram installed when i bought it so i put in the extra 1GB, i didn't know that you should only have matching ram.

I have a 80GB hard drive which says "38.9GB free of 74.5GB"

when you say "Vista should have at least 40GB on the hard drive dedicated to itself" do i have to do something special to do that? like partition or something? or just have 40GB available for vista?

I have an extra 10GB hard drive here that is a spare. Could i install that? or is it too small to even bother or wont work?

Your hard drive should be OK unless you are planning on loading games and videos.

That board is really "weak" for Vista. No way 512MB RAM could have handled it.

Again Microsoft passed out way too many Vista certificates for unsuitable hardware.

The 2GB RAM should help and that is the best you can do there. Most new RAM runs at least an 800 BUS but you do not have that option. Dual Channel will help but you need totally identical sicks for that.

Adding a 10GB hard drive would not add much and would detract from power.

Do you know the wattage of the PSU?

Also do you have a PCI_E graphics card or are you running off the motherboard?

Again I cannot imagine Vista running off a desktop motherboard's graphics chip.

Anyway ... Also post a log as I said in the proper section: not here. You might have some malicious stuff inside.