HELP!

My computer is a pile of junk, or am I wrong? When I try to play video games such as Half:Life Counter-strike the video will slow down during gameplay and sort of 'stutter' like it will stop and then I'll end up in a spot where I should've been 20 or so seconds later.

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For example:

In Counter-strike there are guns and explosions and what-not. I'm running up to a guy firing my AK when all of a sudden my screen begins to freeze and plays in SLOW MOTION. My sound is also going in SLOW MOTION , hearing the shots fired very slowly. When this is all over 20 or so seconds later I'm on the ground dead and the video/sound is back up to rate and is working fine. About two minuets later this happens agian...stops...agian...stops...agian.. and so on..

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My sound can also get really choppy and won't play right during this. Gameplay is fine until about every 2 minutes this happens and it has always happened. When I first bought this computer it played CS fine... no problems at all, then I guess my stepdad did something to the computer maybe changed the drivers or something and it does this now. I really would like someone to help me on this. As I am completey boggled.

Anyone got any ideas? I'm not your average computer geek, so I'll need all the help I can get.


P.S: This also happens when I try play Nintendo games on my computer. The really old ones. I have emulators..ect

Specs:
Compaq Persario 5320 US
Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz
512RAM
nVIDIA Vanta 16MB video card
40GB HD

Judging by the specs:
Compaq Persario 5320 US
Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz
512RAM
nVIDIA Vanta 16MB video card
Sound max on board sound
40GB HD
It appears to me that your comp is getting aged
for some of the games you like and the video 16mb
seems to be your bottle neck.
I'm certain it's been good to you just alittle outdated.
2 possible solution would be to upgrade the video card
to at least a 64mb or even better a 128mb.
The other is to consider a fresh machine (non-proprietary)
though I would try the video card Ugrade 1st.
G'Luck

How can it be the Video card though? I mean, it played when the computer was brand new. With the same card just fine. How come it doesn't any more? ... same game

I was responding to thisbut just for the one game,
no the video card is not likely the problem.
It may well be a maintinance issue.
Sounds like disk accessing prob.
Diskeeper has a very good (better than MS)
defrag. It'll optimize far better.
Go Here
15 day trial
Post back to let us know.
G'Luck

I'll download it and try it out. After I have ran it, I'll reinstall cs and see if it helped any. I'll post back afterwards.

Findings on C:

Diskeeper has completed a defragmentation run on this volume and there remain 524 fragmented files and/or directories and 1971 excess fragments. (There were 3427 excess fragments before the defragmentation run, and now there are 42% fewer.)

The average number of fragments per file is 1.03.

You should schedule Diskeeper to run considerably more often than it has been running to reduce the current fragmentation and maintain a lower level of fragmentation. This volume is moderately fragmented, with 63% of the total volume space available for defragmentation.


Don't think helped me any. But I'll run cs and let you know. Any other suggestions first?

I have the exact same computer with the exact same problems, if you have found anything PLEASE let me know.

a 16mb video card is way old. You have a very small amount of RAM also.
most high end games won't run well with less than 1gb ram and a high end video card. The best card for an AGP slot motherboard is a 7800GS.

Your CPU is also getting slightly long in the tooth. Though it is ok for now.

I'd go with Tedster's 7800GS video card and leave the RAM at 512MB for now... Let the video card upgrade be enough