A few questions about upgrading my PC.

First thing I wanna say is I love this forum :P I've learned so much in the last hour or so just from reading old threads!!!

My PC has been acting up A LOT for a while (Including: freezing, 5minute boot times, 25 whopping minute shut off time at times [whats that about!?] and internet browsers closing off all the time in the middle of videos and general lag as well like the simplest of programs taking ages to load properly...) so I've decided to upgrade my RAM which I only learned I could do thanks to this forum! And I'll be ordering it from Mr Memory in a few days.

I've also read about upgrading the Processor and the Motherboard which brings me to the reason I'm making this thread, how do I go about doing upgrading them, is it easy??, where should I buy new ones?, would you recommend me doing so?(like, are there any reasons NOT to) and what ones should I get? (if there is more than one type..)
I also did a quick Google search prior to making this thread and found another forum with a similar thread and I read that you need to update a ''BIOS'' and get a new Graphics Card if your gonna bother with upgrading a processor...I don't know what most of that means so if anyone can dumb it down for me it'd be much appreciated!!

A few details about my PC if it helps.
It's an Acer Aspire T180, 512MB RAM, 160HDD, OS is Windows Vista Basic. There's also a sticker on the front(I know, what a n00b:P) saying ''AMD, 64 Athlon-X2'' I dunno what that is but it might help you guys in answering my Questions.
Thanks you for reading all that !!!
Joe

First off, be sure that you are getting the proper RAM. You can go here to verify that: RAM Memory Upgrade: Dell, Mac, Apple, HP, Compaq. USB drives, SSD at Crucial.com
Unless you are having major issues, there is no reason to change out your motherboard and processor. If you were doing major video editing or rendering, then yes, but then you would prolly just start from scratch and build it. Same goes for graphics card. Gaming or something else that is graphics intensive would be the only reason I could see right now. I think that you will be more than satisfied with upgrading your RAM.
Something else to look in to would be removing any unneeded programs. A good utility for that is here: Revo Uninstaller
Also cleaning up temp files and fixing registry errors can solve quiet a few problems such as what you have been experiencing. I use this tool regularly to help keep my running smoothly. Ccleaner

just upgrade your ram memory and follow ferg advice, i have in the past and i really am benefiting from it, you need to keep your PC maintained in order for it to work smoothly.

The most RAM consuming Program I will be using is Sony Vegas 10 and I wouldn't call it major video editing so I'd say I'm grand with just the RAM being upgraded rather than the whole lot, thank you !!!
Joe

Originally Posted by j4v3d

just upgrade your ram memory and follow ferg advice, i have in the past and i really am benefiting from it, you need to keep your PC maintained in order for it to work smoothly.

Thank you
I'll buy that Ccleaner program too as it looks good, is it 19.95 per year or forever?

Originally Posted by JoeR

The most RAM consuming Program I will be using is Sony Vegas 10 and I wouldn't call it major video editing so I'd say I'm grand with just the RAM being upgraded rather than the whole lot, thank you !!!
Joe


Thank you
I'll buy that Ccleaner program too as it looks good, is it 19.95 per year or forever?

it is free mate, you can download it from the website; CCleaner - Standard

Go me for not looking
Thanks again j4v3d

Originally Posted by JoeR

Go me for not looking
Thanks again j4v3d

i've saved you £20

no problem mate, just happy to be of assistance to you, there is a thread somewhere on here, just search for it "CCleaner" awesome piece of software, im addicted to it

That you did!!!
And thank you I'll go take a look now for that thread, it's currently analyzing so I'll let it do it's business

That was why I linked you directly to the download as opposed to the homepage. It is easy to confuse the fact that it is free but at least j4v3d got the info before you let any money go. Forgot to mention about keeping an eye out and being sure to opt out of any toolbar installations during the process with both of the aforementioned programs.
I have never run Sony Vegas, but I imagine that you will see an immediate improvement with your upgrade to you RAM. Also from what I have read, your pc only ships with a 250 watt power supply, which would be severely underpowered for todays high powered GPUs.

While all the advice you've been given so far is sound, you don't mention how old the machine is & to what level it has been degraded by installing and uninstalling software?

You mention 25 minute shutdown at times? That would suggest serious fragmentation & or invalid registry entries?

One of the best performance boosting upgrades you can achieve on your PC is to add extra RAM (memory) along with a cleanup program such as Ccleaner but depending on how degraded your operating system is, it may be that you need a clean install. Did you system come with recovery discs? or a recovery partition on the hard drive?

One final thing you should consider is your security software. The likes of Norton, McAfee and most of the other bloated efforts including the recent issues of AVG are all responsible for hogging system resources and causing incredible lag in both page and program loading times. If you use any of the afore mentioned security programs (or indeed any of the commercial pay for offerings) you should seriously consider removing them (using their relevant removal tool) and installing one of the equally good if not better free programs such as Microsoft's Security essentials.