My computer theme has a mind of it's own!

I am operating a really old lady, she's a Compaq Presario 5000, only 14gig of memory, and crappy dial-up internet.

Let's say make my own theme and name it "My Favorite Theme" and I have it all saved and applied to my computer, then I reboot it and log into my Windows account, then it is that same theme, but about 5 minutes later, everything locks up for about 15 seconds, then my computer changes itself back to the Default theme of the sky/field background and the Start bar changes itself from the Classic theme to the XP theme where it's blue and bubbly. Clearly, it has a mind of it's own and I have an updated version of Spybot Search and Destroy! installed and it detects no spyware, so clearly this is not something normal. Can anyone let me know if they know anything about why my computer hates me so?

EDIT: I don't know if ole betty is running on 500mHz or 600mHz. Let's just say she's slow.
EDIT #2: So I found out she's running 598MHz, 64.0 MB of RAM. Poor, poor girl.

with 64MB of RAM you're lucky it wants to run at all.

what antivirus are you running?
what other software are you running

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I used to have AVG (free version) installed, but uninstalled that long before this was happening. I use whatever anti-virus came with AOL (which is probably a really low quality anti-virus, I should find another, right? ). I hardly have anything installed on this thing, some HP digital camera software, AOL, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Nero CD burning software, Spybot Search and Destroy, and that's about it.

Can you ID the specific model from this list:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/p...&product=96102


As brain_damage pointed out it is amazing that XP runs at all on 64MB RAM.

128MB is listed as the minimum but 256MB is really needed for smooth running. At least 512MB would be highly recommended if you do anything at all with games and or video.


This scan might also help in showing what is available:

http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/index.asp

I keep my computer so clean, I run the Spyware Search and Destroy once a week and defrag about once a month. I can't tolerate a dirty system with a bunch of crap on it. So that's probably why it's still running at all. A computer is only as clean as the user keeps it, right? hahaha

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/p...&product=92867
is my system.

However, I forgot to add that this has been happening ever since I upgraded from ME to XP. Perhaps it's something to do with that?

It has everything to do with that.

You need at least 128MB RAM.

You should have at least 256MB RAM.

You would want to have 512MB RAM.

These are XP requirements. ME did not have these requirements.

Sweet, thanks for the help guys, I talked to my uncle who works at CompUSA, and he says if I invest about $100 into my computer, it will run way faster, the highest RAM my computer can hold is 512MB, says that scan link that jephree provided. And I have an empty slot, so that's awesome. This helped alot. Thanks again.

I would suggest getting all new RAM but if you do mix with the 64MB you should match the speed and ideally the brand.

Also on older boards when you go to the Max 512MB you should be careful of density issues as modern chips may not work.

However that Crucial scan should let you know this.

Thanks for the thanks and let us know how it goes.

Thanks to the help I received here, I have successfully upgraded old Bertha to 512MB of RAM. I bought two (2) Simple Tech 256MB DIMM RAMs. Installing them was so much easier than I thought it would be; you just open up your machine and stick 'em in, haha. Now she can have multiple programs open at once without freezing. I can finally play a CD on my computer at the same time I am logged into AIM and not worry about non-responsive programs.

Thanks for the help. :-)

Good to hear that! Glad things are well!




Thanks for the update and the thanks!

Let us know if we can help further in the future.

If you want this thread reopened just PM me.