Help! Everything Has Become Choppy...

[robbypark]

For some reason, my video files and a lot of my programs(games specifically) have gotten somewhat choppy. What I mean by that is that it will work for maybe 3 seconds and then temorarily freeze for a second, work again for 3, and freeze again for 1. I have no clue why this happened as everything used to be smooth beforehand.

I thought it might have been the fact that I downloaded Service Pack 2, but that clearly wasn't it because the problem persisted even after I uninstalled SP2.

And yes, I have attempted to Reinstall WMP 10. However, as mentioned above, the problem takes place in other programs as well and not just for video files.

Can somebody please help me out? It would be much appreciated.

[dlh6213]

Have you defragmented lately?

How much RAM do you have?

[robbypark]

Have you defragmented lately?

How much RAM do you have?

What is defraging? Should I do it? What will it do to my system? Will it destroy some of my files I have saved?

As for ram, I don't exactly know what you mean. I have 256 MB of Ram memory if that's what you mean.

[dlh6213]

Defrag is safe, it won't destroy your files. Here are a couple of links that explain what it does and how you do it:
http://www.speedupyourcomputer.windowsreinstall.com/part4.htm
http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/how-tos/defrag-faq.html

You should probably run ScanDisk too. They will run quicker if you boot into Safe Mode first. If you haven't done it before, they may take several hours to run. If you have more than one drive/partition, you should run them on each one. Just for future reference, the more frequently you run them, the less time it will take. I do mine once or twice a month and it only takes several minutes on each partition. It's also a good idea to run them right before installing any new programs (or Service Packs).

The amount of RAM you have is minimal for most modern games, you should have at least 384MB; as always, the more you have the better off you'll be, get the most you can afford (or that your system will accept).

[robbypark]

thanks for the help

[dlh6213]

thanks for the help

No problem :), did it work?