[Ben K]

Hi guys,

Two years ago I went to the DELL website for a laptop and got a DELL Inspiron 9100 and hit the upgrade button until the price made me wince. I ended up with a 3.2Ghz processor, 1MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB. For RAM I got 512MB DIMM (400MHz) and the graphics card is 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700.

From reading a few posts, that should be more than enough to 4 table party and run PAHUD and PT but it isn't. In fact, I can only just run 4 tables at party without PT and the HUD and even then the computer seems to run at total stress levels after about 45 minutes.

I'm not sure how to explain what it's like but the following experience must have happened to most people; you move the mouse but the screen arrow doesn't move so you compensate then a second later the arrow catches up and now you're in the wrong place entirely. In the poker context it's been slow enough to cause me time out and fold on several occasions. It can't run DVD's anymore and even Need for Speed most wanted, which once ran so fast I nearly had a seizure, won't run for more than 10 minutes or so before becoming so unresponsive and jerky that the cops get me.

I'm not computer smart enough to really diagnose this but I've had a few thoughts on the topic, so I'll post a few and you can lambast them and (hopefully) spare a bit of time to help me improve the situation. Either that or I'm buying a new computer.

1) I suspect it's just getting hot. It certainly feels fairly hot on the underside where I guess the processor is. Is it possible to get a better fan put in? Is this a plausible problem? Can you mess with parts on a laptop?

2) Has my graphics card somehow died? DVD playing problems and such might mean that I'm asking too much of the graphics card.

3) Something software based that is just overloading the whole system? I'm running at 676MB on the page file and 58% CPU usage with just internet explorer open typing this and the windows task monitor. Given that I've only got 512MB RAM, doesn't that mean I'm into virtual RAM territory constantly?? Is this right (doesn't sound it!)? Ahh, the CPU usage is around 30% but was spiking earlier in this paragraph while the fan was trying to wake the neghbours (which is does every 7/8 minutes for a minute or so)

I'm not sure I want to give up on my laptop just yet. Any help you can give will be much appreciated.