So I want to upgrade my PC, I originally thought I had a good one after the insurance payout, but for some reason I seem to have ended up with a bit of a lemon. According to CPU-Z, my set up is as follows:
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300@260GHz
Mainboard is a Micro-Star International G31M3-F V2(MS-7529)
RAM is 4 MB DDR2
Graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 4350
OS is Windows XP Home Edition
I'm not looking to set up a Gamer's Wet Dream, but am frustrated by this one's inability to multitask - ie, if I am burning a DVD, for example, everything else crawls. I initially thought it was lack of RAM, Skeeter told me it wasn't so, and so of course I ignored his advice :-[ bought RAM, and it solved nothing.
So now Skeeter gave me some guidelines on possible motherboards and CPUs to buy, but what concerns me is the current motherboard is a lot smaller than what I am used to seeing - is there a possible limitation to what size motherboard I can buy, or are they pretty much of a standard size so that I can safely buy and be assured that it will fit into my current box?
At the moment I'm happy with the rest of the setup, HDD size, etc, I just want to upgrade to the point where I can multi-task without too much trouble. Advice?
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300@260GHz
Mainboard is a Micro-Star International G31M3-F V2(MS-7529)
RAM is 4 MB DDR2
Graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 4350
OS is Windows XP Home Edition
I'm not looking to set up a Gamer's Wet Dream, but am frustrated by this one's inability to multitask - ie, if I am burning a DVD, for example, everything else crawls. I initially thought it was lack of RAM, Skeeter told me it wasn't so, and so of course I ignored his advice :-[ bought RAM, and it solved nothing.
So now Skeeter gave me some guidelines on possible motherboards and CPUs to buy, but what concerns me is the current motherboard is a lot smaller than what I am used to seeing - is there a possible limitation to what size motherboard I can buy, or are they pretty much of a standard size so that I can safely buy and be assured that it will fit into my current box?
At the moment I'm happy with the rest of the setup, HDD size, etc, I just want to upgrade to the point where I can multi-task without too much trouble. Advice?