Is my graphics card capable?

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Guest

I just bought a new pc running on Vista Home Premium and these are the specs:

2 GB RAM
AMD Athlon Dual-Core processor
128 MB graphics card dedicated memory


When running Media Center my display jumps around and the audio lags. This
happens even when I am just in the menu of Media Center. Are my specs
capable to run Media Center? Why would I experience lag? Oh, I think the
problem may be my display monitor: Samsung 20" widescreen with 1680 x 1050 -
is that too much screen for my specs or something? Thanks for any help.

Greg
 
It shouldn't. What chipset are you using for your video card? ATI or NVIDIA?
Newest drivers for the card?

Does it have lag on any other programs (3D games, for example)?
 
Since you do not give the specs(make model) on the graphics card that came
with your computer we need to know more about it before we can help you and
we need to know what you are trying to display on it such as TV or just PC
applications.. Many inexpensive graphics cards can not support 1680 x 1050
video. The other specs of your computer are fine even for support of HDTV
tuner cards that have VISTA drivers.
You also want to make sure you have the latest drivers for both your
graphics card and your audio card from the card manufactures Websites.
 
Thank you both (JW and Dustin Harper) for replying. I don't know what a
chipset is. You can see my specs: i bought an HP Pavilion a1700n so you can
go here to see the specs:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...191&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#

But keep in mind that I upgraded teh RAM to 2 GB.

So, all I'm doing is opening Media Center. Before even trying to play any
video or anything (i'm just looking at the menu screen that is blue and you
can move the mouse around to select what you want to do in Media Center) and
it starts lagging and the audio that plays when you select an option sounds
about half of a second late and all skippy. I can't figure out why my pc
can't run Media Center. Also, i have the latest drivers for my graphics card
(NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE). Please help!

Thanks again.

greg
 
You certainly have enough memory and processsor power.
What is your CPU utilization when running MC?
Are you having any problems with any other applications?
 
Have you contacted HP about this? Since it's a brand new computer
from HP, they ought to be on the hook for solving your problem.

George
 
aaaaahhhh. I opened up the Reliability and Performance Monitor and do see
that my CPU and Disk usage goes up quite high when I am in Windows Medie
Center. Why is this? What is it doing? The problem is that when i look at
Task Manager I can't see any process that is really causing much usage except
for "ehshell.exe" . . . . Couple of questions: What is ehshell.exe? How
can I find out what specifically is slowing me down? Is it possible that the
Media Center is not taking advantage of the extra RAM I put in? Who can come
to my house and fix this if I can't figure it out - and how much would that
cost? Thanks.

Greg
 
What is your RAM configuration? Number and type of Dimms.

You might remove the extra Ram you added since MC will run in 512MB and
sometimes even Aero will.
 
How much RAM does it say you have? It may only be using the amount that you
had before upgrading (easy fix if it is:
http://www.vistarip.com/e107_plugins/faq/faq.php?0.cat.2.9).

What happens if you lower your resolution down to a lower (it may look
stretched, but try 1024x768)? If that makes it better, it may just be the
video card doesn't have enough power to run it at a higher resolution.

A tech could come out to your house, but being that it could be something
simple or something hard, it may take a while to find out why it's doing it
(lots of $$). It may just be a video driver problem (NVIDIA is working on
getting a lot of fixes in their drivers, that are buggy right now!).

--
Dustin Harper
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.vistarip.com

--
 
This is ehshell.exe
Description:
ehshell.exe is a process belonging to the Microsoft Media Center and
provides most functionality for the Microsoft Media Center. This program is
a non-essential process, but should not be terminated unless suspected to be
causing problems.
 
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