Quake3World

Downloading at speed slows low spec PC - normal?

My low spec computer slows to a crawl every time I use it to download something at a rate above 250 kb/s and gets slower the faster the download is, practically freezing if it reaches 500 to 750 kb/s (which seems to be the max I can get on my current ISP.).

Is this normal for a low spec PC or is there something other than upgrading that I can do to fix it?

Specs:
1.8 Ghz P4 (running at 1.79)
512 MB RAM
16 MB graphics card
60 GB HDD (49.1 GB used, 6.73 GB free)
Soundblaster Live Platinum sound card
Windows XP

If it's just the low specs, is it one component mainly, maybe the HDD? So I can make sure I get something better for my next PC (want to go SSD only anyway).

I think this might be the reason I can't stream Youtube videos smoothly even at 360p. I used to be able to stream them smoothly at 360p, though not 480p, but that was on my previous HDD which broke. Now 480p Youtube won't play smoothly even when fully buffered, that may be Flash requiring more, nowadays, though. My PC will play DVDs no problem, and can manage 960x540p (quarter HD) video offline.

Is it just a rubbish HDD?

up the HDD and up the RAM

OK, thankyou.

(That will be for my next PC, but now I know what the problem is )

forgot to mention, have you done a defrag/disc clean

If your NIC is an onboard one, I would definitively put more RAM in there, 512 megs is bare minimum for today.

Since people are still replying I thought I better tell you that that PC broke. HDD failed.

They don't make that type of connector HDD any more. So it's new PC time earlier than I wanted.

I still don't feel like paying for a new one yet. I want to wait for the price of stuff to go down. E.g. the quad core CPUs, or six core, the OCZ Petrol SSD. I can afford it easy, just it still seems a lot the cost of what I want in a new PC. I'm not only not blown away by new PC tech, what would satisfy me still costs a lot more than I feel comfortable spending. I think I'm just a skinflint. Not sure though.

(Posting from someone else's PC in the meantime.)

I check out what I could get every now and then, and it's always coming to over £1000. My trouble is I don't want to make any cutbacks to the spec, just so I can play at least one recent game (Super Street Fighter IV) with modern graphics card effects like FSAA at a high resolution.

When I feel ready to get a new PC I'll make a new thread for it. I'll read any suggestions people might make in reply to this, though.

You can pick up a SATA controller card for under $20 then a HDD for whatever and install/go from there.

Also, they DO make IDE still, we sell them on a semi-daily basis.