Displays and Game performance went from great to terrible.

[Sterdekie]

Just was looking to have a few questions answered that have been giving me trouble...and I will tell you now I am not the most computer savvy person you will meet.

I have an HP Pavilion a6228x that I got about 2 years ago. The specs are:

32-bit Vista
CPU- DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2600 MHz (13 x 200) 5200+
RAM- 4.00 GB (added 2gigs myself when I bought it if I recall correctly)
Graphics Card- EVGA e-GeForce GTX 260 (896 MB) DDR3 (recently added when my 8800 Burned out a month ago)
HD- 289 GB
Power Supply- Corsair 750w (I added almost a year ago)
Monitors- Samsung 32 inch LCD HDTV connected by a VGA, is my primary screen running at 1360 by 768 resolution. Secondary monitor is HP w1907 connected by DVI, running at 1440 by 900.

So my thoughts. I know the computer is aging a bit and not top of the line but I still think it should be able to run things pretty well. I have multiple problems I can not seem to figure out on my own.
1. Why is it that the HDTV I use highest resolution so bad? I would Think it would be very high? Is it the VGA connection? My video card can hook up to a HDMI port should I connect it like that? I hate using it with such bad resolution but cant break away from the massive screen.
2. It can take up to 6 minutes for my computer to boot up and I do not have many programs running on startup.
3. Gaming performance seems to have gone down dramatically. When I got it I was playing WoW using only one monitor (the HP one) on highest game settings and getting 60 FPS most all the time even in the most chaotic raids and this was with the 8800 and the stock 275w power supply and not the new 260 with and 750w power supply that I am running now . But when Wrath of the Litch King released I had gotten the Samsung TV as well so I started playing with dual screens and my performance went down completely I am not sure if it was simply the ex pack or the dual monitors....but as of now with my current set up I have to run everything on the lowest possible setting and I barely get 17 FPS during raids. This is my biggest problem and I do not understand why...the graphic change in wrath was not dramatic and I do not see why I went from 60 FPS to 17 when I have a new power supply and new Graphic card.

Any advice on any of this I would be thankful for. This has been bugging me for a long time and I figured I would give you guys a try. And if this is in the wrong forum section I am sorry and will move it if told where would be best.

Sterling.

 

[mindless728]

1) yeah, you want to switch to hdmi and as for the everything looks huge, think about it, 32" at a lower resolution the the 19" monitor, i recommend sitting further away from the 32" but keep the 19" where it is
2) get a good virus scanner (AVG free is better then say Norton or McAfee that you pay for), try defragmenting the hdd, all else fails you could re-install windows
3) if the games is stretched to both monitros that may be your problem, try having the game on one monitor, if it is already on one monitor try disabling one or the other and seeing what frame rates you get

 

[Sterdekie]

Thanks I will pick up and HDMI cable soon. Should that allow me to access a better resolution or just make the one its at now nicer? I am also defragging now and will disable the monitor next raid. thanks for the help.

 

[coozie7]

I'll just add a few points to the sound advice of Mindless728:
Check the running processes in Task Manager, have you inadvertently left something running? Torrent clients can be bad for this.
Before the defrag, clear out as much as you can; Ccleaner is a useful freebie for this purpose.
Make sure you only have icons and not file folders on the desktop, Windows hates having files there, move them into the root directory of the hard drive.