Help, very slow brand new laptop

Please elaborate on "slow". What programs are you trying to run and what exactly is happening?


Recommendations:
The combination of Vista and 512mb of RAM is your biggest problem. With Vista, 1gb is almost a must have and 2 is recommended. Go back to newegg and buy a 2gb kit of DDR2-533 RAM. After that there may be two issues. 1) Your CPU. I hate to break it to you, but you don't exactly have a screamer right there and depending on want you want to do with the laptop, you may not be getting what you hoped for. 2) Bloatware. Pretty much all OEM distributers load crap software onto their machines. If this is the case with your laptop, simply insert the Vista disk and follow the direction for a re-install. Did wonders for my desktop. Note: before reformatting, back up all of your important files as they will not be saved. Hope something here helps.

I am not looking to do anything spectacular with it, websurfing, dl music, watching movies, having a pc while I travel, the occassional cs 1.6 or dod 1.3. It should be able to handle all these tasks without any trouble.

First things first, back up all of your files and re-install Vista. I'm sure that some of your problems are caused by bloatware. If it still isn't performing adequately go out and buy a 2gb kit of RAM. 512mb is not enough for Vista to work effectively. Those two options should increase the performance.

Also keep in mind CS and DOD aren't going to play 'fast' on a intergrated 200M, and like L&W says, memory is likely going to be your biggest issue, especially with Vista. 512MB is barely acceptable for XP nowadays.