Virtual memory ,Paging file

First off, i am confused. i bought a Intel Celeron D356 3.33 GHz 512 KB L2 cache 533 MHz FSB 512 MB DDR SDRAM Media Center Edition 2005 This was purchased in Dec 2006 It crashed from a virus in Sept 2007. I took it to a computer repair, along with my e-machine back-up disc. I am quite sure I did not get home with the same thing. What the repair people installed was Intel Celeron 3.33 GHz 368 MB Ram Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 3 I realize there is nothing I can do now, but my virtual memory keeps coming up low. I did adjust the paging file to 768 initial size 1148 max Not that I know what I am doing, but read several articles on ram and paging files. this has seemed to speed up the "puter" but will just close when in internet explorer 7 I have had 7 for over a year and no problems. When i play games the screen becomes jumpy and the game stops in midstream. you can hear the fan running loudly on the computer (like it might be trying to reboot) The computer has also frozen up a couple of times. When on internet, mail games, just about everywhere. Task manager could not end programs, in fact one time could not pull up task manager I have to manually turn off power.. I love my "puter" and love to learn about the operations and behind the screen action. I certainly do not want to ruin or even think that I can fix or go deep into system. I admire the people that can. Is their anything you can tell me that I could do to improve perfomance and stability.. Allso. I ran a scan from Runscanner, then chose ya'll to help. What do I do with the scan results? Oh, I also went in and disbled allot of the programs running in the background that was not needed. Like networking, fax etc.

While the shop may have removed a 128MB stick of RAM because it was bad they should have told you. This raises warning flags! Why did they put XP pro on a machine the had media center? Did they give you a key code? A disc? is this a valid copy of XP? The first thing that you need to do is call the repair shop and demand answers! (be a pain) Look to see if the automatic updates has been turned off. If it has been turned off you may have a "corporate" copy of Windows (not valid) With a fresh install you should not have any virus, but why did the shop reformat? Get medieval on the repair shop.

While I agree it does look as though RAM is missing, I would do a physical look first and make sure they just did not allocate more system RAM to on-board graphics and you are seeing what is left. In any case, I would budget for more RAM, XP wants at least 1Gb. I would also consider upping the PF more. With small amounts of RAM, you need lots of extra space. Make sure your HD is clean of clutter, and has lots of free disk space.