[NYC GOP Chick]

I wish to achieve faster speeds, especially when using Photoshop and Flash, etc.

Is what I have adequate for graphic-intensive stuff?

I use Windows 98SE, but would definitely consider 2K -- although I had that at work and it didn't seem all that more stable.

I'm not terribly worried about losing data, since I back-up (on CD-R and CD-RW) just about everything important every week or so.

Thanks. :)

[John Lenin]

Give me $200 and I'll get you an AMD 2000 XP w/no name motherbord and Ram at the next computer show. You can have the change if there is any left. :-)

[Revel]

Do you have built in video or is it on a seperate video card that plugs into the mother board ?

[krizzy]

if you are after a little more speed but dont want to spend the money, the first thing you should try is to clean up your hard drive. Regardless of how fast the Cpu is, a full hard drive will make your computer dog slow.

partition your hard drive as 4 small drives not 1 large drive, and leave your old drive in and move the swap file to that drive.

256 megs should be enough memory you might see a small boost with another 256.

16 megs on your video card is a bit low for graphic intensive programs.

if you want to build a new system for the fun of it, or so you can do it slowly over time start at Toms hardware
http://www.tomshardware.com/