Erasing every byte of data from the hard drive and set up Windows again. I don't know how to do that myself but people seem to get many performance problems fixed that way.

you mean like system restoring

Best bet might be to do system defragging for your main drive. Usually that is your C:\ drive.

Formatting is not really like system restoring, as it cleans your hard drive of everything, and I wouldn't exactly recommend doing this without having more knowledge about it.

A good defragging might do the trick, though, as OCAdam suggested.

Hey bjossi how do i determine what kind of processor i would need to buy to work with my pc?
I was talking about it with my dad (my source of money) and he said something about some motherboards have a set amount of pins or something along those lines

current processor: AMD Sempron 3200+ 1.8GHz

It's rather a question of which motherboard you need to buy. Your current processor shows it's age and so does the socket it uses, go for a motherboard that supports Core 2 Duo, then buy the Core 2 Duo CPU itself.

Im gonna have to buy a new motherboard...isn't it just cheaper to get a brand new pc?

It is pretty obvious which is cheaper.
Mobos are cheap, don't worry about that, and so is Core 2 Duo. Those processors offer the best speed vs. price ratio available today.

can you give me a link or 2 to some because wherever I search I'm pulling prices that i cant afford

Just look around newegg, since you live in the US (I think). They have by far the cheapest prices of computer hardware.

yea I live in the us ill look around there and see what i can dig up

Just remember to not only consider the Ghz numbers when looking for processors. That is the most common mistake I know of when people are shopping hardware or computers.

If you are looking for a new mobo, you need to consider a few things; does it support your current video card's slot (AGP or PCIx), and the socket of the processor you are about to buy. Also it needs to fit in the case.