Acer Aspire problem

[Sailormilan2]

I have just reformatted my son's older Aspire desktop. It is using Vista, with the SP2 pack and IE9. It has a Pentium 2 GB E2180 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and the onboard ATI Radeon video chip/card. I am also running 32 bit, rather than 64 bit, but I don't know if that would cause this type of problem.
Since installing everything, IE9 is constantly freezing or crashing. Often the screen will flicker, giving a momentary view of the previous page that I had just left or looked at. Often, if I minimize the window, it freezes and will not load back up.
I really didn't want to go to IE9, but wanted IE8. Unfortuntely, everytimg I tried to install IE8, it went to IE9.
I have given thought to changing browsers, but I am afraid that the problem will persist with the new browser.
So, my question is this. Is my problem software related, or hardware related? Do I need to install a bigger, sperate video card?

[choombak]

With windows you can never be sure! Get Firefox and move away from IE. permanently. http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/ You wil be the happiest man on the planet!

[paul0660]

With windows you can never be sure! Get Firefox and move away from IE. permanently. http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/ You wil be the happiest man on the planet!

Not the happiest for sure, but it takes about ten minutes to get Firefox, add your favorites, and see if it works.

There are some sites that only work with IE, but they are getting rarer.

[DaveInOroValley]

I wouldn't rule out this being a hardware and not a software issue. Something as simple as a bad memory stick could cause the symptoms you're describing.

[Sailormilan2]

It appears that it should be using 64 bit, but I apparently installed it with 32 bit. Would that be causing these problems?

[Turbinator]

It appears that it should be using 64 bit, but I apparently installed it with 32 bit. Would that be causing these problems?

Could be. Try uninstalling the 32 bit version, and install the 64 bit version.. see if that fixes anything.

If not, I use Google Chrome and have pretty good luck with it so far.

Turby

[Sailormilan2]

Ok, for some reason, Acer says that my system runs on 64 bit, but when it loads/reformats, it does so in 32 bit format. I don't know if that is affecting thigns or if I can change it.
So far, what I have done, is take a spare WD HD and reformated it, installing all the updates for Vista, but without installing IE9.
Browser is running a bit slow, since it isn't the most up to date. But, it isn't crashing as often, nor do I have the flickering and freezing.
Since this thing came with 2 GB of RAM, and most computors come with close to the bare minumum of RAM, I have ordered 2 -2GB RAM sticks and I will see how that affects things. I will have doubled the RAM and that might help.