From what I can find the OP's system is pretty old.

The first thing to do when possible is increase system memory. 2 gigs is good, 4 gigs is better, though it may not be possible in the OPs case because of physical limitations of the motherboard.

I am not able to find the specs for that MB but that is really beside the point since the point was simply the effects of memory (correct) and swap file (also correct MAYBE).

The 32 bit versions of XP and Vista will not use more than 4 gigs (actually somewhat less) so do not bother trying to get more than 4 gigs if you have the 32 bit versions.

If you have XP X32 and 4 gigs it is unlikely that you will need more. If you have Vista OTOH...

If you build your own machines (I do) then a motherboard / processor swap might be the best bet. AMD dual and even quad cores are CHEAP as is memory. I actually swap motherboards without even reinstalling the system. Just have your driver disk handy for the new mb. This assumes of course that you are not using a raid for the boot disk and changing to an incompatible chipset.

A dual core with 4 gigs should give you all the processing power you need and can use.

jwcolby
Ensoniq ZR-76 keyboard, m-Audio Minisport 2x2 Anniversary Edition
AMD x2-3800, 2gb RAM
XP SP3, BIAB 2008