333 mhz AMD w/ 128 mb RAM enough for XP?

[Lurker]

I have investigated only Verizon and so far it appears to be rather
reasonable considering where we are with the technology. Check out
www.verizonwireless.com I think it's called "NationalAccess". Anyway, any
experience that you may be willing to share with me would be very much
appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read my posts. -b

 

[Papa]

No. Too slow and not enough RAM. I would not even consider it unless you
have at least 800 MHZ (more than 1 GHZ is better) and at least 256 MB of RAM
(512 is better). For gaming you will need an even faster CPU, and probably
more RAM.

I am not saying it won't run with your specifications, but it will be a very
s - l - o - w walk, not a run.

 

[Lurker]

Thanks a lot Papa-

Although I'm not interested in gaming or running lightning quick XP, the
general concensus seems to agree with your assessment. Do you have any
experince getting on-line with a cell phone and laptop? I'm going to need to
work from out of town for about a week in April and I'm concerned that I may
not have interenet access so I'm investigating getting on line with my
Toshiba and originally thought XP would work better (a lot of the software
seems to require XP for a USB connection) but it would seem that win98 is
fine going through the serial port. Any thoughts, suggesstions? -b

 

[Papa]

No, I have zero experience using cell phones with laptops, but I would be
very interested in reading of your experiences with it, as I am sure others
would be too.

 

[Lurker]

Well then, I'm diving in and I'll be sure to post some comments. Thanks
again. -b

Brad Sanzenbacher

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I max out at 192.

Then add the extra 64MB. Even that should make a big difference.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

No. Too slow and not enough RAM. I would not even consider it unless
you have at least 800 MHZ (more than 1 GHZ is better) and at least
256 MB of RAM (512 is better).

I definitely agree with you regarding RAM, but I strongly
disagree that at least 800MHz is required. I know several people
running XP with considerably less, and getting acceptable
performance. My wife, for example, runs XP with a 256MB P2-400.
It's far from a speed demon, but it works acceptably, and for her
rather limited needs (mostly E-mail and light word processing)
she's happy with it.

 

[Lurker]

It sounds like you think if I add 64mb RAM, XP is a good idea...? Yes,
no...? -b

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

It sounds like you think if I add 64mb RAM, XP is a good idea...? Yes,
no...? -b

No, not really. I was responding to Papa's blanket statement that
at least 800MHz is required, not to your specific circumstances.
Even if you have 192MB with your 333MHz CPU, you have a very
lightweight minimum machine for XP.

I mentioned my wife's 256MB P2-400, which is slow, but adequate
for her light needs. Realize that your computer, 333MHz with
192MB, is less than hers in both important departments--CPU speed
and RAM--and will be correspondingly slower. XP is *not* a great
choice for your machine.

But I thought that you had said in an earlier message that you
*needed* XP for some software you wanted to run. If you *need*
it, you can get it to work. It won't be a great performer, but
depending on what you use it for, you *may* find it acceptable.

My point is mostly that it depends on your needs and how you use
the computer. If your need is for XP and your computing demands
are not very high, you can likely get it work acceptably.

But don't expect it to be great; if you have the choice of
sticking with an older, less demanding, operating system, you are
almost certainly better off that way.

 

[Papa]

IMO anything much less than 800 MHZ is going to result in slow, if not
problematic, performance. That is, problematic in the sense that such a
system in an XP environment with just that much speed probably has other
shortcomings as well. In such cases it is well-advised to stick with W98
until an upgrade to more powerful hardware is feasible. After all, W98 is a
fine OS. Why go to the extra expense of XP until the hardware is a match,
especially if W98 will do all of the desired tasks?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

IMO anything much less than 800 MHZ is going to result in slow, if not
problematic, performance. That is, problematic in the sense that such
a system in an XP environment with just that much speed probably has
other shortcomings as well. In such cases it is well-advised to stick
with W98 until an upgrade to more powerful hardware is feasible.
After all, W98 is a fine OS. Why go to the extra expense of XP until
the hardware is a match, especially if W98 will do all of the desired
tasks?

Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not suggesting that Lurker, or
anyone else with such an old computer, rush out to upgrade to XP.
In fact, I agree with you that most people with older computers
are usually better off staying with whatever operating system
they presently have than upgrading to XP.

Nevertheless, in my view your statement that at least 800MHz is
required for decent performance is very much an overstatement.
How fast a CPU you need, how much RAM you need, how much HD space
you need, etc. are not one-size-fits-all situations. The answers
to questions like these depend greatly on how and for what you
use your computer. As I said, my wife finds her 400MHz CPU
adequate for *her* needs; someone else editing large photographic
images would likely find both her machine and the minimum 800MHz
machine you espouse inadequate.

I've offered to upgrade or replace my wife's machine, and she's
turned me down; she's happy with it the way it is.

By the way, the only reason she's running XP at all is because I
was and I wanted us both to run the same operating system, rather
than my having to support two different ones.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

"Glacial" is the term that comes to my mind, I'm afraid. If you
turn off all of WinXP GUI eye-candy, it will still be very slow, but
it might usable for simple word processing, email, web-browsing, etc.
It won't be any good for graphics-intensive applications, and most
newer games. (During the public preview period, I tested WinXP on a
500 MHz machine with 256 Mb of RAM.)

1) Right-click the Task Bar > Properties > Start Menu, ensure
"Classic Start menu" is selected.

2) Right-click an empty spot on the Desktop > Properties > Themes >
select "Windows Classic."

3) Right-click My Computer > Properties > Performance > Settings >
Visual Effects, ensure "Adjust for best performance" is selected.

However, with a PC this old, it's essential to make sure it's
components are WinXP-compatible _before_ proceeding. Have you ensured
that all the PC's components are capable of supporting WinXP? This
information will be found at each of the PC's component's
manufacturer's web sites, and on Microsoft's Catalog:
(http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx). Computer components
designed for use with Win9x/Me very often fail to meet WinXP's much
more stringent hardware quality requirements.

Can you obtain OS-specific device drivers for your PC's
components, and any necessary motherboard BIOS updates? Additionally,
you can download and run Microsoft WinXP Upgrade Advisor to see if you
have any incompatible hardware components.
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/upgrading/advisor.asp)


Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Papa]

Well, you are probably right. I just wanted to make a point about what can
be expected. And being on the same wave length is one's wife is a VERY good
idea. <G>

Regards.

 

[Hemlock]

NO.
but laptops wireless and hot spots are kinda neat.

Lots of hot spots are free once you buy the hardware.


HTH

Hemlock

 

[Harry Ohrn]

I agree with Ken. I've run XP on a number of systems with only half the
specs you mention. Currently I have XP running on an older e-machine 500is
which is a Celeron 500 with 256MB SDRAM. It has no stability problems at all
and has run nearly 24/7 with XP installed for over 2 years. The system has 2
HDs, a CD Burner and is a real work horse. Granted it is no gaming system
and doesn't do graphics intensive programming but who would do that on a 500
Celery anyway? Turn off the eye candy and XP is fine on a PII 400. During
the initial testing of Whistler I even installed and ran it on a Compaq
P-200mmx with 128MB of EDO RAM. Granted minimum specs are going to give you
less than lightening speed but if all you do is read e-mail, surf the net,
play a few games of solitaire and don't mind waiting 2 minutes for your
system to boot then XP can be run on very modest systems.

 

[Guest]

XP should cope with 128mb RAM but wouldnt like been using a 333MHz CPU

 

[Al Dykes]

In


I definitely agree with you regarding RAM, but I strongly
disagree that at least 800MHz is required. I know several people
running XP with considerably less, and getting acceptable
performance. My wife, for example, runs XP with a 256MB P2-400.
It's far from a speed demon, but it works acceptably, and for her
rather limited needs (mostly E-mail and light word processing)
she's happy with it.

--

Don't buy teh RAM until you've seen XP work on your machine.
128MB is enough to install and see that the drivers
all owrk ok. Then buy the memory. Of course if you're
keeping themachine, with w/98 another 64MB will be great there,
too.

 

[Al Dykes]

Greetings --

"Glacial" is the term that comes to my mind, I'm afraid. If you
turn off all of WinXP GUI eye-candy, it will still be very slow, but
it might usable for simple word processing, email, web-browsing, etc.
It won't be any good for graphics-intensive applications, and most
newer games. (During the public preview period, I tested WinXP on a
500 MHz machine with 256 Mb of RAM.)

To the degree that w2k and XP can be compared, I have business
users that paid me to install w2k on Pii-500 vintage equipment
with 64MB. I recommended memory upgrades but the guy paying me
said "later".

Installation was glacial, but once up and running these machines run
w2k on a domain, with IE, Office Outlook, and a foxpro app that talks
to an SQL server. This is a customer service environment where a
paying customer is on the phone while these people are using
researching with the PC. The performance is good enough that the
manager can't justify $40 bucks each to increase memory. He knows what
FAST is because he also has some latest-and-greatest machines.

Since they were paying me by the hour I didn't mind
installing memory _after_ I did the installation ;-)

 

[Brian]

IMO anything much less than 800 MHZ is going to result in slow, if not
problematic, performance. That is, problematic in the sense that such a
system in an XP environment with just that much speed probably has other
shortcomings as well. In such cases it is well-advised to stick with W98
until an upgrade to more powerful hardware is feasible. After all, W98 is a
fine OS. Why go to the extra expense of XP until the hardware is a match,
especially if W98 will do all of the desired tasks?

I'm running XP Pro on a Pentium II 350 MHz box with 320 MB RAM. It runs
smoother and faster then it did with W98 on it. It's been installed
that way since the beta 2 release. (I'm about to replace that box and
give it to my kids. For grins, I'll then install XP Pro on their old
Pentium 100 MHz, 320 MB RAM box just to see what happens before I turn
it into a Linux firewall.)

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

XP should cope with 128mb RAM but wouldnt like been using a

333MHz CPU


In my view, that's exactly backward. I'd much rather run XP on a
333MHz CPu with 256MB than on an 800MHz CPU with 128MB.

The problem is that with only 128MB you're almost certainly going
to be paging a lot. Paging means that memory access requires
reading and writing to the disk drive. That reading and writing
happens at mechanical speeds, not electronic ones, and is
extremely slow. That slowing effect is much more significant than
a difference in CPU speed.