Old PC powerful enough for XP?

[stro]

My 5-6 yr old PC uses a Pentium 2, 350 mhz chip and 192 MB
RAM running Windows 98 first edition. I want to reformat
the hard drive and clean install Windows XP Home Edition.
Although my PC processor and RAM specs exceed the minimum
Windows XP HE system requirements found on the Microsoft
website, I want to know from real world users: 1) should I
increase my RAM, and to what level, and 2) will my P2 350
mhz chip adequately handle XP requirements (I've heard XP
is a system hog), or should I expect a signficant decrease
in processing speed even if I increase my RAM?
FYI, after updating my old PC it will be used almost
exclusively by my 16 yr old son who uses a PC for Instant
Messaging, music downloading/playback/CD burning, and
basic homework MS Word & Excel usage (no high end gaming).
Mom & Dad are getting a new PC!

Thanks to those 3 folks who answered my question posted
about an hour ago on the XP upgrade CD. Good to know I
can clean install XP from the upgrade CD since I still
have my Windows 98 CD.

Thanks for your assistance,
Stro

 

[Steven Burn]

It will run just fine....... though you may want to up the ram to
256mb...(won't make much of a difference, but tis reccomended)

--
Regards

Steven Burn
Ur I.T. Mate Group
www.it-mate.co.uk

Keeping it FREE!

Disclaimer:
I know I'm probably wrong, I just like taking part ;o)

 

[Yves Leclerc]

RAM should start at 256MB. If you want to be safe, 512MB should be good.
Hard drive should be starting at 10GB. Anything smaller will be too small,
since the base XP install uses 2 to 3 GB, without any other software
installed.

Video card must be able to do SVGA @ 800 by 600, since this is the base
resolution that XP uses.


Also, please be aware that you will need two XP software kits for the two
PCs. You can only install a XP onto one PC at a time. You can not use one
version of XP for the two PCs.

Y.

 

[Karl]

i installed XP on a PII 266 MHz 192MB RAM.

It worked but it was slow. I suggest to increase the RAM to 256 atlease.

 

[Al Dykes]

My 5-6 yr old PC uses a Pentium 2, 350 mhz chip and 192 MB
RAM running Windows 98 first edition. I want to reformat
the hard drive and clean install Windows XP Home Edition.
Although my PC processor and RAM specs exceed the minimum
Windows XP HE system requirements found on the Microsoft
website, I want to know from real world users: 1) should I
increase my RAM, and to what level, and 2) will my P2 350
mhz chip adequately handle XP requirements (I've heard XP
is a system hog), or should I expect a signficant decrease
in processing speed even if I increase my RAM?
FYI, after updating my old PC it will be used almost
exclusively by my 16 yr old son who uses a PC for Instant
Messaging, music downloading/playback/CD burning, and
basic homework MS Word & Excel usage (no high end gaming).
Mom & Dad are getting a new PC!

CD buring might be a bit of a problem, You'll burn at a slow speed and
not do anything else while burning.

The machine should be usable; you can turn off a bunch of unnneded
system services and select "best performance" over "best looks" in
control panel. This is based on a formated C drive and a fresh
installation. If you try to do an upgrade from w/98 , all bets are
off.

You've got enough RAM.

You need a 4GB disk.

 

[Al Dykes]

RAM should start at 256MB. If you want to be safe, 512MB should be good.
Hard drive should be starting at 10GB. Anything smaller will be too small,
since the base XP install uses 2 to 3 GB, without any other software
installed.

You don't have to upgrade RAM until you get the system running and
measure how much you are using. 192MB is enough to start. (I've set
up business systems on machines like yours except that they only had
64MB. They ran w2k, IExplorer, office, outlook on a domain just
fine. I was surprised. Setup was painfully slow, but the users were
happy.)

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

My 5-6 yr old PC uses a Pentium 2, 350 mhz chip and 192 MB
RAM running Windows 98 first edition. I want to reformat
the hard drive and clean install Windows XP Home Edition.
Although my PC processor and RAM specs exceed the minimum
Windows XP HE system requirements found on the Microsoft
website,

You exceed the theoretical minimums, but you are at the bottom
end of practical minimums.

I want to know from real world users: 1) should I
increase my RAM, and to what level, and

Yes, to at least 256MB.

2) will my P2 350
mhz chip adequately handle XP requirements (I've heard XP
is a system hog), or should I expect a signficant decrease
in processing speed even if I increase my RAM?

The P2 350 will be slow. Whether it's "adequate" is in the eyes
of the beholder. My wife runs a P2-400 with 256MB and finds it
adequate, but others may not.

 

[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
--
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[no_one]

why upgrade to XP?

 

[Guest]

i dont recomend the upgrade, it will run as slow as molasses in february. Furthermore, you will need to update your bios b/c ive found many memory dump problems on older machines that have upgraded. It is also likely that much of your old hardware will have drivers that are not supported in the new os.

 

[Alex Nichol]

My 5-6 yr old PC uses a Pentium 2, 350 mhz chip and 192 MB
RAM running Windows 98 first edition. I want to reformat
the hard drive and clean install Windows XP Home Edition.

As long as you have no ambitions in multimedia, that will do: on things
like that it will be not that much different from Win98 - ie pretty
glacial on that hardware. A graphic card that handles MPEG decode in
its hardware (eg ATI Rage or Radeon) helps that quite a lot. I ran
through the Betas on a P III 450 and 192MB quite effectively. It will
pay to turn off a lot of the 'eye-candy' Visual effects