Win2k over 98SE on Compaq?

[Ed]

I was given a Compaq with the AMD K6-2 533MHz processor. It came with
Win98SE installed. I've been having some problems (won't recognize a second
hard drive; hangs on shutdown) and was wondering if anyone had an opinion on
two questions:
(1) Would upgrading from 98Se to 2000 help these issues?
(2) WOuld Win2000 do well on this machine?

Ed

 

[Bob I]

1. Probably not.
2. Tolerable with 128 meg ram and ALL the neccessary Compaq Windows 2000
drivers for the hardware. Read-You have an uphill battle.

 

[Ed]

Bob: Thanks for the response. I'm sorry to flaunt my ignorance like this,
but could you explain a bit?

1. Probably not.

Do you have some suggestions where I should be looking for help?

2. Tolerable with 128 meg ram and ALL the necessary Compaq Windows 2000
drivers for the hardware. Read-You have an uphill battle.

I've got 184 meg RAM. Hardware is a CD read/write, CD/DVD reader, hard and
floppy drives, and video card. Doesn't Win2K have drivers for these? Is
Compaq so peculiar it needs its own drivers?

Ed

 

[BillW50]

Hi Ed! I have ran Windows 2000 on a Toshiba 2595XDVD Pentium II 400 MHZ with 128MB and 192MB of RAM. It did a lot better than W98SE ever did.

I also ran Windows 2000 on a HP Pentium III 533 with 128MB and 256MB of RAM. And it too ran well. Now I am running Windows 2000 on a HP AMD 1.2 GHZ with 386MB of RAM. And to be quite honest, between the 533 and 1.2, I see between a 5 to 20% speed improvement most of the time.

There are two things that I do that makes more power the better for me. One is that I use flight simulator programs that require massive power much like today's games. The other is video recording from external sources. Even the 1.2 GHZ is just barely satisfactory for these tasks. Although the 533 MHZ could pull it off some of the time.

But for all other tasks, I don't see any noticable difference running Windows 2000 between a PIII 533 and an AMD 1.2 GHZ. As far as memory goes... upgrading from 128MB to 192MB was a nice improvement. And it gets even better with 256MB. Although after that, the improvements gets smaller and smaller. Thus unless you need more memory for massive application(s), it isn't probably necessary.


Bill



Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:32:04 -0700

Bob: Thanks for the response. I'm sorry to flaunt my ignorance like this,
but could you explain a bit?

1. Probably not.

Do you have some suggestions where I should be looking for help?

2. Tolerable with 128 meg ram and ALL the necessary Compaq Windows 2000
drivers for the hardware. Read-You have an uphill battle.

I've got 184 meg RAM. Hardware is a CD read/write, CD/DVD reader, hard and
floppy drives, and video card. Doesn't Win2K have drivers for these? Is
Compaq so peculiar it needs its own drivers?

Ed

 

[Bob I]

For #1. Operating system software won't fix broken/damaged hardware. Try
to determine what the issue with the drive is. Is it a BIOS upgrade
issue? Compaq/HP would be the place to look. And that may be the issue
in Windows 2000 also.

For #2. Compaq typically has a proprietary driver installation for the
hardware they sell as a package. The memory and CPU speed are good but
Windows 2000 doesn't know what a DVD or Rewriter or CD burner is so you
would need the software for them. So if you have lots of Drive space you
could get a Drive partitioning software and make the "c:drive" smaller
and then create a second partition, and try installing Windows2000 to it
so you still have an operating PC on the original C: partition. This
will allow you get the Windows 2000 "up and running" and see if
everything works. Hence the phrase uphill battle.

 

[Ed]

Thanks for the advice, Bob. I appreciate the words of wisdom (sounds like
they came at great price!).

Ed

 

[Bob I]

You're welcome. Actually the price was "paid by others", I just put the
pieces back in one box for them.

 

[JM]

quoting:

I was given a Compaq with the AMD K6-2 533MHz processor. It came with
Win98SE installed. I've been having some problems (won't recognize a second
hard drive; hangs on shutdown) and was wondering if anyone had an opinion on
two questions:

(1) Would upgrading from 98Se to 2000 help these issues?

no definate answer.

(2) WOuld Win2000 do well on this machine?

I am running win2k on a AMD K6-2 550MHz with 385mb of ram. These cpu's
perform like a Pentium II, at 200mhz to 233mhz.

I am also running win2k on a compact/embedded server appliance with a
National Semiconductor Geode 300mhz with 128mb of ram.

The overall performance on both of these is great. I had windows 98 on the
my AMD machine, and I note there was a slight performance boost when I
upgraded.