Windows XP and Old Computer

[Philip K.]

Will Windows XP run on an old computer such as a Dell with
a Pentium 3 at 733 MHz and 512 Mbytes of RAM? How much of
the RAM will be used up? Am I better off with Windows
2000 if I need as much RAM as possible.

 

[Steve C. Ray]

It should work fine. The amount of RAM used is determined by the needs of
the application. XP isn't going to "use up" your RAM. 512 Mb is plenty for
most all applications. Go with XP.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Will Windows XP run on an old computer such as a Dell with
a Pentium 3 at 733 MHz and 512 Mbytes of RAM?

If everything else is suitable, yes, it will run fine.

How much of
the RAM will be used up?

By design, Windows will use all of your RAM all the time. That's
good, not bad. It always tries to find some use for what's there,
but will release it from a less imnportant use if your apps need
it. Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Am I better off with Windows
2000 if I need as much RAM as possible.

No.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Will Windows XP run on an old computer such as a Dell with
a Pentium 3 at 733 MHz and 512 Mbytes of RAM? How much of
the RAM will be used up?

THat should be fine, and has plenty of RAM for reasonable general
purposes. The CPU is a bit low if you want good multimedia support, but
will be no worse at it than in any earlier system. You would only need
more RAM if your workload involves *very* heavy graphics or video
editing

 

[RJK]

What about a Duron 1000, with it's miserly 128kb L2 cache and 128mb of PC133
sdram? ...An old retired friend of mine 'phoned and asked me to sort out
his W98se problems. Well, rather than spend hours reinstalling and tweaking
and updating W98se, which is going to be dumped on January 15th, I think it
is, ...I wondered if it would be better to spend £40 quid on 512mb PC2100
rather than PC133 and swap out his Duron for an Athlon and get him to buy XP
....What say you all ?

regards, Richard

ps his mobo will support ddr memory and Thoroughbred "B" core.

 

[Les Herrman]

What about a Duron 1000, with it's miserly 128kb L2 cache and 128mb of PC133
sdram? ...An old retired friend of mine 'phoned and asked me to sort out
his W98se problems. Well, rather than spend hours reinstalling and tweaking
and updating W98se, which is going to be dumped on January 15th, I think it
is, ...I wondered if it would be better to spend £40 quid on 512mb PC2100
rather than PC133 and swap out his Duron for an Athlon and get him to buy XP
...What say you all ?

Actually I was running it for over a year on a Duron 1100.

I had 512 MB of Pc133 ram in it though.

But it worked just fine on that system.

 

[Alex Nichol]

What about a Duron 1000, with it's miserly 128kb L2 cache and 128mb of PC133
sdram? ...An old retired friend of mine 'phoned and asked me to sort out
his W98se problems. Well, rather than spend hours reinstalling and tweaking
and updating W98se, which is going to be dumped on January 15th, I think it
is, ...I wondered if it would be better to spend £40 quid on 512mb PC2100
rather than PC133

I have been running on a 1500 P4 with 384MB of PC133 quite happily. And
had only 192MB during the betas. The important thing is to get it up
from that 128 level - once you do that, it should be reasonably balanced
and work decently, though obviously not a power house. Getting PC2100
RAM might mean changing m'board - be sure of its specs before you go
that way. Also either be sure that new RAM is an exact match, or get a
single module and scrap the present one

 

[Chris]

I have been running on a 1500 P4 with 384MB of PC133 quite happily. And
had only 192MB during the betas. The important thing is to get it up
from that 128 level - once you do that, it should be reasonably
balanced and work decently, though obviously not a power house.

I ran XP on a Pentium 200 MMX with 64 MB of RAM.
That was on the day XP was launched.
(It was slow.)