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Bad News?!?!
Finally got the summons to do something to improve my aged mothers equally
aged Compaq Pres' 5170 which runs so slowly it's unbelievable (recent OS renewal W98SE, nothing improved) and l was wondering what l'll find inside the case... Compaqs site specs list the 5170 at 10Gb HD, but this one is 6Gb from new, so l cannot believe anything l read on the Compaq site... but sys' info tells me it's a 64Mb ram machine with a 100Mhz bus, 4Mb graphics chip (on Mobo?) and a PIII processor... Can l scrap Compaqs software (would locating individual sound/modem/mobo drivers be impossible or not?) and reformat and reload the OS without the Compaq flavour? Also... how do l get into CMOS setup on this machine? My even older K6-350Mhz ****es all over the Presario... the Compaq sounds just like a Geiger Counter most of the time... the HD just clicks and clicks away like there had been a nuclear accident when the PC's asked to perform the simplest task... Want to scan a photo? Got 2 hours to spare? That's how long it takes to scan and allow you to manipulate ONE 6" x 4" colour photo on an HP all in one USB device... so you see what l mean about slow... but this machine really takes the biscuit... And Dixons told my dear old Mum it was a top flight machine back in... err, must have been 1999 l think... l remember Amstrad machine using C60 cassettes for data storage that were faster beasts... unfortunately l was out of the country when she took it upon herself to wander into Dixons without telling a soul she had taken her credit card and was on a mission... Lack of FE or BSOD errors makes me think there's no burned out hardware... Could it have been like this from new? Does anyone know? Any replies/suggestions most welcome... Frank |
#2
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"Slim Win" wrote in
: Finally got the summons to do something to improve my aged mothers equally aged Compaq Pres' 5170 which runs so slowly it's unbelievable (recent OS renewal W98SE, nothing improved) and l was wondering what l'll find inside the case... Compaqs site specs list the 5170 at 10Gb HD, but this one is 6Gb from new, so l cannot believe anything l read on the Compaq site... but sys' info tells me it's a 64Mb ram machine with a 100Mhz bus, 4Mb graphics chip (on Mobo?) and a PIII processor... PIII means its 450MHz or more - which *should* be fairly nippy running Win98SE, even with only 64MB of memory. The disk size discrepancy may be down to the way drive sizes are described (binary vs decimal GB) plus the presence of a hidden setup/recovery partition. Or maybe Compaq chnaged the spec later in the product lifecycle - happens a lot. Can l scrap Compaqs software (would locating individual sound/modem/mobo drivers be impossible or not?) and reformat and reload the OS without the Compaq flavour? Suggest you run AIDA32 on the system to check what hardware is actually there. According to HP's site, Win98 drivers for a 5170 are available he http://www29.compaq.com/falco/sp_res...odel=1764&Os=8 If the hardware and driver availability match up, and assuming you have an installable copy of Windows not a recovery CD, I'd suggest you make a DOS boot diskette and use FDISK to delete the existing partition(s) and start afresh. Also... how do l get into CMOS setup on this machine? Tap the F10 key during bootup. My even older K6-350Mhz ****es all over the Presario... the Compaq sounds just like a Geiger Counter most of the time... the HD just clicks and clicks away like there had been a nuclear accident when the PC's asked to perform the simplest task... Maybe the hard drive is faulty - the clicking could be multiple retry and recalibrate head movements. Which might also account for the very slow speed of the system. Also check whether the controller is working in PIO mode - that'll slow things a lot. Do you have a spare hard disk to try, just to test the theory? Want to scan a photo? Got 2 hours to spare? That's how long it takes to scan and allow you to manipulate ONE 6" x 4" colour photo on an HP all in one USB device... so you see what l mean about slow... but this machine really takes the biscuit... Scanning can take up lots of memory - lots of swapping on a 64MB system - slow system, but not 2 hours worth. Maybe supports the malfunctioning hard disk theory... see above. .. .. .. Lack of FE or BSOD errors makes me think there's no burned out hardware... Not a very reliable diagnosis IME. Could it have been like this from new? Does anyone know? I doubt it, but... -- BRG === http://www.brgservices.co.uk/ |
#3
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"Slim Win" wrote in
: Finally got the summons to do something to improve my aged mothers equally aged Compaq Pres' 5170 which runs so slowly it's unbelievable (recent OS renewal W98SE, nothing improved) and l was wondering what l'll find inside the case... Compaqs site specs list the 5170 at 10Gb HD, but this one is 6Gb from new, so l cannot believe anything l read on the Compaq site... but sys' info tells me it's a 64Mb ram machine with a 100Mhz bus, 4Mb graphics chip (on Mobo?) and a PIII processor... Can l scrap Compaqs software (would locating individual sound/modem/mobo drivers be impossible or not?) and reformat and reload the OS without the Compaq flavour? Also... how do l get into CMOS setup on this machine? My even older K6-350Mhz ****es all over the Presario... the Compaq sounds just like a Geiger Counter most of the time... the HD just clicks and clicks away like there had been a nuclear accident when the PC's asked to perform the simplest task... Want to scan a photo? Got 2 hours to spare? That's how long it takes to scan and allow you to manipulate ONE 6" x 4" colour photo on an HP all in one USB device... so you see what l mean about slow... but this machine really takes the biscuit... And Dixons told my dear old Mum it was a top flight machine back in... err, must have been 1999 l think... l remember Amstrad machine using C60 cassettes for data storage that were faster beasts... unfortunately l was out of the country when she took it upon herself to wander into Dixons without telling a soul she had taken her credit card and was on a mission... Lack of FE or BSOD errors makes me think there's no burned out hardware... Could it have been like this from new? Does anyone know? Any replies/suggestions most welcome... Frank My 5000T has similar hardware (633 MHz, 64M RAM) and has none of the problems you describe. Scanning is a breeze. Run msconfig/startup and see what the machine is loading at bootup. Do a C/A/D and see how many processes are running. It sounds like the machine is running a continuous swap file, which will bring everything down to a crawl. I would want to know exactly why. It could be infected with a Trojan that is using the machine for most any kind of nefarious activity. You didn't mention if the machine is online or not. Does it have a firewall? Up to date anti-virus? No, the machine was not like that new. It should do the things you describe with no trouble at all. I got rid of the "Compaq flavour" on mine ages ago. No problems. That is only there because the Windows install disk is customized. Use any normal Win98 or ME disk and you won't have it any more. |
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