Win Xp: minimum requirements?

Hello,

What are the min requirements for running XP? My father in law has a
Win98 system and I'm wondering what hardware upgrades will be
necessary. I know that what M$ say are minimum requirements can be
optimistic. What would it need to run smoothly? TIA

On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 07:56:41 GMT, Sam wrote:

Hello,

What are the min requirements for running XP? My father in law has a
Win98 system and I'm wondering what hardware upgrades will be
necessary. I know that what M$ say are minimum requirements can be
optimistic. What would it need to run smoothly? TIA
Their mimimum RAM spec (for example), at 64MB, will allow the OS to
just about run, but if you want to run an applications, 4* this is a
reasonable 'mimimum'. (256MB). I fact even this is below the start of
the 'comfort' zone (512MB is probably the point where performance
begns to be reasonable).
You can run below their spec on processor 'speed' - some of the small
'low power' chips, will actually run XP, at clock rates like 100MHz,
suprisingly well, and can run with a 640*480 video, but other than
this, the rest of the specs are very conservative.
To make XP run 'smoothly', I'd say 512MB RAM, and at least 1GHz on the
processor.

Best Wishes

Sam wrote:
Hello,

What are the min requirements for running XP? My father in law has a
Win98 system and I'm wondering what hardware upgrades will be
necessary. I know that what M$ say are minimum requirements can be
optimistic. What would it need to run smoothly? TIA

It says 128MB here. In a system I put together for someone, intended
for web surfing and email, I used 512MB, and that was good enough
to have a couple programs open at the same time. If you
intend on doing Photoshop, then naturally more would be
advisable. Same with 3D gaming, and for that I might want 1GB
minimum.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...n/sysreqs.mspx

For processor speed, you should already have some idea how things
will work, with your Win98 experiences. If things were slow
before, they'll remain so under WinXP.

What is the current motherboard, processor type and speed, RAM
type and speed ? What do you have for a video card ? What
are the intended applications ?

Paul

On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:39:28 -0400, Paul wrote:

It says 128MB here. In a system I put together for someone, intended
for web surfing and email, I used 512MB, and that was good enough
to have a couple programs open at the same time. If you
intend on doing Photoshop, then naturally more would be
advisable. Same with 3D gaming, and for that I might want 1GB
minimum.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...n/sysreqs.mspx

For processor speed, you should already have some idea how things
will work, with your Win98 experiences. If things were slow
before, they'll remain so under WinXP.

What is the current motherboard, processor type and speed, RAM
type and speed ? What do you have for a video card ? What
are the intended applications ?


Hello,

It isn't slow with Win98, it's just that Win98 isn't supported any
more so it's difficult to find software.

It's an old Asus board with a 700MHz Celeron and 128mb ram. It's the
father in law's computer and he is only a light user, so like the
system you described, only needed for the odd word processing,
internet surfing, email, etc. Probably no need to multitask two
windows at once.

I think a Pentium 3 has more onboard cache than a Celeron so perhaps I
could swap the cpu but I think increasing the ram would have the best
performance increase.

I suppose technically I should have posted in an Asus group but all my
mobos are Gigabyte so this is where I have always looked for help

Thanks.

Sam wrote:
On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:39:28 -0400, Paul wrote:

It says 128MB here. In a system I put together for someone, intended
for web surfing and email, I used 512MB, and that was good enough
to have a couple programs open at the same time. If you
intend on doing Photoshop, then naturally more would be
advisable. Same with 3D gaming, and for that I might want 1GB
minimum.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...n/sysreqs.mspx

For processor speed, you should already have some idea how things
will work, with your Win98 experiences. If things were slow
before, they'll remain so under WinXP.

What is the current motherboard, processor type and speed, RAM
type and speed ? What do you have for a video card ? What
are the intended applications ?


Hello,

It isn't slow with Win98, it's just that Win98 isn't supported any
more so it's difficult to find software.

It's an old Asus board with a 700MHz Celeron and 128mb ram. It's the
father in law's computer and he is only a light user, so like the
system you described, only needed for the odd word processing,
internet surfing, email, etc. Probably no need to multitask two
windows at once.

I think a Pentium 3 has more onboard cache than a Celeron so perhaps I
could swap the cpu but I think increasing the ram would have the best
performance increase.

I suppose technically I should have posted in an Asus group but all my
mobos are Gigabyte so this is where I have always looked for help

Thanks.

Depending on what the motherboard is (440BX based ?), be careful about
what RAM you buy. I've used some 256MB modules from Crucial. My Asus
board has a total of 4 slots, so I bought 4 of them.

I discovered a bug in my motherboard, where I had video related freezes,
when more than two of those sticks were installed. I concluded it was
a hardware problem, when both Win98 and Linux exhibited the exact same
behavior. I could get a video related freeze with virtually no desktop
activity. The problem went away, as soon as I dropped down to two sticks.

So if you plan to upgrade, I would buy exactly 2 sticks of 256MB each.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=P2B-S

I think the kind I bought, were these - $33 a piece.

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartsp...2CF4A6A5CA7304

One reason for buying them at Crucial, is they know about the "high density
memory" issue for 440BX. That 256MB stick has 16 chips on it, and is low
density. If you look elsewhere for the RAM, you could get a stick with
8 chips on it - that is the so-called high density RAM, and would only
be half-detected in a 440BX motherboard.

For other chipsets, there are likely to be fewer restrictions, and more
freedom in selecting RAM. For example, VIA chipsets are happy with more
RAM options, than Intel chipsets of that era.

The maximum processor you can buy, in a slot form factor, would be a
1.4GHz Tualatin. They were made in FSB100 and FSB133 versions, although
the FSB133 version might have been considered a "server" part. Those
processors would be S370 parts, and you need a slocket to fit them to an
older board. So there are a bunch of different options, that depend
on the details of the board. But I'd just start with the RAM, and see
how it goes with that upgrade first.

Paul

I put together a machine with a 1 GHz Celeron and 448 MB RAM for a friend.

Provided you turn off the default settings and use classic explorer view,
and set it for best performance it should run quite OK.

I would also take the trouble to turn off thumbnail views, or if using
detail views in folders with media, make sure the default view doesn't have
the "dimension", or "duration" column. these columns can take a while to
populate if there are many files.

"Barry Watzman" wrote in message
...
Bump the RAM up to the max the motherboard will support or 512MB and you
will be fine. Even 256MB of ram would be serviceable.

Sam wrote:
On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:39:28 -0400, Paul wrote:

It says 128MB here. In a system I put together for someone, intended
for web surfing and email, I used 512MB, and that was good enough
to have a couple programs open at the same time. If you
intend on doing Photoshop, then naturally more would be
advisable. Same with 3D gaming, and for that I might want 1GB
minimum.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...n/sysreqs.mspx

For processor speed, you should already have some idea how things
will work, with your Win98 experiences. If things were slow
before, they'll remain so under WinXP.

What is the current motherboard, processor type and speed, RAM
type and speed ? What do you have for a video card ? What
are the intended applications ?


Hello,

It isn't slow with Win98, it's just that Win98 isn't supported any
more so it's difficult to find software.

It's an old Asus board with a 700MHz Celeron and 128mb ram. It's the
father in law's computer and he is only a light user, so like the
system you described, only needed for the odd word processing,
internet surfing, email, etc. Probably no need to multitask two
windows at once.

I think a Pentium 3 has more onboard cache than a Celeron so perhaps I
could swap the cpu but I think increasing the ram would have the best
performance increase.

I suppose technically I should have posted in an Asus group but all my
mobos are Gigabyte so this is where I have always looked for help

Thanks.

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:12:27 +0800, "SumGuy" wrote:

I put together a machine with a 1 GHz Celeron and 448 MB RAM for a friend.

Provided you turn off the default settings and use classic explorer view,
and set it for best performance it should run quite OK.


Thanks everyone for your replies. The mobo is so old I can't buy new
parts for it, so I'm off to ebay to get some second hand parts which
should make the pc ok for light use for another couple of years.