ok ok ok xp to 98 ...

hello everyone I got a computer from a garage sale that had windows me on it .. it has 900mhz and i upgraded it to 256 ram, i installed windows xp on it and it is really slow. so i went to another garage sale and found a brand new never opened box of win 98.(for 5 bucks) :}
so i figured i would throw 98 on there to make it run fast .. but im not too sure about fu$#in with partitions and stuff like that. im not sure if my comp has one lol .. im not by it atm. {work}does win xp create one when u upgrade? could someone give me some easy instructions on how to get the pc down to 98. oh yeah .. it has xp pro as well .. dont know if thatll make a diff.
thanks
mako

 

Just boot from the Win98 disc, use the fdisk command, wipe the drive completely, and install. You can make as many partitions as you want, but I'm guessing all you'll need on that old machine is one.

 

Ok, for speed issues look at your hdd speed first, it'll be 5400rpm instead of 7200,change to a faster hdd will solve loading issues as well as some application launching issues however read below.

256 for xp is ok so long as you don't add too much more software,you'll notice it gets slower the more programs that startup the more you add,ideally you should have 1 GB with a minimum of 512,as to run xp effectivly quick it requires 512 the other 512 is for added software.

The only other things you can do is defrag,registry clean & if you have enough ram cache xp to ram,cnet & techrepublic have articles on speeding up xp but you'll need a faster hdd & more ram to do it

 

bla bla.. a 900mhz cpu will be on a 100mhz FSB.. a faster HDD will not speed up loading one bit, it may even slow it down as the data stream overloads the bus. More likely to be the drive is set in PIO mode..

Not all the p3 machines work well with XP.. this one may not have an L2 cache (or it may be non-working). 256 is not anywhere near enough for XP.. you need a minimum of 380, and then depending on the bus/cpu it may well still be slow. I had a 966 machine with a whole gig of ram that ran xp more slowly than a 450mhz one with only 380.. go figure..

These machines were made for ME/2000. What's the betting the drive is formatted FAT32? and quick boot isn't enabled. It is also very possible the drive physical geometry is set wrong.. These machines find their way to boot sales for a reason.. usually because they won't run XP because of hardware limitations or problems. Just because it is a pc doesn't mean it will run everything... 2000 is a viable OS on NTFS.

Be warned.. people will try to get you to buy expensive hardware to get an old heap running modern (xp is obsolete) windows bloatware.. By the time you start using 60% of your cpu cycles on the windows desktop and antivirus and pointless windows TSR programs there isn't much left for programs you want to do things with... don't waste your money!
Install linux in some form and use it as a p2p and browser machine, and possibly a multimedia streaming server. You will be pleasantly surprised how well it will run things other than windowsXP

 

Varnell made a good point about running linux instead of windows,it would suit that machine quite well i would thnk,it'd just be a matter of finding a distro that does'nt give resolution issues & the usual black screen.

 

thank you for your replies. as to the specs on the hdd .. i dont have it with me (im at work) but ive seen it before its a 28gb 5200 rpm hdd. linux sounds good .. but where do i get it? i think im gonna get 98 on there at least till i figure out linux more. so .. if i boot up the comp with the 98 disk in the cd drive .. i can boot off of the disk. then there is an option to format the hdd right? .. would that do it . or will it tell me that window xp is a newer version and will not allow me to go back .. seen that prob once before when i tried to go from windows me to 98.. i dinint know what else to do rather than switch to xp ... cause win me crashed .. a lot. i will try to call my wife this morning and see the specs so i can post them for ya'll. im sure all info would help in finding the appropriate os for my machine.
thanks everyone
mako

 

ok i called my wife and she gave me the system number on the back of the pc .. it is a hp pavilion. sys # on the back is t2900a . hope that helps a little .. hasent helped me none on the web .. cant seem to find it by the system number .. they all want model numbers ..
ill call her later for more info when shes more awake.
thanks
mako

 

model numbers if my hp's are anything to go by are on the front panel,tho that looks like an hp model number..lol..,you can boot off the 98 disk but other than that i can't help as i've never had it,you should be able to format the drive with it or just download a free partitioning tool & delete the partitions from the live cd that you'll be able to make with the image or .exe,there is another option why not dual boot,ideally you want the early system first but you can put 98 after xp ,i found this how to below
http://au.geocities.com/inquisitiveb/98_after_XP.htm



Linux for the most part is free,there's many distro's (distrubutions) available,ubuntu would be a good place to start,the latest stable distro is 7.10 which can be got here http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download , or if your feeling brave you could try the upgrade version which s BETA 8.04 v6 http://www.ubuntu.com/testing,i'm using 8.04 v 5 & it seems ok,for low memory systems below 384MB use the alternate version

EDIT: You can dual boot linux too if you wish, hell why not have xp,98 & linux on the one hdd..lol..

 

ok finally .. i got the model number
it is 6746c .

 

can i ask u one thing ? i followed the link you gave me to the motherboard specs and .. it says it has 3 pci slots 2 of which r used on my machine but. could the 3rd be used to up graphics? and if so . what kind of card would i need?

 

thanks a million!!!
i got the updated bios i needed to up my system memory to 512.
now i think ill add on a better graphics card along with it and see if it runs the xp i have any better before switching.