The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Oman7,
Decently run? On 128MB of ram? You have very low expectations! I see people with only a single stick of 128MB ram all the time, and XP runs like it's wading in Fudge! Put 2x512MB in it and it moves data a whole lot faster in Dual channel! Even if it's only 533 memory! It's the cheapest way I know, to improve performance!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

LOL DDP! I had a Compaq for a short while that had 64Mb. It also ran XP! I can't believe my buddy loaded XP on it. THAT was like wading in fudge. My sisters computer had 128Mb til it met me LOL! I gave them 1Gb, and now there VERY happy. 1Gb is very good for XP. Depending on what a person is doing of course...
I simply meant that 128Mb is bearable, if your only browsing the web, or creating text documents. Open too many windows and it might slow down though LOL!

 

ddp,
True, but a lot of those old P3s couldn't handle more than 512 anyway. besides you need (read: have to have), 128MB in order to connect through a lan to begin with! Just recently I installed Xp-Pro on two P-II 450MHz computers with 2x256 133MHz Ram. I've even installed it on a Pentium 200 with 2x128 80ns dimms. It runs, but it takes it's sweet time about it! LOL!!

As far as the C2D being P4s, they are derived from the P-III Coppermine architecture, not netburst technology!

Russ

 

ddp,
You must be a masochist trying to run vista on anything, let alone an old Dell P4 Laptop! I have Cingular, which is now AT&T. You have to have 128MB of ram or the Broadband will not work! Pops up a message telling you so! Even Win 2000 requires that much memory to work! You can connect with Dial-Up, but not broadband. Southwestern Bell is the same! I had them before I moved here! Same limit!

Russ

 

That could explain an issue I was having with that compaq...

 

Agreed 100% on this. XP does not run at all well on 128MB of RAM.

ddp: I've never owned a P4 chip, but I've used plenty. granted, most were rather starved of RAM but not all, and they're just slow, unresponsive and annoying to work with. The first Intel chips I had after my Athlon XP were a Core 2 Duo (which has absolutely nothing in common with a P4), then a Core 2 Quad, and in my work machine, a Pentium Dual core, which is Core 2 based, unlike the Pentium D which was P4 based.

In general the 'minimum' requirement is 256MB for XP, 512MB for Win7 and 1GB for Vista.
The 'actually useable' requirement is 512MB for XP, 1GB for Win7 and 2GB for Vista.
The 'actually runs well' requirement is 1GB for XP, 2GB for Win7 and 4GB for Vista.

 

Yep the RAM requirements you outlined are about right Sam. Also mind that the 32-bit versions use a lot less RAM as well.

 

128Mb runs fine on XP. That is if you have as much patience as I have ;P

 

Estuansis,
I had a very nice, higher end Acer laptop a while back, which I sold to a member here at AD, that had Vista Home Premium on it. It came with 2x512 of memory. It's performance suffered so badly from the lack of Ram that I bought 2x1024 to replace the original memory. I just couldn't in good conscience, sell it to someone with it running that slow. The extra GB of Ram made all the difference in the world, performance wise!

Russ

 

It's time to clean the arctic freezer 7 pro and I'm wondering if I need to reapply the thermal paste before putting it back on? The cooler hasn't been removed since it was first put on 2.5 years ago and although most people say the paste doesn't have to be reapplied every time the cooler is taken on/off but it's age bothers me.

TIA

 

If it's the MX-2 one, you should be fine.

 

Red_Maw,
As a general rule of thumb, it's always best to re-apply new thermal compound. It's not worth having to do it again if you don't have to!

BTW, a good way to clean the cooler is in warm soapy dishwater. That's how I do mine! Be sure to clean off the old compound with Alcohol first!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Thanks sam and Russ. Think I'll use the my current stuff for now and see how it goes since I'm out of TIM right now. Probably will re-apply when I do my next build (hopefully this summer).

 

I had an interesting experience about 4 AM this morning. My XP-Pro would not shut down! I tried it a number of times and it would not do anything. If you tried to open anything but the start menu, it would tell you the computer can't do it because it was shutting down???. If you tried to open a program, it gave an error message saying the same thing! Anyone ever heard of that one? I was figuring that this AM it probably wasn't going to fire up when I turned it on, but it seems to be running fine! I can't find any Trojans, Malware or viruses, so I'm stumped. The computer seems to be running fine???

Puzzled,
Russ

 

Do you have auto updates turned off? My windows 7 updater is on. In fact It woke me up extremely early to the welcome screen. Once logged on it told me it applied new updates. Guess I'll have to start turning the stereo volume down before bed!

 

Thanks Creaky and Oman7!

It's just so strange that I've been using XP-Pro since it came out and this is the first time it wouldn't shut down! I do use Automatic Updates, but it doesn't download anything unless I let it. I've found that leaving them turned off can cause more problems than the way I do it! M$ nackers some of my M$ software if I don't do certain upgrades. It says it has disabled things for my own protection!

Thanks again guys,
Russ