xp AND cpu
- Thread starter Mantra
- Start date
your PC is good enough. Major sucking of power in XP is RAM. Obviously the faster your PC the better, but minimum RAM needed for it is 256MB.
Good luck
Good luck
dx
1
Indeed Shadoe...WinXP is a RAM hog! Quite a few tests out there, have led to the conclusion that 256mb of system RAM is not enough for M$ latest OS.
For example, my mother has a PIII 500mhz laptop and WinXP. When she was running 256mb PC 133 RAM, she was running a little slow. When I upgraded her to 512mb RAM, she is sailing through XP with little artifacts or slowness (with all the XP GUI features on). But of course it's no P4 3Ghz, but more RAM is an excellent way to boost XP performance.
For example, my mother has a PIII 500mhz laptop and WinXP. When she was running 256mb PC 133 RAM, she was running a little slow. When I upgraded her to 512mb RAM, she is sailing through XP with little artifacts or slowness (with all the XP GUI features on). But of course it's no P4 3Ghz, but more RAM is an excellent way to boost XP performance.
I've started using NT4 as my first Win os then tried 2000 Pro and had problems and then XP Pro. I finally learned my Win2K poblem was not related to the os but to a failing hd. I have twin Celerons running at 366MHz although I did run it for a long time at 550MHz but the difference is not that big and my cpus have been running hotter and hotter. I tried cleaning and removing the thermal paste for some Arctic Silver 2. I have a full tower with 2 blowholes with 115v blowers but it did not change much. It may be imputed to my running Seti@Home 24 hrs a day for over a year but had to stop with the higher summer temp. I have 512MB of RAM and the performance is quite acceptable. Of course it depends on your application mix and what speed you are used to. I can remember when I upgraded my AT286-10 for a 486DX50 with 8MB of RAM and found it blindingly fast! The same when I upgraded my 2400bps modem for the 12000. For the past three years I've been on cable and am used to it...
I'm now waiting to see what the AMD Bartons and Clawhammers are going to be like and choose from there. It will probably be early Summer before my mind is set on the best bang for the buck...
--
Gilbert
I'm now waiting to see what the AMD Bartons and Clawhammers are going to be like and choose from there. It will probably be early Summer before my mind is set on the best bang for the buck...
--
Gilbert
hmmmm I agree with some points & disagree with others.
My winXP machine boots up in about 40seconds & shuts down in under 10seconds. You have to disable nvidia help driver & some other things that will help boost the shutdown.
-win98SE is good, but tends to crash often enough that it encourages you to go for win2K or winXP.
-win2K is solid and no real eye-candy so it is efficient.
-winXP is win2K on a sugar rush of eye-candy. Ofcourse once you get rid of all that useless junk it becomes more like the win2K OS which is what people tend to prefer.
winME isn't even worth talking about (bugs for life), but one thing to note is that win2K has more Hardware Problems (or is more sensitive to them). Once you iron those out though you are smooth sailing.
I guess all depends on a matter of taste (with any OS that is buggy you can iron things out *just takes time*) & how much time you put into things. Once you tend to get used to something you tend to get loyal.
For myself, if you get everything to work the way you like it, just stick with it. That is the main function of our PCs right? To do what we want on it (the rest is just for show).
My winXP machine boots up in about 40seconds & shuts down in under 10seconds. You have to disable nvidia help driver & some other things that will help boost the shutdown.
-win98SE is good, but tends to crash often enough that it encourages you to go for win2K or winXP.
-win2K is solid and no real eye-candy so it is efficient.
-winXP is win2K on a sugar rush of eye-candy. Ofcourse once you get rid of all that useless junk it becomes more like the win2K OS which is what people tend to prefer.
winME isn't even worth talking about (bugs for life), but one thing to note is that win2K has more Hardware Problems (or is more sensitive to them). Once you iron those out though you are smooth sailing.
I guess all depends on a matter of taste (with any OS that is buggy you can iron things out *just takes time*) & how much time you put into things. Once you tend to get used to something you tend to get loyal.
For myself, if you get everything to work the way you like it, just stick with it. That is the main function of our PCs right? To do what we want on it (the rest is just for show).
My 2 pence.
I think alot of it comes down to what you tend to do on them.
Install/remove loads of progs, forever tweaking the bios, overclocking the mem/cpu/graphics (all the fun things
)
Sometimes it goes wrong.
win95-poor
win98se-ok (about 3 big time f--kups, requiring reformat) one as a result of a power cut and one because someone who didn`t know better turned the power off!
Win2000 never used
Me never used
Xp pro-so far not a prob(except for printer installation and Nero and clone4 probs)
I use NT at work- and who ever has probs with that?
I think alot of it comes down to what you tend to do on them.
Install/remove loads of progs, forever tweaking the bios, overclocking the mem/cpu/graphics (all the fun things
)Sometimes it goes wrong.
win95-poor
win98se-ok (about 3 big time f--kups, requiring reformat) one as a result of a power cut and one because someone who didn`t know better turned the power off!
Win2000 never used
Me never used
Xp pro-so far not a prob(except for printer installation and Nero and clone4 probs)
I use NT at work- and who ever has probs with that?