Picked up a HP Pavilion from my cousin for free. He replaced it with a new Dell box. It's got a AMD K6 333 MHz processor, 160MB RAM, 8G HD. It's running Windows 98 right now.

I was thinking about formatting the hard drive and going with Windows XP on it and giving it to my Mom to use around the house for just basic accounting, internet access and general home use. No heavy applications or graphics intensive processing.

Would it be worth it to do the change? I know the min specs for XP are 300MHz and 128MB RAM. I can up the memory on this thing, but how well does XP perform at min processor spec? And considering the prices on entry level computers these days, would it just be cheaper to pick up a new one instead of doing the software and memory upgrades on this one?

 

Everytime we've reformatted a computer to work on a different operating system we've had trouble. Didn't matter if we had it done or did it ourselves. I'd rather just go out and buy a new tower or build it from scratch. These things are becoming to cheap to try and repair and update.

 

It's not fast enough for XP. She'll get tired of waiting for it to run and everything will take forever to load. Save your money. Unfortunately Win 98 is no longer being supported by Microsoft.

You can buy a nice barebones system from NewEgg.com.

Edwin

 

I agree with Blue.......these dang computers get outdated so dang fast these days it's hard to keep up with them.

By the time you get all the new software, take the time to install everything and attempt to make it work right......and then if you have problems and then have to take it to somebody........it'd be a lot easier to just purchase a new one and do it that way.

Those new Dells are so cheap to buy and they are actually somewhat decent for doing basic stuff. My mom has one and loves it.


~Nick

 

I installed Windows XP from scratch on a former 98 system and didn't encounter any real problems. But I had a little more to work with than you. This was a 500MHz Pentium III, and I doubled the RAM to 256MB and replaced the hard drive with a much larger one (80GB). So for less than $100, my friend has a "new" computer!

 

i built one for my little brother with about the same specs. it will run xp you just have to turn off all the flashy graphical stuff and run some good memory. a decent stick of 512mb memory is about 40-50 bux now. it can be done, it just wont be a speed demon of any sort.
james

 

not a chance with that memory. at idle, xp uses 256mb ram, sometimes a lot more. It will become a headache trying to run anything with the system, the old amd processor weren't that great anyway, but now they have outdone themselves. if it's just for viewing the internet and running things like word, keep windows 98 on it, you will see no difference between the two in running these apps. if not, i would look into getting a new system.

 

by the time you upgrade the memory, and put in a bigger processor, you'll still be slowed down by the bus spd and the IDE drives. It will be a disappointment IMHO