Best OS for an older core 2 duo system

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Chris_961

Commendable
Oct 29, 2016
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Hello

I have a family member who has asked me to fix up his old computer

It is an old hp a6010n

Before you comment, suggesting that money would be better spent on buying something new(er). I'm already aware of this, and I have told him this. I'm performing this small upgrade as a stop gap solution.

I bought him an SSD (crucial BX 300) and some RAM (Kingston 533mhz, CL4, 2x1 GB DDR2).

However, due to the low amount of ram (3 GB after the upgrade) and very old core 2 duo (e4300 1.86 GHZ),

I'm unsure about which version of Windows I should install and should I go for 32 bit or 64 bit copy?

What version of Windows would be the snappiest? And allow him to do day to day computing tasks (watching YouTube, Netflix, word processing, browsing a lot of modern websites)
 
Solution
BFG-9000
CPU with 1333FSB is a no-go with 533MHz DDR2. Despite Core 2 not actually even theoretically being able to use that much bandwidth (which is why going single-channel only drops performance by 6%), Intel saw fit to not allow the memory to run slower than the FSB, unlike P4. So 667MHz memory would be required.

Had one of those Dells for a day to work on recently (it was a friend's), and Windows 10 worked great on it despite the 2.75GB of usable RAM (its i945 chipset was unable to REMAP above 4GB so even though it had 4GB installed, it was unable to access much of it). The owner was honestly not going to use such a slow dual-core machine for more than 1 or 2 things at once anyway, so ~3GB was fine. It had a E6420 in it and I didn't...
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@Bob125484

I was considering buying one of those core 2 duo's for this system.

Do you think it will allow windows to run a little bit better? And will it allow the SSD I'm installing to work a little faster? (I already know about the data 2 bandwidth limitation)

Finally will it allow for better video playback (on YouTube, Netflix ect.) And will it be able to keep up with modern websites?

If it will enhance his experience using his computer, I will postpone his upgrade for a bit and buy one of them.
 
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Those 2 CPU will run 50% faster then e4300 but overall system will be less. However, $5 for that big jump is well worth it. Faster CPU will work even better with SSD. You should not having problem with youtube, Netflix or web surfing.

I still use Dell with upgrade CPU E6750, 3 gig memory, and win 7 64 bit. for internet and youtube. I used to have Netflix but not now.
 
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CPU with 1333FSB is a no-go with 533MHz DDR2. Despite Core 2 not actually even theoretically being able to use that much bandwidth (which is why going single-channel only drops performance by 6%), Intel saw fit to not allow the memory to run slower than the FSB, unlike P4. So 667MHz memory would be required.

Had one of those Dells for a day to work on recently (it was a friend's), and Windows 10 worked great on it despite the 2.75GB of usable RAM (its i945 chipset was unable to REMAP above 4GB so even though it had 4GB installed, it was unable to access much of it). The owner was honestly not going to use such a slow dual-core machine for more than 1 or 2 things at once anyway, so ~3GB was fine. It had a E6420 in it and I didn't have time to go get a $5 CPU so I BSEL padmodded it to 1333FSB to run at 2.67GHz, so I can tell you such a CPU speed is sufficient to check emails and even watch Youtube in 2017.

The 2.67GHz E6700 is the fastest 1066FSB that would work with that RAM. The jump from 200 to 266 is probably too large for that very early Core 2 E4300 to run at 2.4GHz without additional voltage.
 
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Solution
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Default Windows 10 drivers work fine for everything but the IGP, which is GMA 950 (that has full Aero support in Windows 7, and installs from WindowsUpdate), so nothing is needed from HP. The chipset of the ASUS P5LP-LE motherboard is Intel 945G/ICH7 so there's no nVidia anywhere in it.

Unlike the Lithium version of that board that I saw (which came with an Intel 82562GT 10/100 Fast Ethernet PHY onboard), OP's Leonite version only lists an unspecified 10BT adapter so it may not have Win 10 drivers for that.

 
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