Save moms dino-desktop,"98" compaq pro

[mupton]

Hey ,This Is Mike (from Iowa on the river).
I am a newby here so dont be to critical ,,lol.I have a old desktop compaq deskpro win xp pro.service pack 2, v.2096 (build 2600)
processor a main Circuit Board b 267 megahertz Intel Pentium 11...32kilo primary mem.512 kilo secondary
not hyper-threaded Board:compaq 046ch Bus clock:66 Mtz
Bios:compaq 686T1 "98"drives c&d 3.23 Gig -(825 megs free) Maxtor drive healthy-CD ROM....floppy 3.4....(ntfs on drive 0),,
dimm1-32 mem,,,,,dimm2&64mb
i dont plan to go online just trying to figure what to do w/the Unit the unit could pass as new out of the box,,i guess she had It In the motor Home In the closet
Intel IDE Contoller
ATI 3D RAGE IIC AGP display adaptor
PCI_USB host
ESI1869 Control inter
Any ideas or upgrades that wont cost to much$$$$ and I have a lot of used goodies laying around video cards,2,3 HD one seagatew/3500 mpg copied back in the day FREE of classic rock and blues 1-Hit wonders,,,yada yada sound cards ,you know the drilll my old stuff I refuse to part with
i am leaning on dropping seagate 90Gig Hd/ music as a D drive,leaving the xp pro on the C with NERO 6 ,and openoffice on the primary 3.4 Maxtor-nd installing litescribe cd RW newer burner along with the origanal CD/ROM letting the floppp go and putting in a 4 port powered usb card ini(floppy) placeGlad to Be here I am not that savvy on the mother board and Bios but have some working knowledge on the structure MIKE.U on the mississippi

 

[djg9205]

You may want to replace your keyboard too, as it appears to be missing the period key. It would seem your space key is also faulty.

Seriously though, if you make your post a bit more organized, to the point, easy to read, and gramatically correct, you are more likely to get helpful replies.

 

[jack_attack]

Good god, that's an antique! In all seriousness though, your post is pretty hard to read, I don't exactly understand what you're trying to do. It's not going to do anything special, It's a Pentium II.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

It sounds like he's trying to upgrade a Pentium II that's running windows XP (somehow) and use it as a main computer.

That must be as fast as molasses. If you really want to use that thing for that, use something like puppy linux or xubuntu that are practically made to run on old stuff. I've seen computers like that that were slow running even windows 98 but none too shabby running this other stuff.

Is there some reason that you can't buy newer old stuff that wouldn't be nearly as bad? It's not like it would be all that much; but I wouldn't put any money at all into that thing. It would be a maze of old standards and whatnot.

 

[donpacific2k]

If I'm deciphering that correctly there's only 96MB of ram? XP must just crawl. I'm not even sure how much bumping the ram up to the max would help, although if you can get it for free or cheap that would be the first thing I'd do. I mean it's getting to the point where a $75 computer on craigslist is going to run circles around it.

Now that being said, I have a PII-400mhz with 384mb of ram and a Rage 128 pro running win98 that just flies with games and software *from that era* so if you're willing to downgrade your OS and use older software, you'll probably be a lot happier with the performance. Believe it or not at the time I think I only had 128mb of ram and used it a lot as a "digital VCR" (had to reencode overnight to divx to save the precious gigabytes though). Now I only use it occasionally for trips down memory lane to play old games that don't run on XP.

So yeah, my advice is get more ram (free or cheaply), and downgrade to 98 or something more appropriate to a machine from that era.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

Well for those comps on craigslist most of the time it's only worth that, but they try and charge way above that.

Heck, I've even got sitting here a 2 gigahertz P4 that I need to sell. I was handed it because 'it would be too much trouble to fix' and it turned out the fan on the CPU cooler died, I bet those aren't too much. (that and now it's missing an OS, did a dban pass cause I'm sure there were financial stuff on it)

 

[mupton]

You may want to replace your keyboard too, as it appears to be missing the period key. It would seem your space key is also faulty.

Seriously though, if you make your post a bit more organized, to the point, easy to read, and gramatically correct, you are more likely to get helpful replies.

Thank you for the heads up,,just tired these days. Mom Is old school,does not want to part with Dads Things he passed a year ago.MIKE

 

[mupton]

Good god, that's an antique! In all seriousness though, your post is pretty hard to read, I don't exactly understand what you're trying to do. It's not going to do anything special, It's a Pentium II.

Thank you. Mike

 

[mupton]

Best answer selected by mupton.

 

[mupton]

It sounds like he's trying to upgrade a Pentium II that's running windows XP (somehow) and use it as a main computer.

That must be as fast as molasses. If you really want to use that thing for that, use something like puppy linux or xubuntu that are practically made to run on old stuff. I've seen computers like that that were slow running even windows 98 but none too shabby running this other stuff.

Is there some reason that you can't buy newer old stuff that wouldn't be nearly as bad? It's not like it would be all that much; but I w
ouldn't put any money at all into that thing. It would be a maze of old standards and whatnot.

Hey ,This Is Mike. thanx for the advice ,I did dig up a old win "98"SE disc and did a fdisc and a clean Install.Had some problems with the VGA but ironed that out.My mom Is going to use It for some pic projects and her Antique/Re-sell buisiness.She Is real happy I was able to get the thing going again.I am leaning on dropping a old seagate 90 Gig HD,as a slave and leaving the OS on the 3.4 main .I was a little concerned on the configuration and what order to go from here.I have around 4500 old school classic songs that I have been organizing and filing for years.A lot of work back in the free days (Winamp.Lime),i would like to find a decent burner and a Media player for the old unit.Any Ideas or sugg. would be taken with much regards .thanks again and keep one finger on the ESC. MIKE

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

I'd put the OS on the 90 gig if you're that keen on using it. It should be a good bit faster than the old one. Media players are pretty much just preference. IDK how well windows 98 can burn DVD's, but it should do CD's fine. Any actual burner will do.

If it's about some kind of sentimental attachment to it, I'd personally gut it and add newer stuff. (if possible, it is with some Pentium III's like the ones I have.)

 

[mupton]

Thanks ,,
I might just drop that seagate, like you proposed.
I am new to the finer details .....but I think i know enough.A couple of concerns is The OS "98" is formatted on FAT 16 ,how you advise on the config on this project.and would you wipe the seagate clean??? It has some pretty good software I know I could save, If I needed to.on the seagate
Thanks again,for the help MIKE

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

If you have to change the filesystem type then you will have to wipe it clean. Though I didn't know about that FAT16 limit on the OS drive, that would probably limit the capabilities of the 90 gig drive. So whichever is probably fine.

 

[mupton]

you think If I was just to leave the Compaq as Is,, with the origanal condition now that it Is up&running ,,,,,dont fix If It Is not broke might apply?And count my blessing I was able to get this far,and move on to a more advanced project?
Many more units are coming available my mom runs a small resell and she has more leads on p.c 's& things then I can shake a stick at
thanks again Mike

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

Pretty much