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Slow XP?



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 2nd 18, 05:39 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
KenK
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 444
Default Slow XP?


I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did not
include the XP install disk.

This system is extremely slow. I DLed and printed several web sites'
suggestions to speed up XP with no results. I'm thinking about installing
Ubuntu Linux as dual-boot as I can't reinstall XP.

To determine whether the problem is the XP OS or the hardware I'd like
any suggestions on something I can run on it as a test to see if it
operates at a normal speed. If so, it's XP, if not I can abandon the
computer; it's the hardware and I have no idea how to fix it - probably
not worth the expense and time for this very old computer.

I ran an equally old copy of Spinrite to see if the HD was ok and as I
recall it took several days to cycle. I don't recall how long it usually
takes but I suspect that was VERY slow, indicating a hardware problem.

TIA

--
I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook.






Ads
  #2  
Old January 2nd 18, 06:37 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Ken[_8_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 166
Default Slow XP?

KenK wrote:
I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did not
include the XP install disk.

This system is extremely slow. I DLed and printed several web sites'
suggestions to speed up XP with no results. I'm thinking about installing
Ubuntu Linux as dual-boot as I can't reinstall XP.

To determine whether the problem is the XP OS or the hardware I'd like
any suggestions on something I can run on it as a test to see if it
operates at a normal speed. If so, it's XP, if not I can abandon the
computer; it's the hardware and I have no idea how to fix it - probably
not worth the expense and time for this very old computer.

I ran an equally old copy of Spinrite to see if the HD was ok and as I
recall it took several days to cycle. I don't recall how long it usually
takes but I suspect that was VERY slow, indicating a hardware problem.

TIA

https://www.cnet.com/products/compaq...b-10-gb/specs/

If your computer matches the specs above, no wonder it is slow. About
the only thing I can think of that MIGHT help, is more RAM and a larger
HD. Other than that, it may not be worth messing with.
  #3  
Old January 2nd 18, 06:50 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Slow XP?

KenK wrote:
I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did not
include the XP install disk.

This system is extremely slow. I DLed and printed several web sites'
suggestions to speed up XP with no results. I'm thinking about installing
Ubuntu Linux as dual-boot as I can't reinstall XP.

To determine whether the problem is the XP OS or the hardware I'd like
any suggestions on something I can run on it as a test to see if it
operates at a normal speed. If so, it's XP, if not I can abandon the
computer; it's the hardware and I have no idea how to fix it - probably
not worth the expense and time for this very old computer.

I ran an equally old copy of Spinrite to see if the HD was ok and as I
recall it took several days to cycle. I don't recall how long it usually
takes but I suspect that was VERY slow, indicating a hardware problem.

TIA


Here's a simple place to start.

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

Download that, install it, then make sure the correct disk drive
you want to check is selected in the menu. Then click the
"benchmark" button.

Is the graph a nice curve, like the promotional picture
on the HDTune web site ? The following is a good hard
disk drive (blue line).

http://www.hdtune.com/images/screenshot.png

The yellow dots are seek time, and a bad drive will have
"lots of dots floating way high, away from the main
body of yellow dots". A few yellow dots outside the main
pack, isn't all that bad, but lots of them is a bad sign.

There should be a two-to-one ratio between the rate seen
at the outer edge of the platter, versus the transfer
speed near the hub of the platter. The blue line in the
example screenshot, starts at 170 and ends at 85 or so.

There is such a thing as a short-stroked drive (I own one),
but they're not that common, and they have a different
ratio between outside and inside diameters.

If the graph is a flat line at 4-5MB/sec, you're stuck
in "PIO Mode". This happens when the disk is sick and
throwing errors. Windows responds by attempting to reduce
the cable transfer rate, in an attempt to reduce the
error rate. There is a procedure for correcting PIO Mode
and returning to DMA mode. If the hardware problem is
still present, the interface will end up in PIO Mode
again, within a day or two. While the correction procedure
can permanently fix a transient problem, when a drive
is sick it will soon return to the "bad setting". This
condition is the one that makes the OS slow.

*******

Of secondary interest in HDTune, is the Health tab.

Some brands of drive, no matter how new and shiny the
drive is, the Health display shows two yellow marks. You
should ignore those yellow marks. Adherence to S.M.A.R.T
standard isn't all that good, and there is a difference
between the HDTune analysis and what the disk drive
is doing.

The main entry to worry about in Health is "Reallocated Sectors".
There are plenty of interesting other ones, but that's
what I use as the simplest health indicator.

The "Benchmark" curve is *the* most sensitive test. You
can tell a lot from the curve shape. The "Health" tab
is also important, for example, if the Reallocated
indicates you're running out of spares. However,
I've had pretty sick hard drives, where the Reallocated
data column still read "zero", so Health is not my
only choice when I use HDTune. I rely on the read
benchmark as an early indicator of trouble.

Paul
  #4  
Old January 2nd 18, 09:39 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Stef
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 364
Default Slow XP?

On 2/1/2018 08:39, KenK wrote:


I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did not
include the XP install disk.

This system is extremely slow. I DLed and printed several web sites'
suggestions to speed up XP with no results. I'm thinking about installing
Ubuntu Linux as dual-boot as I can't reinstall XP.

To determine whether the problem is the XP OS or the hardware I'd like
any suggestions on something I can run on it as a test to see if it
operates at a normal speed. If so, it's XP, if not I can abandon the
computer; it's the hardware and I have no idea how to fix it - probably
not worth the expense and time for this very old computer.

I ran an equally old copy of Spinrite to see if the HD was ok and as I
recall it took several days to cycle. I don't recall how long it usually
takes but I suspect that was VERY slow, indicating a hardware problem.


I'm assuming this an early 2000 model Presario that originally came with
XP.

Sounds like RAM is being used up and the system is using Virtual
Memory. Also, run Task Manager to see if anything is hogging the CPU.
Check RAM/Virtual Memory usage at the same time.

I had a similar issue trying to restask an old system (Windows 95
originally) for a friend for web browsing, email and word processing.
Lack of sufficient RAM was the problem. IIRC it only had 64MB. I max'd
it out to 512MB (used sticks off eBay -- $25 total) and gave them a
larger, but used hard drive I had laying around (the original one
had died), and it worked fine.

I wouldn't go with Ubuntu on a system that old. Ubuntu is designed to
run on a modern system. Look for a Linux distro designed specifically
for old systems. Not all are. VectorLinux comes to mind. Use a
lightweight desktop like LXDE or XFCE, or just a window manager.

http://distrowatch.org/ lists and has evaluations for just about all the
300+ Linux distributions.

Good Luck

Stef
  #5  
Old January 2nd 18, 09:48 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 627
Default Slow XP?

On Tue, 2 Jan 2018 11:37:49 -0600, Ken wrote:

KenK wrote:
I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did not
include the XP install disk.

This system is extremely slow. I DLed and printed several web sites'
suggestions to speed up XP with no results. I'm thinking about installing
Ubuntu Linux as dual-boot as I can't reinstall XP.

To determine whether the problem is the XP OS or the hardware I'd like
any suggestions on something I can run on it as a test to see if it
operates at a normal speed. If so, it's XP, if not I can abandon the
computer; it's the hardware and I have no idea how to fix it - probably
not worth the expense and time for this very old computer.

I ran an equally old copy of Spinrite to see if the HD was ok and as I
recall it took several days to cycle. I don't recall how long it usually
takes but I suspect that was VERY slow, indicating a hardware problem.

TIA

https://www.cnet.com/products/compaq...b-10-gb/specs/

If your computer matches the specs above, no wonder it is slow. About
the only thing I can think of that MIGHT help, is more RAM and a larger
HD. Other than that, it may not be worth messing with.


I agree, that is a W/98 machine someone loaded XP on.
I bet it moves right along with W/98.
  #6  
Old January 2nd 18, 10:10 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Slow XP?

Ken wrote:
KenK wrote:
I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did not
include the XP install disk.

This system is extremely slow. I DLed and printed several web sites'
suggestions to speed up XP with no results. I'm thinking about installing
Ubuntu Linux as dual-boot as I can't reinstall XP.

To determine whether the problem is the XP OS or the hardware I'd like
any suggestions on something I can run on it as a test to see if it
operates at a normal speed. If so, it's XP, if not I can abandon the
computer; it's the hardware and I have no idea how to fix it - probably
not worth the expense and time for this very old computer.

I ran an equally old copy of Spinrite to see if the HD was ok and as I
recall it took several days to cycle. I don't recall how long it usually
takes but I suspect that was VERY slow, indicating a hardware problem.

TIA

https://www.cnet.com/products/compaq...b-10-gb/specs/


If your computer matches the specs above, no wonder it is slow. About
the only thing I can think of that MIGHT help, is more RAM and a larger
HD. Other than that, it may not be worth messing with.


WIMs BIOS shows there were several different models in the 5000 series,
so knowing the "sub-model", like 5000T or 5321 would help. There
should be a label or a serial number of some sort on it, with
more information as to the exact model. Look for a sticker or a plate
on the back.

https://www.wimsbios.com/biosupdates/compaq.jsp

It's worth upgrading the RAM... if you have the RAM sitting around.
I found some of the RAM from a couple of machines could be
shared here, so if I needed to run a "max RAM" test, I could
grab sticks out of one, to put into another.

If you have 512MB installed, that allows around three programs
to be open at once. It's a little tight that way, but usable.

If you drop down to smaller amounts, yes, that'll make it slower.

The machine had different motherboards, depending on that model
number, and knowing more about that, tells you what will fit
and so on.

If you adamantly refuse to open the case (and some old cases had
pretty cranky packaging so I wouldn't blame you), you can try
disabling "full screen graphics" in the BIOS when the machine
starts, and have it show text. At one time, there would be
a "BIOS string". Pushing the Pause/Break key just after the
BIOS string appears, but before the machine "takes off and boots",
you would write down that string and use it as additional evidence.

When you see this, the "splash screen", this is the option you
want to turn off, to see the text that is underneath.

https://support.hp.com/doc-images/74/c00109516.jpg

Some of the Compaqs, they seemed to have some scheme where
a portion of the BIOS was on the hard drive, rather than in
Flash on the motherboard. Like, take a look at the corny
looking screen shots here. I can't tell what's hiding under
this one.

https://www.computerforum.com/thread...series.217435/

It might or might not have a setup screen like this.

https://support.hp.com/doc-images/139/c00216897.jpg

*******

One problem with a machine that vintage is:

1) Won't boot from a USB stick.

2) Will boot a CD-R. Won't read a CDRW (laser not strong enough).

And if you replace the optical drive with a DVD drive,
the BIOS doesn't actually know how to boot from a DVD.
I couldn't believe it, when I took some old stock I had here,
a spare motherboard that had never been used, and it wouldn't
even blink the light on the IDE DVD drive I gave it. To run
Linux, I had to install the target OS while the hard drive was
on a "better machine", then walk the drive over... and it booted
off the hard drive OK. Linux can be moved from one machine to
another.

So while it might not have seemed like it at the time, these
things can be a wee bit crippled on "boot-ology".

And that gets us to the topic of Linux.

Ubuntu comes on a DVD or can be placed on a USB stick. "double boo" :-)
That's for the modern stuff. Modern Ubuntu needs a lot more RAM
now. Maybe 1.5GB for a hard drive install, would be a nice
number. And the Xorg I've seen on some distros, has discarded
support for a few of the older graphics cards.

For lesser hardware, we look to Puppy. Now, when I
tried Puppy on an old machine, it was a perfect match.
Kernel was 2.4 or 2.6 or so. It had *all* the drivers (because
it takes a conservative approach on video, and the video
driver is a type that works with *everything*). It uses the
video card as a "frame buffer" with zero acceleration. That
is an aid to compatibility, but not performance. The desktop
then should not use fancy animation, and Puppy avoids that.

Now, the newer version of Puppy, is called FatDog64 (a separate distro).
It runs on my newest machine, and is a 64-bit OS. Whereas the original
Puppy had *no* drivers for my new computer, and would barely
boot, FatDog64 is a perfect fit. And had drivers in-box. The
kernel in FatDog64 might have been 3.1 or so. Modern kernels
are 4.1 or 4.4 or so.

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=puppy

One benefit of Puppy, is it should fit on a CD. If you have
a really old CD drive, one that doesn't read CDRW, you can use
a CD-R (burn once disc) and that might work. The CDRW is harder
for the laser to pick out, on the older drives. I have quite
a few older CD drives here, which is why my "floater IDE DVD" drive
gets to live in different PCs when called on. I can't afford
to put modern drives in every old clunker I've got :-)
Where would the fun be in that. Some day, they'll be
collector items. Maybe. Hoping.

I have an 845 motherboard here, so I can kinda simulate
some of this stuff. If needed. But it's not an 845G with
the built-in graphics. Mine has a separate video card.
A weak video card.

If you can get CPUZ to run, it will give more info
on what's inside the computer.

https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

If the newest version won't work, the very bottom
of that page has slightly older versions.

And archive.org could find even older stuff, if it's
really needed.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040401...d.com/cpuz.php

Paul
  #7  
Old January 4th 18, 04:08 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Ammammata[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 20
Default Slow XP?

Il giorno mar 02 gen 2018 05:39:39p, *KenK* ha inviato su
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general il messaggio
. Vediamo cosa ha scritto:

I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did
not include the XP install disk.


use produkey by nirsoft to get the serial number, then use any proper xp
install disk with that code

--
/-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ T /-\
-=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- - -=-
............ [ da casa ] ...........
  #8  
Old January 4th 18, 07:13 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
KenK
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 444
Default Slow XP?

Paul wrote in news
KenK wrote:
I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did
not include the XP install disk.

This system is extremely slow. I DLed and printed several web sites'
suggestions to speed up XP with no results. I'm thinking about
installing Ubuntu Linux as dual-boot as I can't reinstall XP.

To determine whether the problem is the XP OS or the hardware I'd
like any suggestions on something I can run on it as a test to see if
it operates at a normal speed. If so, it's XP, if not I can abandon
the computer; it's the hardware and I have no idea how to fix it -
probably not worth the expense and time for this very old computer.

I ran an equally old copy of Spinrite to see if the HD was ok and as
I recall it took several days to cycle. I don't recall how long it
usually takes but I suspect that was VERY slow, indicating a hardware
problem.

TIA


Here's a simple place to start.

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

Download that, install it, then make sure the correct disk drive
you want to check is selected in the menu. Then click the
"benchmark" button.

Is the graph a nice curve, like the promotional picture
on the HDTune web site ? The following is a good hard
disk drive (blue line).

http://www.hdtune.com/images/screenshot.png

The yellow dots are seek time, and a bad drive will have
"lots of dots floating way high, away from the main
body of yellow dots". A few yellow dots outside the main
pack, isn't all that bad, but lots of them is a bad sign.

There should be a two-to-one ratio between the rate seen
at the outer edge of the platter, versus the transfer
speed near the hub of the platter. The blue line in the
example screenshot, starts at 170 and ends at 85 or so.

There is such a thing as a short-stroked drive (I own one),
but they're not that common, and they have a different
ratio between outside and inside diameters.

If the graph is a flat line at 4-5MB/sec, you're stuck
in "PIO Mode". This happens when the disk is sick and
throwing errors. Windows responds by attempting to reduce
the cable transfer rate, in an attempt to reduce the
error rate. There is a procedure for correcting PIO Mode
and returning to DMA mode. If the hardware problem is
still present, the interface will end up in PIO Mode
again, within a day or two. While the correction procedure
can permanently fix a transient problem, when a drive
is sick it will soon return to the "bad setting". This
condition is the one that makes the OS slow.

*******

Of secondary interest in HDTune, is the Health tab.

Some brands of drive, no matter how new and shiny the
drive is, the Health display shows two yellow marks. You
should ignore those yellow marks. Adherence to S.M.A.R.T
standard isn't all that good, and there is a difference
between the HDTune analysis and what the disk drive
is doing.

The main entry to worry about in Health is "Reallocated Sectors".
There are plenty of interesting other ones, but that's
what I use as the simplest health indicator.

The "Benchmark" curve is *the* most sensitive test. You
can tell a lot from the curve shape. The "Health" tab
is also important, for example, if the Reallocated
indicates you're running out of spares. However,
I've had pretty sick hard drives, where the Reallocated
data column still read "zero", so Health is not my
only choice when I use HDTune. I rely on the read
benchmark as an early indicator of trouble.

Paul


The curve from the HD Tune is very jagged, far up and down close spaced
excursions, not wide smooth steps as it should be, Yellow dots very
scattered. So HD is shot. Now to decide if system is worth putting in a
new HD. No XP install disk so will only be able to run Linux, etc.
Already have Ubuntu Linux on the other Compaq machine. I suspect I'll
junk it. However, open to suggestions.



--
I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook.






  #9  
Old January 4th 18, 07:15 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
KenK
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 444
Default Slow XP?

Ammammata wrote in
.112:

Il giorno mar 02 gen 2018 05:39:39p, *KenK* ha inviato su
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general il messaggio
. Vediamo cosa ha scritto:

I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did
not include the XP install disk.


use produkey by nirsoft to get the serial number, then use any proper xp
install disk with that code


I didn't know you could change the serial number. I thought that was hard-
co0ded into the install disc.


--
I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook.






  #10  
Old January 4th 18, 08:03 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 627
Default Slow XP?

On 4 Jan 2018 18:15:18 GMT, KenK wrote:

I didn't know you could change the serial number. I thought that was hard-
co0ded into the install disc.


Not really, any code for that version will work, at least these days
but if you have an OEM code it will not work on a retail version, Home
and Pro are not the same etc. Most Pro codes I have to seem to work on
the HP disk I have tho. Dell seems to be the weird one. The HP version
will run on a Dell with a HP/Compaq code.
It appears MS is not doing any of that hardware matching that was so
troublesome in the past.
  #11  
Old January 4th 18, 08:45 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Slow XP?

KenK wrote:
Paul wrote in news
KenK wrote:
I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did
not include the XP install disk.

This system is extremely slow. I DLed and printed several web sites'
suggestions to speed up XP with no results. I'm thinking about
installing Ubuntu Linux as dual-boot as I can't reinstall XP.

To determine whether the problem is the XP OS or the hardware I'd
like any suggestions on something I can run on it as a test to see if
it operates at a normal speed. If so, it's XP, if not I can abandon
the computer; it's the hardware and I have no idea how to fix it -
probably not worth the expense and time for this very old computer.

I ran an equally old copy of Spinrite to see if the HD was ok and as
I recall it took several days to cycle. I don't recall how long it
usually takes but I suspect that was VERY slow, indicating a hardware
problem.

TIA

Here's a simple place to start.

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

Download that, install it, then make sure the correct disk drive
you want to check is selected in the menu. Then click the
"benchmark" button.

Is the graph a nice curve, like the promotional picture
on the HDTune web site ? The following is a good hard
disk drive (blue line).

http://www.hdtune.com/images/screenshot.png

The yellow dots are seek time, and a bad drive will have
"lots of dots floating way high, away from the main
body of yellow dots". A few yellow dots outside the main
pack, isn't all that bad, but lots of them is a bad sign.

There should be a two-to-one ratio between the rate seen
at the outer edge of the platter, versus the transfer
speed near the hub of the platter. The blue line in the
example screenshot, starts at 170 and ends at 85 or so.

There is such a thing as a short-stroked drive (I own one),
but they're not that common, and they have a different
ratio between outside and inside diameters.

If the graph is a flat line at 4-5MB/sec, you're stuck
in "PIO Mode". This happens when the disk is sick and
throwing errors. Windows responds by attempting to reduce
the cable transfer rate, in an attempt to reduce the
error rate. There is a procedure for correcting PIO Mode
and returning to DMA mode. If the hardware problem is
still present, the interface will end up in PIO Mode
again, within a day or two. While the correction procedure
can permanently fix a transient problem, when a drive
is sick it will soon return to the "bad setting". This
condition is the one that makes the OS slow.

*******

Of secondary interest in HDTune, is the Health tab.

Some brands of drive, no matter how new and shiny the
drive is, the Health display shows two yellow marks. You
should ignore those yellow marks. Adherence to S.M.A.R.T
standard isn't all that good, and there is a difference
between the HDTune analysis and what the disk drive
is doing.

The main entry to worry about in Health is "Reallocated Sectors".
There are plenty of interesting other ones, but that's
what I use as the simplest health indicator.

The "Benchmark" curve is *the* most sensitive test. You
can tell a lot from the curve shape. The "Health" tab
is also important, for example, if the Reallocated
indicates you're running out of spares. However,
I've had pretty sick hard drives, where the Reallocated
data column still read "zero", so Health is not my
only choice when I use HDTune. I rely on the read
benchmark as an early indicator of trouble.

Paul


The curve from the HD Tune is very jagged, far up and down close spaced
excursions, not wide smooth steps as it should be, Yellow dots very
scattered. So HD is shot. Now to decide if system is worth putting in a
new HD. No XP install disk so will only be able to run Linux, etc.
Already have Ubuntu Linux on the other Compaq machine. I suspect I'll
junk it. However, open to suggestions.


You need enough RAM for Ubuntu.

The page here smacks of elitism and I think the
actual RAM minimum is less than the 2GB value
listed here. It used to be, that 512MB would have
worked. I would guess it would behave with 1GB
today, but I haven't done any "squeeze" tests
to see when it begs for mercy. When the graphics
don't appear, it can be for two reason: No graphics
driver or broken driver situation (needs edits of
config file), or not enough RAM left to start Xorg.
Xorg has automated startup, but it doesn't always
parse things properly, and can take a dump on you.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...emRequirements

Puppy uses less RAM.

*******

Given the vintage of the computer, it's also possible
there's nothing wrong with the drive, and it was
behaving like that years ago too :-)

It hadn't occurred to me, but thinking back, my
4GB WDC hard drive could only do reads at something
like 5MB/sec. A benchmark curve for it would
hardly look impressive. But, it still runs, and
probably runs as well as it did in 1999-2000 or so.

*******

The Compaq 5000 series had a number of different
motherboards, so you'll need to narrow down the
hardware information, to see what's possible. I
can't really be sure the 5000 series info I'm
looking at, is complete in terms of how many
different sub-models were made. And what hardware
they had.

Even if you could get CPUZ running, it would give
some idea what hardware was in there, for CPU and RAM.

Paul
  #12  
Old January 4th 18, 10:59 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Shadow
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default Slow XP?

On 2 Jan 2018 16:39:39 GMT, KenK wrote:


I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did not
include the XP install disk.


Specs ?

Download Speccy portable

https://www.piriform.com/speccy/builds

And tell us what it says.
RAM could be anything from 64MB to 1GB, CPU from a 600 Celeron
to a 1.6 Pentium ....
Video will also impact performance.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012
  #13  
Old January 6th 18, 06:34 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
KenK
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 444
Default Slow XP?

Shadow wrote in
:

On 2 Jan 2018 16:39:39 GMT, KenK wrote:


I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did
not include the XP install disk.


Specs ?

Download Speccy portable

https://www.piriform.com/speccy/builds

And tell us what it says.
RAM could be anything from 64MB to 1GB, CPU from a 600 Celeron
to a 1.6 Pentium ....
Video will also impact performance.
[]'s


My Computer sez:

Internal C - 133G
Internal D - 17G
Extenal G - 1 T

Oddly, My Computer in this system only provides drive info. System in
Control Panel sez:

Speed 1.59 GHz
512 MB RAM
XP Home Version 2002


--
I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook.






  #14  
Old January 6th 18, 11:37 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Slow XP?

KenK wrote:
Shadow wrote in
:

On 2 Jan 2018 16:39:39 GMT, KenK wrote:

I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did
not include the XP install disk.

Specs ?

Download Speccy portable

https://www.piriform.com/speccy/builds

And tell us what it says.
RAM could be anything from 64MB to 1GB, CPU from a 600 Celeron
to a 1.6 Pentium ....
Video will also impact performance.
[]'s


My Computer sez:

Internal C - 133G
Internal D - 17G
Extenal G - 1 T

Oddly, My Computer in this system only provides drive info. System in
Control Panel sez:

Speed 1.59 GHz
512 MB RAM
XP Home Version 2002


That's enough RAM for WinXP. You can keep three programs
open with that much. Three older programs. Once Firefox gets
on there, that much RAM will handle one tab... maybe.

You'll need more than that for Ubuntu. I would think
1GB would be a start (a measurement yesterday showed it
idling at around 700MB or so).

Ubuntu DE is "molasses slow" unless the video driver helps
provide acceleration. I'm working on a little experiment
right now to test that. Some of the other distros (Lubuntu
or Xubuntu and so on), may use a DE with "less Compiz". At
one time, Compiz could be turned off, and Compiz started as
an animation system.

Without animation, or using a DE that doesn't rely on
buttery smooth crap, you could easily use your setup. But
Ubuntu itself, burns up a lot of CPU, just when rendering
these graphical animations of windows opening and closing.
(I have this running on the P4 2.8GHz test machine which
is up on deck for another experiment. The P4 machine broke
and I got it running again... two dead video cards later.
And windows opening and closing, is just as slow as when
I run Ubuntu in VPC2007 on this machine.)

Compiz can rail the CPU all by itself, and is a pig. Once
a "native" video card driver is installed, it can be a
bit better, but not by much. For compositing, a general
rule of thumb acorss several different OSes, is
128MB to 256MB of video card RAM, makes for good Compositing,
which is part of what Compiz does. (Compositing is supposed
to allow windows to be moved around the screen with a mouse,
with hardly any CPU input - as long as the video card
provides the acceleration.) If the video driver is missing
in action, things like MESA3D or whatever came after it,
use your CPU instead of the video card. And that's where
the molasses comes from. In other words, these ideas are
predicated on a "minimum hardware configuration" which
not all users have access to. Puppy by comparison, will
"run on a rock" - any old piece of older crap would do
for Puppy.

Compiz is just a bad idea. A waste. Which cannot be
turned off on modern Ubuntu (dunno why).

Puppy should work fine. It doesn't need a lot of RAM.

And that's a funny CPU clock rate. The older Intel processors,
the EIST would "idle" at 1200MHz and the multiple would go
up when the OS "called for more steam".

Actually, I do have a P4 which is that slow. It was a Mobile
one, which back in those days, used the same socket (S462
or S478). Mine only runs 1.5GHz. So they did make some
damn slow processors back then. That mobile wouldn't have
Hyperthreading either.

CPUZ cab show you more details.

https://s17.postimg.org/8c07b8u6n/I_...Geek_Squad.gif

To post images to that site, the address today is:

https://postimages.org/

Paul
  #15  
Old January 7th 18, 02:58 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Slow XP?

KenK wrote:
Shadow wrote in
:

On 2 Jan 2018 16:39:39 GMT, KenK wrote:

I have an old Compaq Presario 5000 running XP I got as a gift. It did
not include the XP install disk.

Specs ?

Download Speccy portable

https://www.piriform.com/speccy/builds

And tell us what it says.
RAM could be anything from 64MB to 1GB, CPU from a 600 Celeron
to a 1.6 Pentium ....
Video will also impact performance.
[]'s


My Computer sez:

Internal C - 133G
Internal D - 17G
Extenal G - 1 T

Oddly, My Computer in this system only provides drive info. System in
Control Panel sez:

Speed 1.59 GHz
512 MB RAM
XP Home Version 2002


A lighter weight Ubuntu family to try, is here. Fits on a CD.

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/re....04.1/release/

lubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-i386.iso 729,808,896 bytes

The additional drivers tab worked as described here. I tried
additional drivers under Ubuntu, and the NVidia 173 driver
didn't work right. It works under Lubuntu 14.04.1. My "glxgears"
test was around 1000 FPS. (My better AGP video card, which just
burned out, could do around 5000 FPS.) I tried adding the
Ubuntu DE onto my setup (made a backup first), and got graphical
artifacts and (as expected) had to back out and restore from
backup.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/6667...ivers-in-14-04

So after I installed that, and did Software Updates, there
was no "Compiz" wasting CPU. And my P4 2.8GHz with Hyperthreading,
was completely railed viewing a cnn.com page in FF57.0.4 32bit :-)
I wouldn't say the setup was "snappy", but the result passed
for a "bar bet". It did work.

When you get a Terminal running, you can use the "top" command
to get an overview of system load and memory usage.

The "used" field in "top", isn't real. It includes memory
destined for "lazy garbage collection". To force the issue,
in a second terminal, do

sudo su === changes the prompt to the "#" of a root user
echo 3 /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches === "flush my caches now, please"

Then go back and look at "top" again. That dropped my
used value, to less than 250MB.

Paul
 




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