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Amount of RAM
Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. Guesses? TIA -- I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook. |
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Amount of RAM
On 28 Jun 2018, KenK wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general: Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. Guesses? My guess is Yes. Any XP setup I used that had at least 2 GB RAM ran pretty comfortably. Anything less than that was a struggle. |
#3
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Amount of RAM
KenK wrote:
Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. Guesses? TIA Check the CPU speed first, before getting carried away. You can use the cpuid.com program "CPUZ" to verify the details of your machine. If the program won't run, you might have to get an older version. I don't know if they've broken that one on WinXP yet. https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html Version 1.85 for windows Fix initialization error on Windows XP and 7. ******* A modern browser is never really going to "smoke" on a 566MHz CPU. https://www.cnet.com/products/compaq...b-10-gb/specs/ Compaq Presario 5000 Celeron 566 MHz 64 MB RAM The Crucial site allows searching by model number, and has a couple models of 5000 listed. The 5000 might have existed for more than one model year. One of the models I checked, listed DDR400 memory, and the CNET item above isn't a DDR400 generation machine. (A Celeron 566 would use PC133 memory.) That's why you should be starting with CPUZ, or using the machine model number at least, to collect some info. In terms of CPU upgrades: 1) There were some dual socket motherboards. A poster to USENET, had a dual socket PIII system with 1500MHz overclocked processors. Which is enough to run WinXP with some comfort. Still not a speed demon, but better than a single Celeron would be. That's about the best thing from that sort of (566MHz) era. 2) On S370, there were regular Pentium III up to maybe 1100MHz. They have various FSBs like 100MHz or 133MHz, and you can't just buy these randomly from Ebay without due diligence first. (You can end up with a 133MHz FSB processor, a 100MHz motherboard, and an "underclocked" CPU as a result.) 3) There is a lower voltage processor (1.5V versus 1.75V or so), in the form of the Tualatin Celeron. Those run 1400MHz/100MHz FSB, and that's what I eventually put in my 440BX based system. The 440BX is still sloggingly slow, because the memory path is "only" 350MB/sec. Terrible. A modern CPU setup is 17000MB/sec, by comparison. Even with a "decent" clock speed, the chipset causes "starvation". This was even a problem with AthlonXP and Nforce2 (overclocking was a waste of time because it was "starved"). You can get a refurbished system from Staples, then compare the purchase price of that, to upgrading the Compaq heavily. I generally recommend the tower configuration, as it might be easier to work inside than the SFF or USFF ones. (May be easier to buy a video card for that form factor.) The staples.com seems to have mostly SFF right now. This particular one, with E8400, could have WinXP installed on it by you later. There should be drivers for the motherboard at least, as the E8400 is what I have WinXP on right now. The prices of refurbs change with time (sine wave), so check back in a month or two, for movement. This is no beauty queen (appearance wise). The Dell Optiplex 780 might be a bit nicer, if there are any left. https://www.staples.ca/en/Lenovo-M58...0_1-CA_1_20001 But if your system really is a 566MHz one, you can't expect miracles. The chipset architecture was bad back then. The CPUs were, what they are. It is possible to have a usable system that old, but it takes a dual Pentium 1500 using PIII-S processors to do it (the ones with twice as much cache). A dual socket would use WinXP Pro. A single socket can be covered by either WinXP Pro or WinXP Home. The E8400 tower example, is a single socket, so will run either WinXP version. And the E8400 would run rings around those other examples. You can "get by" with 512MB of RAM. Any more than that, depends on how bloated browser designs are this week. I've had a single web page use *more* than 1GB of RAM, so it happens. I have computer games that use less RAM... Paul |
#4
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Amount of RAM
KenK wrote:
Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. Yes, but that means you are loading LOTS of programs into memory to eat up the memory. Adding more memory just means you're likely to do the same thing: load too many programs on Windows startup or login. Does the manual stipulate what is the maximum system memory that the motherboard will support? You might like to install 2 GB of RAM but it appears you are stuck with just the 1 GB that came in the pre-built PC. http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compat...s-model-5430us "Maximum memory: 1 GB" "Slots: 2" That PC's RAM is already maxed out. Use msconfig.exe or SysInternals' AutoRuns to see what all you are loading on Windows startup or when you login. Disable (for now, don't delete, just disable) all the non-critical software you installed that starts on Windows load or login. Then check the behavior of your computer. If it is now fast then you need to reconsider if you really must have all those startup programs. |
#5
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Amount of RAM
In message , KenK
writes: Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. Guesses? TIA My first reaction would be a resounding Yes. Having read the other followups, I'll still say a _qualified_ Yes: o check it _can_ take more RAM. (Probably can - 3/4 seems an odd limit.) o if it's an old processor, it won't _fly_ - but still faster than disk. o Check with Task Manager whether you're using more than - or even close to (since it may miss some short peaks) - the amount of RAM actually fitted. If, though I think it unlikely, you're _not_ using all the RAM that's already there, then adding more won't have any effect. (When I got my XP machine, with 1G, I bought a 2G stick as I'd been led to believe XP was likely to need that - and then didn't fit it for a while; when I did, I noticed little difference, because I'd rarely been using 800M anyway. But due to bloat - mainly of webpages - by the time the XP machine died a few months ago, I _was_ exceeding the 2G not infrequently.) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Of course, this show - like every other cop show on earth - massively overstates the prevalence of violent crime: last year, in the whole of the UK, police fired their weapons just three times. And there were precisely zero fatalities. - Vincent Graff in RT, 2014/11/8-14 |
#6
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Amount of RAM
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
KenK WROTE: Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. My first reaction would be a resounding Yes. Having read the other followups, I'll still say a _qualified_ Yes: o check it _can_ take more RAM. (Probably can - 3/4 seems an odd limit.) We don't know where he is getting the information on memory capacity. The OS will reserve some so maybe he is reporting how much user-mode memory is available. Something simple would be to run msinfo32.exe and remarking what it says is "Installed Physical Memory" in the "System Summary" root tree node. I couldn't find system specifications on that model (plus it seems the "5000" family has prepended qualifiers on the model number, so not sure what the OP has). Crucial said the "Compaq Presario 5000" can take a maximum of 1 GB of system RAM. Yep, just 1 GB. Trying to use bigger than 512 MB modules in the two RAM slots would be fruitless as they won't support larger memory sticks. But that was for the "Compaq Presario 5000 Series Model 5423US". We don't know what the OP has. o if it's an old processor, it won't _fly_ - but still faster than disk. Adding an SSD to Windows XP has its own problems but there are workarounds. More memory (doesn't look possible), reducing the startup programs count (to reduce memory use by unimportant processes), and a faster drive would all help but, yeah, the CPU is still going to be a bottle neck. Overclocking might be possible (I'd have to see what were the BIOS settings) but that rarely provides any significant speed boost. Frame rates in video games might get higher and benchmarks look better but actual result is dismal compared to overheating (even with more cooling) the CPU which shortens its lifespan. Looks like OP has a Celeron 566 MHz Socket 370. There are faster socket 370 Celerons (633 MHz, 800 MHz, 1.1 GHz) but if his mobo's BIOS doesn't support the necessary clock frequency and multipliers then going to a higher speed Celeron socket 370 is not an option. I'd have to research the wattage of each to determine if more than the stock heatsink + fan for the 566 MHz chip is needed for the higher speed Celerons. |
#7
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Amount of RAM
In message , VanguardLH
writes: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: [] o check it _can_ take more RAM. (Probably can - 3/4 seems an odd limit.) We don't know where he is getting the information on memory capacity. The OS will reserve some so maybe he is reporting how much user-mode memory is available. Something simple would be to run msinfo32.exe and remarking what it says is "Installed Physical Memory" in the "System Summary" root tree node. True. I was guessing maybe he has a 512M and a 256M stick, so I'd assumed it should take at least 1G (as 2 512Ms). But you might be right and he's going by what's reported rather than what's installed. [] o if it's an old processor, it won't _fly_ - but still faster than disk. Adding an SSD to Windows XP has its own problems but there are I meant, using RAM rather than swapping-to-disc as it would be doing, if he's using more RAM than there is; however sluggish the processor, stopping swapping-to-disk would make a noticeable difference IMO - IME it always has, anyway. workarounds. More memory (doesn't look possible), reducing the startup [] Overclocking might be possible (I'd have to see what were the BIOS settings) but that rarely provides any significant speed boost. Frame rates in video games might get higher and benchmarks look better but actual result is dismal compared to overheating (even with more cooling) the CPU which shortens its lifespan. Yes, I've never seen overclocking that seems worth the bother. [] -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. |
#8
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Amount of RAM
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , VanguardLH writes: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: [] o check it _can_ take more RAM. (Probably can - 3/4 seems an odd limit.) We don't know where he is getting the information on memory capacity. The OS will reserve some so maybe he is reporting how much user-mode memory is available. Something simple would be to run msinfo32.exe and remarking what it says is "Installed Physical Memory" in the "System Summary" root tree node. True. I was guessing maybe he has a 512M and a 256M stick, so I'd assumed it should take at least 1G (as 2 512Ms). But you might be right and he's going by what's reported rather than what's installed. I'm thinking it's a different motherboard, an older one, and the install is 3x256MB and they're PC133 SDRAM. It's probably not the one I picked as an example from the Crucial page. That's a more modern standard than PC133. I picked that one mainly, as a contrast to the expected configuration of 3x256MB. And to suggest the 5000 series spanned a few years. Both systems (a 3x256 and a 2x512) are single channel, so there's no issue with mismatched RAM as such. If you use CPUZ, it shows the SPD information for each populated slot, so you can see what is physically plugged into the slots (without attempting to use DMIDecode). All the OSes have MAXMEM, so you can trim down the reported free RAM for experimental purposes. (Especially useful in the Win98 era.) By using CPUZ, you can see what's actually installed, without opening the cover. Paul |
#9
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Amount of RAM
On 28 Jun 2018 18:20:00 GMT, KenK wrote:
Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. Guesses? CPU ? I was quite happy with a Sempron 754 3000+/1GB RAM/XP Pro until the MB fried a few months ago. The only thing that bothered me was video conversion. Painfully slow. My new board isn't much faster (Windows loads a few seconds faster, ditto for browser etc). Though it's a multi-core with 4GB RAM. Try defragging, cleaning useless files, removing un-needed startups and if it's still slow, probably not a RAM issue. 750MB is adequate. IMHO []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
#10
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Amount of RAM
Nil wrote:
On 28 Jun 2018, KenK wrote in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general: Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. Guesses? My guess is Yes. Any XP setup I used that had at least 2 GB RAM ran pretty comfortably. Anything less than that was a struggle. I used to test with 256 and 512 MB of RAM. Slow due to HDD swapping too much! -- Quote of the Week: "It's them!... Not THEM, the giant ants?!" --Girl and Crow Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly. /\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.home.dhs.org / /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail privately. If credit- | |o o| | ing, then please kindly use Ant nickname and URL/link. \ _ / ( ) |
#11
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Amount of RAM
Paul wrote:
If you use CPUZ, it shows the SPD information for each populated slot, so you can see what is physically plugged into the slots (without attempting to use DMIDecode). All the OSes have MAXMEM, so you can trim down the reported free RAM for experimental purposes. (Especially useful in the Win98 era.) By using CPUZ, you can see what's actually installed, without opening the cover. Piriform's Speccy is another good tool for seeing the hardware, like total memory, what memory slots are populated, and what is in each slot. As with CPU-Z (under the SPD tab), it will show the SPD's timing table at different clock frequencies. Both tools are free and I use both. |
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Amount of RAM
In message , VanguardLH
writes: Paul wrote: If you use CPUZ, it shows the SPD information for each populated slot, so you can see what is physically plugged into the slots (without attempting to use DMIDecode). All the OSes have MAXMEM, so you can trim down the reported free RAM for experimental purposes. (Especially useful in the Win98 era.) By using CPUZ, you can see what's actually installed, without opening the cover. Piriform's Speccy is another good tool for seeing the hardware, like total memory, what memory slots are populated, and what is in each slot. Belarc Advisor is another one. Gives other useful hardware and software info. too. Free. [] -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf .... some language may be offensive to younger viewers. Like "please" and "thank you". (Intro to /Off Their Rockers/, quoted in RT 25-31 May 2013 by Sarah Millican.) |
#13
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Amount of RAM
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , VanguardLH writes: Paul wrote: If you use CPUZ, it shows the SPD information for each populated slot, so you can see what is physically plugged into the slots (without attempting to use DMIDecode). All the OSes have MAXMEM, so you can trim down the reported free RAM for experimental purposes. (Especially useful in the Win98 era.) By using CPUZ, you can see what's actually installed, without opening the cover. Piriform's Speccy is another good tool for seeing the hardware, like total memory, what memory slots are populated, and what is in each slot. Belarc Advisor is another one. Gives other useful hardware and software info. too. Free. [] I mostly used Belarc Advisor to get product keys and recording the list. Never much used it for hardware inspection. Its advice on how to secure your computer is very dangerous: some instructions will result in an unusable computer (i.e., you've locked it down so much that you cannot use it yourself). At one time, they recommended to switch from SSL to FIPS for better security. That results in all HTTPS sites being inaccessible. Luckily when I encountered HTTPS sites that failed to connect, I remembered making the Belarc suggested change a couple days before, so I undid that suggestion and HTTPS was again usable. |
#14
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Amount of RAM
In message , VanguardLH
writes: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , VanguardLH writes: Paul wrote: If you use CPUZ, it shows the SPD information for each populated slot, so you can see what is physically plugged into the slots (without attempting to use DMIDecode). All the OSes have MAXMEM, so you can trim down the reported free RAM for experimental purposes. (Especially useful in the Win98 era.) By using CPUZ, you can see what's actually installed, without opening the cover. Piriform's Speccy is another good tool for seeing the hardware, like total memory, what memory slots are populated, and what is in each slot. Belarc Advisor is another one. Gives other useful hardware and software info. too. Free. [] I mostly used Belarc Advisor to get product keys and recording the list. Never much used it for hardware inspection. Its advice on how to secure your computer is very dangerous: some instructions will result in an [] I'm not surprised. I tend to ignore security advice from - well, anything/anyone/anywhere, without checking elsewhere, but certainly from things like that output. Still, it's a reasonable tool for analysing the hardware and software in your system (e. g. what RAM modules are in what slots), and, as you say, extracting a list of product keys that can be saved. If someone already has Speccy or CPUZ, then just to look at the RAM slots, Belarc isn't needed - but anyone who already has it can use it for that without either of those. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Some people don't seem to be happy without a reason to be unhappy - Roderick Stewart , in uk.tech.broadcast 2017-8-10 |
#15
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Amount of RAM
Paul wrote in news
KenK wrote: Using XP Home. I have an isolated eMachine and it performs well in normal use - Googling, writing letters, email, news groups, etc. with 2 G RAM. I have a Compac Presario 5000 with XP Home and 3/4G ram. Very slow. Think upping RAM to 2 G would be worth the money? Both use the same DSL feed. Guesses? TIA Check the CPU speed first, before getting carried away. eMachine Celeron 2.95 GHz Compaq Pentium 1500 MHz You can use the cpuid.com program "CPUZ" to verify the details of your machine. If the program won't run, you might have to get an older version. I don't know if they've broken that one on WinXP yet. https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html Version 1.85 for windows Fix initialization error on Windows XP and 7. ******* A modern browser is never really going to "smoke" on a 566MHz CPU. https://www.cnet.com/products/compaq...tower-celeron- 566-mhz-64-mb-10-gb/specs/ Compaq Presario 5000 Celeron 566 MHz 64 MB RAM The Crucial site allows searching by model number, and has a couple models of 5000 listed. The 5000 might have existed for more than one model year. One of the models I checked, listed DDR400 memory, and the CNET item above isn't a DDR400 generation machine. (A Celeron 566 would use PC133 memory.) That's why you should be starting with CPUZ, or using the machine model number at least, to collect some info. In terms of CPU upgrades: 1) There were some dual socket motherboards. A poster to USENET, had a dual socket PIII system with 1500MHz overclocked processors. Which is enough to run WinXP with some comfort. Still not a speed demon, but better than a single Celeron would be. That's about the best thing from that sort of (566MHz) era. 2) On S370, there were regular Pentium III up to maybe 1100MHz. They have various FSBs like 100MHz or 133MHz, and you can't just buy these randomly from Ebay without due diligence first. (You can end up with a 133MHz FSB processor, a 100MHz motherboard, and an "underclocked" CPU as a result.) 3) There is a lower voltage processor (1.5V versus 1.75V or so), in the form of the Tualatin Celeron. Those run 1400MHz/100MHz FSB, and that's what I eventually put in my 440BX based system. The 440BX is still sloggingly slow, because the memory path is "only" 350MB/sec. Terrible. A modern CPU setup is 17000MB/sec, by comparison. Even with a "decent" clock speed, the chipset causes "starvation". This was even a problem with AthlonXP and Nforce2 (overclocking was a waste of time because it was "starved"). You can get a refurbished system from Staples, then compare the purchase price of that, to upgrading the Compaq heavily. I generally recommend the tower configuration, as it might be easier to work inside than the SFF or USFF ones. (May be easier to buy a video card for that form factor.) The staples.com seems to have mostly SFF right now. This particular one, with E8400, could have WinXP installed on it by you later. There should be drivers for the motherboard at least, as the E8400 is what I have WinXP on right now. The prices of refurbs change with time (sine wave), so check back in a month or two, for movement. This is no beauty queen (appearance wise). The Dell Optiplex 780 might be a bit nicer, if there are any left. https://www.staples.ca/en/Lenovo-M58...esktop-Intel-C ore-2-Duo-E8400-3-0GHz-8GB-RAM-1TB-HDD-Windows-10-Home-Pro-64-bit/produ ct_2414940_1-CA_1_20001 But if your system really is a 566MHz one, you can't expect miracles. The chipset architecture was bad back then. The CPUs were, what they are. It is possible to have a usable system that old, but it takes a dual Pentium 1500 using PIII-S processors to do it (the ones with twice as much cache). A dual socket would use WinXP Pro. A single socket can be covered by either WinXP Pro or WinXP Home. The E8400 tower example, is a single socket, so will run either WinXP version. And the E8400 would run rings around those other examples. You can "get by" with 512MB of RAM. Any more than that, depends on how bloated browser designs are this week. I've had a single web page use *more* than 1GB of RAM, so it happens. I have computer games that use less RAM... Paul -- I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook. |
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