XP on a PentiumIII?

JimiMac · 12-09-2004 9:24pm #1

Can anybody tell me if XP would run ok on a Pentium III 500 MHz PC with 320Mb of RAM ?

Terra · 12-09-2004 9:27pm

Yes it would run fine

vibe666 · 12-09-2004 9:30pm

I was running XP fine on a P3 650 laptop with 512mb of ram for ages.

i don't see why not.

i even had it running on a P2 233 with 128mb of ram once (just to prove a point). it wasn't pretty, but it booted up and with some encoutragement and a lot of swap file usage it worked as a P2P client and file/print server.

ColmOT [MSFT] · 13-09-2004 10:16am

JimiMac it should work fine on those specs.

If you need extra speed, revert back to the Windows Classic theme, and it'll speed things up a bit. Also disable all the 'menu shadows' and alpha texturing etc for more speed.

jor el · 13-09-2004 10:19am

I have XP running on a Celeron PPGA 433 with 256MB so I'd say it'd be fine on a PIII. As Colm says though, dissable shadows etc if you find it to be a bit slow.

ColmOT [MSFT] · 13-09-2004 10:21am

We used to test SBS 2000 (full install) on a PIII 500 with 384Mb RAM!!

Talk about stress testing! (both me and the machine!)

Winters · 13-09-2004 11:20am

Running XP on a 333mhz PII laptop with 64MB ram.

Oh yea.

JimiMac · 13-09-2004 11:28am

Thanks for the replies.I'll give it a go.

Capt'n Midnight · 13-09-2004 7:32pm

vibe666 wrote:

i even had it running on a P2 233 with 128mb of ram once (just to prove a point). it wasn't pretty, but it booted up and with some encoutragement and a lot of swap file usage it worked as a P2P client and file/print server.

Windows 3.11 on an XT with CGA graphics. (use the windows 3.0 driver)
Windows 95 on 386 SX 16MHz with 4MB ram - 15 minutes to boot ...

It all depends on what you mean by "run" as opposed to amble along
Also look up all the services you can stop - and remove wallpaper and screen savers etc so less memory is needed. Also limit the SW you install to keep the registry to a minimum

radiospan · 13-09-2004 7:37pm

Yes it should work okay on a P3 500MHz. I wouldn't go much lower though.

My brother runs Windows XP on a P3 500 with 256MB Ram.

Simi · 13-09-2004 7:51pm

Should run fine except for a little jerkyness in Internet Explorer if you have too many windows open. If u have problems switch to Opera or another browser.

sceptre · 13-09-2004 8:58pm

I've XP running well on a p3-450 laptop with 384 megs of RAM. GF has it running on her p3-500 desktop with 128 (her needs are a little less than mine but it runs fine on hers). Before I upgraded the laptop RAM from 128 I noticed that IE wasn't as fast as it could/should be but that's OK as I never use it. And I turn off things like the mouse pointer shadow as a matter of course as it does nothing for me. I'm thinking of putting it on the desktop at the next format/reinstall (p3-500, 256) so the little lady can use her account without having to log mine off.

The key for XP is memory (the graphics card can come into play too if you don't turn off all the useless crap that they spent years working on but mine's only an 8 meg ATI card and I haven't noticed any bottlenecks from that). If you've 320 megs of memory it'll run nicely.

Capt'n Midnight · 14-09-2004 8:39am

The bit that amazes me is that so many people have (obviously) bought a dedicated retail or corporate license for XP that is worth a lot more than the PC it's running on

or youze are all students and got a good deal on the academic edition

XP on a PentiumIII?

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