How can I speed up my pc

38141

I'm running win98, 64MB ram, pentium pro, and use my pc mainly for webbrowsing. However its running very slow compared to newer pc's and often crashes when multitasking.

PogMoThoin

38141 wrote:

However its running very slow compared to newer pc's and often crashes when multitasking.

:rolleyes: OMFG........Well it is a bit dated. What do you expect :eek:

38141

I was thinking of upgrading the memory to maybe 256MB, would this improve the performance, or is there something else that would make a bigger improvement?

mukki

i am sure people on boards regularily throw out stuff much faster then that, god i chucked a p3 -933mhz about a month ago

try posting in the wanted section

it cant be fixed, the memory is too low, processor is too slow, harddrive is probaly ata-33 if your lucky

DemonOfTheFall

For the price of the RAM you'd easily get a much better PC second hand off someone.

That PC is probably less powerful than a half decent router

Enright

the olny way you are going to speed up this machine, is by putting it in a fast car and take it to the skip.

irlrobins

Enright wrote:

the olny way you are going to speed up this machine, is by putting it in a fast car and take it to the skip.

I lol'd.

38141

A waste of time so to buy more memory?

PogMoThoin

Enright wrote:

the olny way you are going to speed up this machine, is by putting it in a fast car and take it to the skip.

ROFL

SeanW

38141 wrote:

A waste of time so to buy more memory?

Essentially: Yes. Windows 98, back in the days i used it (about 5 years ago) worked fine with even less memory but it's still slower than WIndows 95 on a Pentium.

Your computer is obsolete. And so is your operating system. The Windows 9x series was shockingly unstable. That's why it crashes on you all the time.

Fanny Cradock

You may want to try and run some spyware scans (assuming programmes like spybot and adaware are compatable with Win 98).

Whatever type of RAM that machine uses would, at this stage, be rare and horribly expensive. Go the Boards Adverts look what's on offer (peolpe here can help advise you). A couple of €100 well spent (or poorly for that matter) will blow that piece of crap out of the water. It's a lost cause.

Ruu_Old

What is the make/model of your PC? Some of us will be able to tell you the maximum amount of RAM your motherboard can handle. Upgrade to Windows 98 SE as 98 alone is a disaster. Apart from that, I wouldn't do much more as it would be a waste of money.

38141

The model is a HP Vectra XW workstation

Ruu_Old

*chokes* Ok well the maximum you can put into it would be 512mb. More info here, I'm sure there are other places to buy that RAM (I hope). Have a look on eBay too.

PogMoThoin

Don't bother with ram upgrade. Put a match to it & watch yourself saving money

challengemaster

38141 wrote:

I'm running win98, 64MB ram, pentium pro, and use my pc mainly for webbrowsing. However its running very slow compared to newer pc's and often crashes when multitasking.

i'm surprised it can even multitask. its SO dated its unreal. go and buy a nice conroe and 2gb ram and all the other pc componants you need, build it and stick XP or linux if you want onto it.there ya go, problem solved

Fanny Cradock

You have a number of options:

*Build your own computer (surprisingly easy) for about €600 and have an excellent system;

*Try Dell;

*Buy something older like this:
http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=6599&cat=8. It's a little expensive imo, but far, far superior to yours.

Capt'n Midnight

I know how you can accelerate it at 9.81m/s2 and make it a 64 bits at the same time...

look at freebies on www.adverts.ie

you should be able to pick up a PIII that's many times faster and a good bit more RAM and if it had a Windows 98 license you could move your existing drive to it and spend a half an hour watching 98 do the "windows had detected new hardware" dance (something you can't really do with NT/2K or XP easily)

mukki

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

I know how you can accelerate it at 9.81m/s2 and make it a 64 bits at the same time...

look at freebies on www.adverts.ie

you should be able to pick up a PIII that's many times faster and a good bit more RAM and if it had a Windows 98 license you could move your existing drive to it and spend a half an hour watching 98 do the "windows had detected new hardware" dance (something you can't really do with NT/2K or XP easily)

does it need to have a license even if he bins the old machine and its software

juliuspret

Go to komplett and get a Sempron/Mobo and 512MB of RAM for ~€175!
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=120878
This is actually a surprisingle modern deal!

Your PSU and other devices should work fine on it....trust me I did similar to a machine from the same era at Christmass myself for internet browseing usage.

SeanW

That's actually a pretty good idea julius. The OP could buy that kit and build a new computer using those parts and parts carried over from the old computer, like HD, CD-ROM.

Would be a relatively inexpensive way of getting something infinitely better than the junkpile they're presently using.

Just a few possible notes of caution:
1: Whether the OP has an AGP graphics card ATM is anyone's guess. Would probably need a new one: no biggie http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=315166 (s)he can get a Radeon 9250 for €37.
2: Whether the PSU and case on that old thing conform to the ATX standard, or whether the PSU would cut it wattage-wise is also anyone's guess. No harm in trying though.
3: If the OP uses this kit and carries over their hard drive, the HD is likely to become a considerable bottleneck. Again, no biggie, as cheap IDE 3.5 HDs aren't exactly rare.