BogMonster Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 We have a Pentium 3 700 MHZ at work, which has just had Windows XP put on it. It is bluddy painful! slower than a 2.25 diesel 109" with a 3 ton trailer on the back Thinking it was memory (it only had 128MB) it was upgraded to 512MB but not much different. Is XP too much for a P3/700? - I would have thought it would run OK but it is awful... the same computer used to run Win 98 with no problems at all and just with 128MB in. Just basic stuff like opening a Word doc takes about a week Thanks Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale Simpkins Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 Well I would have suggested a memory upgrade but you've covered that already. Did you rebuild the PC with XP from scratch, or did you do an in place upgrade from Windows 98 to XP? If so, you may have a piece of software running that XP doesn't like. It could be as silly as a printer monitor utility that needs upgrading to the XP version. The PC should run XP reasonably well, that spec would certainly be suitable for running Windows 2000, and XP doesn't have too much more of an overhead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon White Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 I'm running XP pro on a P3 650 and it flies along! Granted boot up takes a minute or two but its a hell of a lot better than my works laptop which takes on average 10-15 minutes to boot and log on to the network! I just never turn it off now.......it takes too long! I'll second what Dale said - is it a clean build or upgraded from an earlier O/S? Upgrades always seem to run slow - fresh build it from scratch I'd suggest. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BogMonster Posted October 31, 2005 Author Share Posted October 31, 2005 Hmmmm Now you mention it we have printing problems as well, we have an old Deskjet 690C in the office downstairs which I rescued from a skip as "completely beyond repair" about 3 years ago, bodged by me and still going strong but it doesn't work now, prints top half of page on one sheet of paper then the bottom half on the second sheet of paper. Printer works fine with another PC also running XP though, so not a printer hardware problem. Could it be related? That was my thinking - a P3 700 may not be bang up to date but it shouldn't be completely rubbish and I would expect it to run Office with no probs - having said that the Access database we run here for stock control seems to work OK on the same machine though, which is odd, its Word that is really painful. I didn't do the upgrade it was our IT person so not sure if "clean" or "upgraded"... just "knackered"! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark90 Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 I'm running XP on a P3/450 with 320MB and that is fine as is the P3/650 with 192MB of RAM. Both where fresh installs (as always with me). Even booting up isn't bad on them, although they are fairly clean uncluttered clients, unlike my main PC (Win2k server on a P3/700 with 512MB). So I would expect your PC, with the memory upgrade, to be able to handle XP no probs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbeaumont Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 Is it networked? If it's on a domain, windows slows down a lot. Combined with the hardware (should be usable, depending what you're running on it - Word is pretty hefty, especially recent versions), that would make for pretty lousy performance. For comparison, I have a fast 64bit Athlon at work (2.6GHz, I think), with a Gig of memory in it and on a windows domain - it's quite a bit slower than the 1.1GHz/512Mb Athlon I have at home running much the same software (unless I open several apps - then the memory starts to show). This machines a laptop, similar spec to my home windows machine but running Linux - it runs circles round both of them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BogMonster Posted November 1, 2005 Author Share Posted November 1, 2005 Yes it is networked - its on a network with 1 other machine (running w98) for the stock database. The database is held on this machine and they can both access that with no delay, it's printing and Word that causes bother. Oh well I guess maybe try reinstalling the whole lot and see what happens - more bluddy work Thanks for the info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbeaumont Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 Just out of interest, how do you manage to install all the security updates to XP after a fresh install, with your 'net connection? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les Henson Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 If you are now running XP, you need to install the XP service pack 2. On Dial-up it'll take forever. I have the SP2 disc here if you need it Stephen? I can bung it in the post. Just let me know. Les. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BogMonster Posted November 1, 2005 Author Share Posted November 1, 2005 Just out of interest, how do you manage to install all the security updates to XP after a fresh install, with your 'net connection? I don't is the simple answer. They seem to cause more damage than they fix - I spent ages downloading some a year or so back and when installed they F'ed the whole system up such that I had to reinstall absolutely everything from scratch so now I just take the risk that a passing hacker might spot my ickle dialup connection peering out of the far south on the odd occasions its online! I think the downloads are 80MB or something stupid last time I looked so it would cost a bluddy fortune anyway! I think the LAN at work is supposed to be protected via the router etc - not my problem anyway The two computers on the parts database LAN have no net connection at all, as a deliberate policy I decided to keep them "clean" because if it ain't connected to anything then nothing can get in!! Les, thanks for the offer, but I could probably get hold of it somewhere here if I decided I needed to do an upgrade - or when we get broadband I might do it then (end of the year) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les Henson Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 Stephen I don't think this is an upgrade, it's described as a 'Patch'. I think there were problems with the original XP operating system and the patch was created to repair it. Other will no doubt know more than me about this. Les. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbeaumont Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 Stephen I don't think this is an upgrade, it's described as a 'Patch'. I think there were problems with the original XP operating system and the patch was created to repair it.Other will no doubt know more than me about this. Les. Service pack 2 is a bit of both - some upgrades and quite a few patches and security enhancements. To Microsoft's credit it's largely useful (bordering on essential), particularly from a security point of view, rather than being used to force unwanted 'upgrades' on users as they tended to do in the past. Stephen - I haven't installed XP in quite a while, but from memory it's well over a hundred Mb of patches now (no including service pack 2) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LR90 Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 HmmmmNow you mention it we have printing problems as well, we have an old Deskjet 690C in the office downstairs which I rescued from a skip as "completely beyond repair" about 3 years ago, bodged by me and still going strong but it doesn't work now, prints top half of page on one sheet of paper then the bottom half on the second sheet of paper. Printer works fine with another PC also running XP though, so not a printer hardware problem. Could it be related? That was my thinking - a P3 700 may not be bang up to date but it shouldn't be completely rubbish and I would expect it to run Office with no probs - having said that the Access database we run here for stock control seems to work OK on the same machine though, which is odd, its Word that is really painful. I didn't do the upgrade it was our IT person so not sure if "clean" or "upgraded"... just "knackered"! Thanks Steve, this should be more than up to running XP (got a PII 450 with 192MB running here). The printer may well be the cause of your problem, we had a 690C on ours connected using the parrallel port. Whenever there was any comms with the printer it would just kill the machine, I put it down to interrupt handling. Try just disconnecting the printer and removing it from XP My Printers and see if it helps. We moved to a USB printer and have had no bother since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
western Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 Steve, if you decide to add Service Pack 2, just click the link below to order a cd, doesn't cost any postage, got my SP2 disk this way order SP2 cd delivery by post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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