The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Nothing to do with my notebook. Packard Bell PC Help!!

    Discussion in 'Packard Bell' started by taylol032002, Mar 25, 2007.

  1. taylol032002

    taylol032002 Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi there!

    Just thought i would consult you guys about my uncle's Packard Bell PC.
    The PC Spec is as follows

    Packard Bell iMedia 5061
    128MB RAM
    Pentium III / Celeron 850MHz
    4MB VRAM (Not sure on make/model)
    20GB HDD
    Windows ME

    Ok heres the question! As you can see the PC is old! (Roughly 7 years.)
    His mate wants to put Windows XP on it because its slow and there is no ME recovery disc but im convinced XP is too much for the PC and will just make it slower! Of course my uncle wont listen to me when i tell him Windows 2000 is a better option so i would like it in writing. Obviously i will apologise if it can handle XP! Also he has just purchased BT Broadband with the HomHub Router. Is the router to new for the spec of his PC?

    Write back please!!

    Thanks.. Laurie. :)
     
    taylol032002, Mar 25, 2007
    #1
  2. Andrew Baxter

    Andrew Baxter -

    Reputations:
    4,365
    Messages:
    9,029
    Likes Received:
    55
    Trophy Points:
    216
    Windows XP won't even install on a machine that's only got 128MB of RAM, the RAM would need to be upgraded. As for Windows 2000, I don't know if that's going to install either. XP and Windows 2000 have about the same system requirements, both of which exceed 128MB of RAM.
     
    Andrew Baxter, Mar 25, 2007
    #2
  3. TomTom2007

    TomTom2007 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    519
    Messages:
    928
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I installed Windows XP Pro on my really really really old computer with a P3 processor and 96MB of RAM. And XP runs pretty decent with all the effects enabled. ha ha ....
     
    TomTom2007, Mar 25, 2007
    #3
  4. lappyhappy

    lappyhappy Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    624
    Messages:
    1,149
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Actually I used to have a computer that only had 128MB of RAM that ran Windows XP. I think that is actually the minimum though they recommend 256MB. It's kind of like with Vista when 512MB is the minimum but they recommend at least 1GB. I think this computer actually could run either Windows 2000 or XP though it may be kind of slow with these specs.
     
    lappyhappy, Mar 25, 2007
    #4
  5. vassil_98

    vassil_98 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    133
    Messages:
    1,524
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    XP will run but don't bother do it as once you install SP2 it will be dead slow. Add another firewall and/or anti-virus and you would in fact kill it.
    Win2000 is the better option. I did use win2000 with a lower configured computer. Yet, the experience wasn't the best in the world and I managed to get another 128mb chip. Can you upgrade the RAM?
     
    vassil_98, Mar 26, 2007
    #5
  6. Xstation

    Xstation Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    47
    Messages:
    179
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Another option is to install Linux ubuntu ( http://www.ubuntu.com/) on it, though I would install Xubuntu ( http://www.xubuntu.org/) on a computer with those specs you specified.

    Oh, forgot to mention, those operating systems are free. Just download, burn to cd, and install. :)
     
    Xstation, Mar 26, 2007
    #6
  7. kanehi

    kanehi Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    146
    Messages:
    1,943
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    I used to have ME and it was actually a decent program. That when "system restore" first appeared. I would recommend cleaning out junk from the hard drive and the best upgrade would be more memories. I used to have a Packard Bell and it was actually a decent computer.
     
    kanehi, Mar 26, 2007
    #7
  8. aphexacid

    aphexacid Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    12
    Messages:
    266
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30

    Xp will most definitely install on a lesser machine than you think.
    I have actually recently installed XP on a very similar machine as the orig. poster, with the exception being this one had *64* mb of RAM! it ran terribly. Molasses comes to mind.

    Windows 2000 did the trick. still actually ran like booty slightly, but better than XP. but with 128 of ram, Win 2000 should run just fine.
     
    aphexacid, Mar 26, 2007
    #8
  9. WeAreNotAlone

    WeAreNotAlone Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    18
    Messages:
    702
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Don't know the system requirements, but between XP and Win2000, I would "think" Win 2000 would be the way to go...

    Do know this though... XP with anything less than 512mb ram is slow... big differance between 512 and 256... and I shudder to think what it would run like with only 128 mb...

    Linux would be a good option... Or maybe using one of the XP Lite installer type programs (which allows you to strip out un-needed stuff)..

    On that machine really WIN98 SE (Second edition), or some type of Linux is going to be your best option... anything beyond that is going to need more ram at the very least to be usable.

    http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article10-001
    http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html lots of info
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2000

    .

    .
     
    WeAreNotAlone, Mar 26, 2007
    #9