[Trilobite]

The latest and greatest machines may have been ‘built for that sort of thing’, but you would be surprised at what some of the lower cost machines can do. It seems like a lot of the salespeople at computer stores are on commission and will attempt to sell you the fastest, overpowered and oversized paperweight that they sell. I used to do audio capturing and editing with an old Pentium I with 64 megs of ram with hardly any problems. Currently I do video and audio editing and capturing at DVD quality with an average of less than 3 frames dropped per hour on a Pentium III with 256 megs of ram.

[dave38]

One other point about those "restore" CDs

If you are stuck with one, check that it works!

Yes, I know, that sounds stupid!

Just had a case with a "friends" computer. He had been on broadband, always on, for about a year. WITHOUT ANY A\V or firewall! I told hime he needed it, it was vital. He knw better until the machine was totally wrecked! At that point we found that the restore CD was blank! No DATA AT ALL!
And the warranty was well expired, and the company out of business.

[WyoCowboy]

scrapetoe, on Jun 30 2004, 11:51 PM, said:

Nice post...
XP pro requires 128MB ram to run, so I find it hilarious that they actualy sell comps with xp and 128MB to consumers. I am not sure about XP home, but I think it requires the same. And who needs a recovery disc when you canhave system restore, which isinclude on both the home version and Pro version. I couldn't imagine not having the original disc...what a pain......

I work for a small shop that sells and services PCs. We used to sell xp home/pro machines with 128mb ram, but now sell 256 as a minimum because the boot/program load speed difference is substantially faster w/256mb. Ours have the full MS xp cd, and we install the os, drivers, aps and test before handing over to the customer. It is surprising how many modems, cd drives, etc are dead or flakey out of the box.

Personally, I like Win2k Prof much better than xp (have it on 2 home machines). It doesn't have system restore, but it isn't likely to need it either. System restore only works if you can at least boot into safe mode - we've seen many that wouldn't.

Make sure you get an OS cd - if you are running xp, you will eventually need it...

[Hydroponic Garden]

I agree in that getting the OS install disc is a must to get. My PC (Gatewat 510XL) is Pentium 4 3.06GHZ with HT, I have 512 RAM and it is plenty, in fact I'd probably be fine with 256... everyone is different. My harddrive is 120GB.... which is large enough for myself, no need for 2, since right now I'm using about 16%..... my point is you don't need to have a super computer to do smart computing.... and you don't need dual HD's or 1024megs even if you DO game... since I game.... and everything is fine.



-Hydroponic Garden

[ubergeekee]

JRosenfeld, on May 17 2004, 02:33 PM, said:

Gwyrox732,

Dell XP disk is just that, XP, with SP1 or SP1a nowadays, (not further updates unfortunately). Dell 'bloatware' and other apps (AV software, DVD player etc.) as well as drivers come on separate CDs.

Dell, dell, dell. I am using my 3rd dell pc to type this post (3gig-ht cpu, 1 gig ram, dvd/cd burner 1st drv, dvd/cd 2nd drv) they gave me xp pro sp1 cd with this incarnation…It serves me well. And the bloatware is on separate cd's lol.

[ubergeekee]

Hydroponic Garden, on Sep 21 2004, 02:09 PM, said:

I agree in that getting the OS install disc is a must to get. My PC (Gatewat 510XL) is Pentium 4 3.06GHZ with HT, I have 512 RAM and it is plenty, in fact I'd probably be fine with 256... everyone is different. My harddrive is 120GB.... which is large enough for myself, no need for 2, since right now I'm using about 16%..... my point is you don't need to have a super computer to do smart computing.... and you don't need dual HD's or 1024megs even if you DO game... since I game.... and everything is fine.



-Hydroponic Garden

More ram is better. At 1gig ram you can turn off page file; this makes most processes way faster. And if you are running your OS on that 120gig hdd next to your data, then be prepared to lose all data/programs/settings in the event of a crash. At the least you should back up your OS and data to an external hhd (Ghost the OS, back up the rest). My 2 cents.

This post has been edited by ubergeekee: 30 September 2004 - 09:47 AM

[ubergeekee]

WyoCowboy, on Aug 19 2004, 03:50 PM, said:

scrapetoe, on Jun 30 2004, 11:51 PM, said:

Nice post...
XP pro requires 128MB ram to run, so I find it hilarious that they actualy sell comps with xp and 128MB to consumers. I am not sure about XP home, but I think it requires the same. And who needs a recovery disc when you canhave system restore, which isinclude on both the home version and Pro version. I couldn't imagine not having the original disc...what a pain......

I work for a small shop that sells and services PCs. We used to sell xp home/pro machines with 128mb ram, but now sell 256 as a minimum because the boot/program load speed difference is substantially faster w/256mb. Ours have the full MS xp cd, and we install the os, drivers, aps and test before handing over to the customer. It is surprising how many modems, cd drives, etc are dead or flakey out of the box.

Personally, I like Win2k Prof much better than xp (have it on 2 home machines). It doesn't have system restore, but it isn't likely to need it either. System restore only works if you can at least boot into safe mode - we've seen many that wouldn't.

Make sure you get an OS cd - if you are running xp, you will eventually need it...

I have found that if you spend 30 hrs or so tweaking xp pro it has an uptime equal to or greater than win2k. I still use 2k on my older boxes, but my "tweaked" xp pro runs circles around them in uptime and no bsod ever

[Hotdog602]

Can you expand on what you mean by tweaking and possibly how I can learn to do this?

[Laogeodritt]

Well, at least my recovery disk actually works.

Where could I get a cheap, legitimate OEM version of XP in the Montreal region (Canada) without buying online?

For future computer purchases, which company would you guys recommend? Dell?

[soulguyman]

Just a few points about recovery CD's.
1. If You Don't Have Them You Should Make Them
Most brand name computers don't ship with these (recovery disks)anymore. (cost saving reasons, as well as Microsoft is getting antsy about having all these CD's out there for people to pirate)
BUT: nearly all systems (and definitely all HP systems) have a program that will let you burn a full set of recovery CD's as well as a Recovery Tools (or recovery console) CD. Search your documentation, and search your 'Programs' menu. Make those CD's, because if you are unable to boot to the recovery partition, you will need them to repair or recover your system.

2. OEM versions of the OS are specially licensed versions (from M$) that often contain tweeks and unique drivers and code that are specifically designed for the hardware they are installed on. IF you install an off-the-shelf generic OS from microsoft on an HP (and other brand name) computer, and you later run into problems and require tech support (from computer manufacturer) you WILL be asked to run a full system recovery from recovery CD's (or from recovery partition if it hasn't been deleted), before ANY further troubleshooting can be done.

[64surfit]

2katholito, on May 27 2004, 04:46 PM, said:

Well, being a real newbie, I think you may have some answers for me.
Am running XP home 5.1 on a Dell Dimension8200.  Has 128MB RAM and then says  Page 186 MB use  119 Available.
From what you stated in  the beginning, I need more RAM to keep going and that has bothered me for some months.  I have no idea how to increase this.  Any help out there??? Thanks

You need pc800 ram. installed in pairs. Get 2-128s for a hundred, I think at newegg.com. You will have to remove a pair of dummies.

[Jazzium]

JRosenfeld, on May 17 2004, 04:33 PM, said:

Gwyrox732,

Dell XP disk is just that, XP, with SP1 or SP1a nowadays, (not further updates unfortunately). Dell 'bloatware' and other apps (AV software, DVD player etc.) as well as drivers come on separate CDs.

So theoreticlly if you just want the OS, you can simply get the Dell, format the drive, and then install just the OS and ditch all that extraneous software?

I have a dell, and might tell my father just to do that Even though he is probably too stupid to reformat.

I am considering buying my own PC this summer, and was looking at Dell cause I've had pretty good luck with them so far and they arn't half bad in my eyes. But in the eyes of experts such as a folks here I don't know how they stand up.

[WyoCowboy]

ubergeekee, on Sep 30 2004, 09:57 AM, said:

WyoCowboy, on Aug 19 2004, 03:50 PM, said:

scrapetoe, on Jun 30 2004, 11:51 PM, said:

Nice post...
XP pro requires 128MB ram to run, so I find it hilarious that they actualy sell comps with xp and 128MB to consumers. I am not sure about XP home, but I think it requires the same. And who needs a recovery disc when you canhave system restore, which isinclude on both the home version and Pro version. I couldn't imagine not having the original disc...what a pain......

I work for a small shop that sells and services PCs. We used to sell xp home/pro machines with 128mb ram, but now sell 256 as a minimum because the boot/program load speed difference is substantially faster w/256mb. Ours have the full MS xp cd, and we install the os, drivers, aps and test before handing over to the customer. It is surprising how many modems, cd drives, etc are dead or flakey out of the box.

Personally, I like Win2k Prof much better than xp (have it on 2 home machines). It doesn't have system restore, but it isn't likely to need it either. System restore only works if you can at least boot into safe mode - we've seen many that wouldn't.

Make sure you get an OS cd - if you are running xp, you will eventually need it...

I have found that if you spend 30 hrs or so tweaking xp pro it has an uptime equal to or greater than win2k. I still use 2k on my older boxes, but my "tweaked" xp pro runs circles around them in uptime and no bsod ever

So, if you spend 30hrs tweaking XP you can get them to work better than untweaked Win2k? If you try the same tweaks on Win2k, what do you think the results would be?
Are you talking about workstations or servers, when comparing uptime?

My two Win2k workstations (sp4) are relatively untweaked, and I don't get blue screen errors, ever. Of the business workstations that we look after, we seldom, if ever, get called out to fix the win2k machines. XP seems somewhat fragile by comparison.

There are reasons that there is no Windows Server XP available from Microsoft.

[millstoneman]

In the Uk if you purchase a major component for a pc build I.E Mobo, cpu or Hard drive from Scan in Bolton you can purchase a full version of Xp home version with sp2 on for 50.00 pounds. Considering how cheap some of the HDD are its a great offer.

[david8m]

Yes, that's some good advice, there, Mitch. I am a relative newb to the world of WinXP, the internet, and the idea of tweaking hardware/software/OS to get more performance out of a system. A long time ago, I had a Win3.? system, (which I actually still have around here, somewhere), and it was my introduction to the wonderful world of ones and zeroes. This system was aquired as "used", as was the Win98 system I got last year, and came with nothing extra, (disks, floppies, etc.).
Four months ago, I bought my first new system - eMachines T3 series - a $350 computer, (after rebates). The HDD is a little on the small side, (40GB), and it only had 256MB of RAM installed. This system also came with no disks, except for the three blanks that I was prompted to use for "system recovery". I've "recovered" a couple of times, including once from the c.d.s i had made, and everything works fine.
"System Restore", however, doesn't. A couple of times, I went through the whole list of restore points and always got the "Unable to restore..." message. I now have Norton Systemworks '05 with Ghost, so this isn't really a problem, anymore.
This $350 system works as well as one can ask - I haven't had any problems with it. At least, none since I upgraded the RAM. I can open as many as 30 hi-res images at a time in Photoshop and run actions and filters on them without any noticeable lag. I'm not a pc gamer, so this rig provides me with everything I need. I'm very happy with it and would reccomend it to anyone. If you don't need $1200 worth of computer, why spend that much. Any system you buy today is going to be obsolete in a couple of years, anyway.
Sorry for rambling. This is a great place!! Thanks, Mitch, and everyone else involved.
zapphnath