VOGONS


P-4 laptop what can be used for ?

Topic actions

Reply 40 of 53, by brostenen

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
notsofossil wrote:

Why would anyone want to use Linux? There's nowhere near as much software support as Windows of any version.

I use Linux on my phone (Android) and I use Linux whenever I build a nas server (or BSD for that matter).
On a PC, I use Linux and Windows 50/50, because I can do the same things I need on both, when we are talking about modern everyday computing. Other people have other needs and they might need to use the big fully fledged Visual studio. (Wich is not one of my needs). And I do not need special MS Office functions or anything else like that.

Games? Well... That's what Dos/Win98 era hardware and consoles are for. Unless we are talking Minecraft and Frozen Bubbles 2.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 41 of 53, by dr_st

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
notsofossil wrote:

I do agree that updated Windows XP isn't the most ideal choice for Pentium M systems (definitely not P4), so instead I highly recommend Windows 2000 or better yet, Windows ME.

Find me a built-in miniPCI Wireless-G card (not to mention Wireless-N) that has WinME drivers and WPA/WPA2 support. So far I couldn't.

On a desktop it's not an issue. A laptop without good Wifi with modern capabilities is just crippling.

WinXP is ideal for Pentium M laptops, because this is the OS that most of them were shipped with. It is the OS on which they were tested, and for which the most, best drivers are available. Win2K may be close behind, but still not there. Besides, Win2K is simply XP without the eye candy and some (useful) features. You can switch to classic look in WinXP and get back a lot of the "wasted" performance.

notsofossil wrote:

Why would anyone want to use Linux? There's nowhere near as much software support as Windows of any version.

You are caught up on misconceptions that are about a decade old. By now, the average Linux distro has almost just as much software support as a modern Windows version, and definitely more than Win98SE/ME which you like so much. Granted, there still is, and always will be some Windows-specific software, but whether you need such software or not depends entirely on you.

Note that I am talking about mainstream every-day software. For specific niches, especially development-oriented, Linux can have tons more useful little utilities that Windows ever had or ever will have.

The bottom line is that there are many use cases for which nowadays Windows is completely unnecessary, but many still use it as a force of habit (Microsoft has done a very good job getting people used to Windows).

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys

Reply 42 of 53, by Azarien

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
dr_st wrote:

Besides, Win2K is simply XP without the eye candy and some (useful) features. You can switch to classic look in WinXP and get back a lot of the "wasted" performance.

It still has different icons, though.
And 2K/Me icons were the best, IMHO.

Reply 43 of 53, by dr_st

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Speaking of desktop Pentium M: my experience was that across the entire line-up (when comparing top to top, middle to middle and bottom to bottom), a P4-HT desktop outperforms a P-M laptop. But you may have to account for the chipset differences (desktop has faster FSB, faster DDR and maybe other performance boosts). So a P-M chip in a desktop (via a socket adapter) may perform better than the same chip in a laptop, and even better than the comparable P4-HT.

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys

Reply 44 of 53, by Carlos S. M.

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
dr_st wrote:

Speaking of desktop Pentium M: my experience was that across the entire line-up (when comparing top to top, middle to middle and bottom to bottom), a P4-HT desktop outperforms a P-M laptop. But you may have to account for the chipset differences (desktop has faster FSB, faster DDR and maybe other performance boosts). So a P-M chip in a desktop (via a socket adapter) may perform better than the same chip in a laptop, and even better than the comparable P4-HT.

Also don't forget the P4 HT is 1C/2T which helps in multithread software, Pentium M is only 1C/1T, i wonder if you compare with an non HT P4 or a faster P4 with HT off

another limitations is most older Pentium M systems only ran on single channel RAM, the only way to get a dual channel RAM Pentium M system is ethier using the 915GM or the ASUS CT-479 with a supported motherboard, also the Pentium M on DDR1 runs at lower clocks mainly DDR266 or 333 unless you overclock, idk if DDR2 400/533 will really make a difference.

Pentium M + CT-479 + ASUS P4C800-E is really a good desktop Pentium M combo, with the fast Intel 875P and dual channel DDR, AGP 8x GPUs and overclocking, is possible to crank a Pentium M to FSB 800 with the CT-479 combo

There are many Pentium M overclocking sucess, mostly in the 2.4-2.8 ghz range, there are only few +3 ghz Pentium M OCs like this one: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthrea … l=1#post1210032

What is your biggest Pentium 4 Collection?
Socket 423/478 Motherboards with Universal AGP Slot
Socket 478 Motherboards with PCI-E Slots
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots
Experiences and thoughts with Socket 423 systems

Reply 45 of 53, by zyga64

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

If we're talking about desktops, single core processors and Windows 9x. I'm in doubt that something can beat Asrock 775i65G (rev 2.0 and up) + Celeron 4x0 in terms of: compatibility, performance and TDP (only 35W which is typical rather for mobile). And of course total cost also does matter...

Scamp: 286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
Aries: 486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
Triton: K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
Seattle: P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /Vibra16s+SBLive!
Panther Point: 3470s /4G /GTX750Ti /HDA

Reply 46 of 53, by nforce4max

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
dr_st wrote:

Speaking of desktop Pentium M: my experience was that across the entire line-up (when comparing top to top, middle to middle and bottom to bottom), a P4-HT desktop outperforms a P-M laptop. But you may have to account for the chipset differences (desktop has faster FSB, faster DDR and maybe other performance boosts). So a P-M chip in a desktop (via a socket adapter) may perform better than the same chip in a laptop, and even better than the comparable P4-HT.

There are some desktop boards that were made just for the P-M to appeal to a niche market at the time so people are not limited to just searching for a socket adapter that is becoming rare. Got a MSI Speedster FA4 running a mildly overclocked PM780 and the cherry on top is a 8800 Ultra, for those who either can't find or afford one of those somewhat rare boards the Dell Inspiron 9300 is a nice budget option since the demand is still very low.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 47 of 53, by Standard Def Steve

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
dr_st wrote:

Speaking of desktop Pentium M: my experience was that across the entire line-up (when comparing top to top, middle to middle and bottom to bottom), a P4-HT desktop outperforms a P-M laptop. But you may have to account for the chipset differences (desktop has faster FSB, faster DDR and maybe other performance boosts). So a P-M chip in a desktop (via a socket adapter) may perform better than the same chip in a laptop, and even better than the comparable P4-HT.

Pentium M in a desktop with dual-channel low latency DDR2 really screams. I have one clocked at 2.72GHz, and in each and every single threaded benchmark and game I ran, it outperformed my fastest Netburst system, a Pentium D @ 4GHz.

"A little sign-in here, a touch of WiFi there..."

Reply 48 of 53, by dr_st

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Interesting. By how much roughly? What about multi-threaded benchmarks?

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys

Reply 49 of 53, by Standard Def Steve

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
dr_st wrote:

Interesting. By how much roughly? What about multi-threaded benchmarks?

On average, 11% for single-threaded 2D application benchmarks and 20% for single-threaded games.
3DMark01 was one of the bigger wins, with the PM being 40% faster.

Pentium D 935 @ 4GHz:

The attachment PD-4000 GTX560 3D01-XP.png is no longer available

Pentium M 755 @ 2.72GHz:

The attachment PM 2.72 GTX 560 3D01-XP.PNG is no longer available

AIDA64 indicates that the Pentium D has faster caches than the PM, which I found interesting. I guess cache performance doesn't mean a thing when it's combined with a weak core. As for multi-threaded benchmarks, the Pentium D was able to outperform the Pentium M in every test, by 14-58%.

"A little sign-in here, a touch of WiFi there..."

Reply 50 of 53, by notsofossil

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
dr_st wrote:

Find me a built-in miniPCI Wireless-G card (not to mention Wireless-N) that has WinME drivers and WPA/WPA2 support. So far I couldn't.

On a desktop it's not an issue. A laptop without good Wifi with modern capabilities is just crippling.

WinXP is ideal for Pentium M laptops, because this is the OS that most of them were shipped with. It is the OS on which they were tested, and for which the most, best drivers are available. Win2K may be close behind, but still not there. Besides, Win2K is simply XP without the eye candy and some (useful) features. You can switch to classic look in WinXP and get back a lot of the "wasted" performance.

When I said not ideal, I just meant you can't do as much heavy lifting as you could with a Core 2 Duo. XP works well enough on the Pentium M. When I say Win2k/ME/98SE is ideal, I mean those OSes are blazing fast on Pentium M systems.

I'm in the middle of nowhere, I can afford to have wimpy/no encryption on my Wi-Fi. WinME on a Pentium M laptop works well in that case.

My opinion here is very niche, don't sweat it.

dr_st wrote:

You are caught up on misconceptions that are about a decade old. By now, the average Linux distro has almost just as much software support as a modern Windows version, and definitely more than Win98SE/ME which you like so much. Granted, there still is, and always will be some Windows-specific software, but whether you need such software or not depends entirely on you.

Note that I am talking about mainstream every-day software. For specific niches, especially development-oriented, Linux can have tons more useful little utilities that Windows ever had or ever will have.

The bottom line is that there are many use cases for which nowadays Windows is completely unnecessary, but many still use it as a force of habit (Microsoft has done a very good job getting people used to Windows).

I don't do Steam, cloud computing or programming. My main attraction to Windows has always been games, but it has excellent daily driver and productivity software. In my case, I don't see the point in re-inventing the wheel just to get away from Windows. My interest in Windows is primarily in the past, I enjoy bucking technological and social norms.

Thinkpad T42 Win9x Drivers | Latitude D600 Win9x Drivers
Next: Dell Inspiron 8000

Reply 51 of 53, by dr_st

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
notsofossil wrote:

When I said not ideal, I just meant you can't do as much heavy lifting as you could with a Core 2 Duo. XP works well enough on the Pentium M. When I say Win2k/ME/98SE is ideal, I mean those OSes are blazing fast on Pentium M systems.

So in that spirit, I can say a Core 2 Duo is not ideal, because you cannot do as much lifting as you can with a Quad-core i7. And so long and so forth.

The "heavy lifting" is all about the software that you run, and the tasks you perform; not the OS. Who cares that the OS is "blazing fast" in booting up and opening that file manager window? What are you going to do with it? Reboot and open file managers all day long? Once you start running software, you will notice that the OS's effect on performance is typically not as big as you think, but the differences between 9x/ME and XP are pretty big when it comes to supporting modern technologies.

Note that I'm leaving games out of the discussion - because with games, certain OS-specific optimizations for period-correct games can probably make a noticeable differences in favor of 9x/ME over XP. So once again we get to the point - it's all about what you intend to use the machine for.

notsofossil wrote:

I'm in the middle of nowhere, I can afford to have wimpy/no encryption on my Wi-Fi. WinME on a Pentium M laptop works well in that case.

Good for you, I guess. 😀 Some of us are not quite so in the middle of nowhere, though. And some of us may want to use the laptop at multiple locations. Try finding a non-WPA network at a workplace. Heck, even most coffee shops encrypt with WPA/WPA2 nowadays.

notsofossil wrote:

My opinion here is very niche, don't sweat it.

True, and there is nothing wrong with holding your opinion. I very much respect and admire your persistence in fighting for Windows ME's good name and showing people its good sides. 😀 But, having tried it myself recently, I could see its faults, and I would not go as far as to recommend it as a "holy grail" for everything pre-C2D. It is good for specific niches, as you say. As an all-round OS it does not come anywhere close to 2K or XP.

notsofossil wrote:

I don't do Steam, cloud computing or programming. My main attraction to Windows has always been games, but it has excellent daily driver and productivity software. In my case, I don't see the point in re-inventing the wheel just to get away from Windows. My interest in Windows is primarily in the past, I enjoy bucking technological and social norms.

And just like this, there are people with completely opposite use cases - for example someone who does not play games at all, and does do any development for Microsoft-specific technologies, and does not happen to share an office with a lot of people who use Microsoft Office technologies as the standard - by now (and probably as long as a decade ago) has almost no reason to prefer Windows to Linux.

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys

Reply 52 of 53, by JiaoTongNan

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

This is a bit late, but you can actually do a lot with a Pentium 4-era laptop.

At this point in time, the hardware holds drivers for:
- Windows NT 4.0 (My Dell Latitude D600 had the drivers)
- Windows 98SE/ME (I will advise using Windows ME 9 out of 10 times for stability reasons- 98SE is poor with WDM)
- Windows 2000 (I don't see any merit of using 2000 over XP though)
- Windows XP
- Windows 7 (Unofficial)
- Windows 8.1 (Unofficial)

If we take a moment and think about this- Pentium 4 hardware is surprisingly powerful. You can use the same computer to run MS-DOS hardware, 9x and NT peripherals, and modern printers, smartphones, mobile devices, and connect external hard drives to the PC for backups. Of course, it's inefficient and slow in our standards, but there are situations in this world that require them. You also have max compatibility for software for these OSes, something even virtual PCs lack when it comes to drivers. Musical hardware, hospital equipment, POS hardware, and many items that could never get a driver update.

It just takes a bit of searching.

But, your laptop is too new to run Windows NT or 9x. The last to support 9x (and maybe NT unofficially) is the T42.

Personal Blog

Reply 53 of 53, by GemCookie

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
JiaoTongNan wrote on 2024-06-14, 09:09:

- Windows 2000 (I don't see any merit of using 2000 over XP though)

Windows 2000 is faster than XP (even on a Core 2 Duo), yet still allows for running newer software that doesn't work on 95 or 98. It also has a solid user interface.

JiaoTongNan wrote on 2024-06-14, 09:09:

But, your laptop is too new to run Windows NT or 9x. The last to support 9x (and maybe NT unofficially) is the T42.

I suspect that the driver packages for the ThinkPad T41 would work. These two laptops use very similar hardware.

Gigabyte GA-8I915P Duo Pro | P4 520 | GF6600 | 2GiB DDR | 256GB SSD | DR-DOS/WinXP
MSI MS-5169 | K6-2 350 | TNT2 M64 | 384MiB PC100 | 120GB HDD | 95/NT/2k/XP/OpenBSD
Dell Precision M6400 | C2D T9600 | FX 2700M | 16GiB | 128GB SSD | 2000/Vista/Arch/OpenBSD