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XP Rig ahead!

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First post, by PcBytes

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Thought of showing my XP SP3 rig:

Athlon XP 1900+
Sony DVD-ROM
MSI K7N2 Delta-L
512MB Elixir RAM
MSI Geforce FX5200+ 128MB w/TV out (it's actually a reflashed Palit card)
20GB HDD
floppy drive
JNC LC-B300ATX 300W PSU (a Linkword inside,as opposed to Deer)
Realtek 8139 NIC
C-Media 8738 PCI soundcard (might search for a Sound Blaster when I have the mood)
MSI D-Bracket.
Windows XP SP3

It originally was a 2000 SP4 rig,but I decided to put XP on it since it can handle it.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 2 of 10, by PcBytes

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candle_86 wrote:

I wouldn't run SP3 on that rig, stick to SP2, with 512mb of ram and an xp 1900 SP3 is pushing it

You ain't gonna believe it but it runs smooth. In fact it takes around 30-40 secs to boot to desktop.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 4 of 10, by dr_st

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Well, it may run smooth enough (depending on the tasks it performs), but boot time is one of the worst benchmarks for performance. It depends very little on raw PC performance, and much more on your exact configuration, and what HW/SW you have installed ,including things that interact with other things in ways that are very hard to control and even predict.

I have seen a Pentium III sub-1GHz desktop that booted Windows XP to desktop in under 15 seconds, while my best XP rig (a Core 2 Duo 2GHz) takes well over two minutes to do so.

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

Reply 5 of 10, by PcBytes

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dr_st wrote:

I have seen a Pentium III sub-1GHz desktop that booted Windows XP to desktop in under 15 seconds, while my best XP rig (a Core 2 Duo 2GHz) takes well over two minutes to do so.

I'd say that would be because of the HDD's RPMs,but it also depends on RAM and CPU.

For example I have a AXP 2500+ rig with 1.50GB boot Windows 7 almost 5x faster than my Athlon 64 3200+ with the same amount of RAM.
Why it does this? Because the AXP 2500+ runs on a 7200RPM SATA HDD,while the 64 runs on a 5400RPM 1TB SATA HDD.

Those are my 2 cents.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 6 of 10, by dr_st

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PcBytes wrote:

I'd say that would be because of the HDD's RPMs,but it also depends on RAM and CPU.

No, it wouldn't. Not in that particular example, at least.

RAM has nothing to do with it, unless you have so little of it that you are already running out before the OS finished booting.

CPU speed and hard drive RPM can and do in principle affect boot time, but HW/SW configuration affect it so much more that for all practical purposes you can consider the effect to be random.

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

Reply 7 of 10, by nforce4max

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I haven't had much bad luck with SP3 provided that I didn't connect to the net but if you get better results with SP2 then go for it.

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

Reply 8 of 10, by PcBytes

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nforce4max wrote:

I haven't had much bad luck with SP3 provided that I didn't connect to the net but if you get better results with SP2 then go for it.

My system seems to have no problems on the net. Apart from IE6 being a total stupid, Mozilla runs fine,no slowdowns.

Also the system runs fast by itself. While it's fast,it also manages to look good.

It also has a custom bootscreen.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 9 of 10, by raymangold

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Do you use this as a primary box, or just for legacy / gaming purposes?

I have an old bench tower with XP for legacy reasons and also for my gameboy USB flashable cartridge which has LSDJ on it.
The ones like here (the software wasn't designed for Windows 7 and it's much easier just running it on XP): http://www.retrotowers.co.uk/gb-gameboy-usb-smart-card-64m

Reply 10 of 10, by PcBytes

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raymangold wrote:

Do you use this as a primary box, or just for legacy / gaming purposes?

Legacy/gaming purposes.

My primary rig is an Athlon 64 3200+. (pic of it is in the "computing area" of System Specs).

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB