XP and what computer is necessary to run.

Two computers,,swap HD and processor so I can use XP in the tower that I have the floppy and CD on?

I currently have a Intel Celeron
400MHZ with 320RAM and 5.99GB Harddrive
This tower has a 48X CD drive and floppy with extra Ram slots and space for a second fan.

I have my nephew's HP 666mhz P3 with 192RAM and 14GB harddrive There are only two RAM slots on this tower and currently on has 64 and the other 128 RAM
The CD drive isn't as good 24X.

This all started as I have been advised that for what I am doing for my employer is homebased and I need Windows XP and have been told that the Celeron is to small and slow.

Any suggestions,,,,I'm somewhat knowledgeable and microsoft as said that replacing the hard drive is no biggie, but I'm trying to figure it all out....Can I build one good computer in my Celeron tower and still have a useable computer left of the older pieces for someone who doesn't need lots of HD.

I'm getting conflicting information from dealers saying that I need at least 40GB HD for XP and that even the 666mhz is not fast enough.

HELP,,,,I am only working parttime at present and just don't have money to hire someone or buy a new computer, but catch 22,,,,,need something to continue working.

Thanks for any help and instruction that you can supply



The problem

 

This should help.

 

Thank you very much....I had done the XP check on the Celeron and they didn't say anything about it being too small, just that my JamCam and IBM ADF scanner wouldn't work.
I have been looking but can't find anything on their websites about compatability with XP.

I couldn't find what you so kindly forwarded above, that explains the complete requirements.

Dealers and paid repairs are telling me that what I have will be too slow and will all but grind to a halt.
I currently have the Full Microsoft Office Suite,,Access, etc plus simply accounting on the Celeron and have had no problems and have 50% of the 5.99GB HD empty.

I find it frustrating when they tell me that it will take forever to get the pages loaded.

That was my reason for asking if I could move the HP HD and processor into the Celeron and if it would work, or what I would have to do to have things work that way.

Gloria

 

Gloria,

Either computer you have will run XP just fine, but maybe slower than a new computer. It shouldn't matter though in working with office programs.

 

Well, XP loves RAM, and it won't be a screamin machine, but it won't crawl either, if not doing much multitasking. They want to sell computers. Of course they're going to tell you it won't work. I've seen XP installed on less and still work OK. Try to stay away from resource hogging programs, AV's and such and it'll get you by just fine. I think your page load time, if referring to Internet, will be more governed by your connection than your system in this case. There are plenty of tweaks for XP that will cut down the system load too, and plenty of help to get it tweaked.

 

Thank you all for your help.

I am wondering if having a "stockwatch" quote program running in the background will effect this dramatically.

I should say that although the full office,excel, access , etcprogrammes will be installed. I won't have more than one open at a time.

This is not a massive project, just downloading the end of the day results that are gathered from stockwatch workstation programme that has been running in the background while the markets are open.

It will be copy and paste into an excel sheet.

So if the actual programmes are not heavily used, then the Windows XP would be the resource hog as I understand it?

I'm sorry to be a bit dense on this.

Gloria.

 

Should I post the exchange of computer parts question in the Hardward forum?

I'm just wondering if I can move the processer and HD into the Celeron case.

If both are moved wouldn't they be compatible already as they were matched in the HP tower already?

The Ram is another question.... The Celeron has PC100 cards.

Geesh,,,,,,I feel very "dumb" in that my logical thinking maybe not at all compatible with the way computers are put together. .

Gloria

 

You can do the swap but you'll probably have to also swap the motherboards. More than likely the motherboard that the Celoron is on won't support the 666 mhz cpu. Do you know what kind of motherboard is in the computer with the Celeron?

 

Here is OK for the whole discussion.

The drive should move fine. The processor - I think I'd leave things along for now and just move the drive.

You won't (as already noted) have screaming performance but the system will certainly run and not so slow as to make you crazy. The stock thingy running in the background won't make enough difference to notice.

FWIW, I am sitting at a laptop right now. XP-pro /w SP1 and hotfixes. Office XP loaded along with a few other assorted programs.

My hard drive has 37.2 Gb of space that can be used and 31Gb of that is free right now. Granted, my documents and other similar items are elsewhere but if you are reasonable, a 15Gb drive is plenty of room.

You probably do want to disable Hibernation (the file for that is huge) and to limit the number of system restore points you keep (they can also get huge) but with a little bit of housekeeping, XP really isn't that much of a space hog.

About all I can say is that I would be perfectly willing to use the system you will have after moving some parts around. I do some light duty stuff (word, excel, browsing, occasional power point) but nothing that really makes a system work. Sounds like you don't either.