32 bit Vista on an old PC.

Feek · 16-12-2007, 23:05

This afternoon, I made a snap decision which could have been either good or bad.

I decided to install Vista on the PC which the rest of the family use.

Recently it had started doing silly buggers with some applications, some games would no longer run and an OS rebuild was the only realistic fix, I did one of the things I do sometime which is to just bite the bullet, say "what the ****" and go for it, just like Joel Goodsen in Risky Business. No eggs here though

The system is an AMD XP3000+ 32 bit CPU with 1Gb RAM and an ATI 9600 graphics card. Not high spec at all.

I removed the 80Gb drive and fitted a spare 120Gb jobbie. Threw the DVD in and booted.

40 minutes later the OS was on. The first thing I did once it booted was to add a 2Gb USB key as a readyboost cache because I was expecting the performance to be utterly dire on a machine with 1Gb.

I patched it, set up user accounts, installed Office and set up email (copying back each users .pst file from the old drive), threw Diskeeper on and added Avast.

So now the AV is running the three weekly scan it does to checksum all the files (or whatever it does), the indexing service is running it's initial scan and diskeeper is trying to defrag the drive whenever the CPU is idle.

It should be running like an absolute dog.

But it's not.

Even with all this disk activity going on in the background, it's perfectly usable. Aero is running and it looks fine.

The lowest figure on the Windows Performance Index thing is 2.2 and that's the graphics performance due to the old 9600 but the CPU, disk and memory are all hitting between 3.2 and 3.9 which is perfectly acceptable.

I tried updating the graphics driver but no matter how I do it, whether I download the full package or do it through Windows Updates, it screws the driver completely and the graphics drops to 1.0 and it crawls so there's a problem with that somewhere but it's working fine and well with the driver that Vista ships with so I'm leaving it at that.

I installed all the SIM2 packages for LMF and they work well, I install the game that Mrs. Feek was having problems with (Vampire Masquerades Bloodlines) and that's working well. Firefox is in and running, as are a few other utilities.

I checked task manager and even with a fair bit open, it's only using roughly half the physical RAM. I'm quite surprised by this, the x86 version seems to have a much smaller memory footprint than the x64 version.

So I'm currently happy. The family are happy. I've left UAC turned on so that they hopefully can't break this particular OS build.

I'm also surprised at how well it's running, I was expecting to be hunting around trying to find more memory for it this evening.

Lets hope it continues to work well.

Stan_Lite · 17-12-2007, 05:12

I have it running on my old Asus laptop with a 1.6 GHz Dothan CPU, 512Mb RAM and onboard graphics. It's not particularly fast but it works fine for the basics. The chipset isn't supported to run Aero so that is not available but it doesn't seem to make a hell of a lot of difference.

Kelly uses it more than me while she's watching her girly pish on the telly as it sits in the living room, so she'd know better than me how it performs - but on the occasions I've used it, it seems perfectly capable of playing a bit of music whilst surfing the web or working with documents. I wouldn't think it would multitask well but it's not used for anything other than the above. I did have it Folding for a while but that really did slow it down and it wasn't much use for anything then so I stopped it (output was very low anyway).

Mark · 17-12-2007, 09:09

x86 does indeed have a considerably lower memory footprint than x64, and I'm not just talking Vista here - this applies to everything. Some software I wrote a while back can run either x86 (311KiB) or x64 (1,544KiB) versions. Admittedly that's on Linux so Windows may not be so heavyweight, but I'm sure you still get the idea.

Even so I found that Vista 32-bit running under VMWare with 512MB RAM allocated was something I'd not wish on anyone (XP with 384MB was fine). That may well have been due to VMWare though as it was old hardware.

Darrin · 17-12-2007, 12:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feek

The system is an AMD XP3000+ 32 bit CPU with 1Gb RAM and an ATI 9600 graphics card. Not high spec at all.

Oh, would you PLEASE?!?!?!?

That's higher spec than my main rig!!

The only thing I've got going better is my 3000+ is a 64 bit, but you've got me spanked on memory and graphics.....

Seriously, though. Glad to hear it's working good for ya.

16-12-2007, 23:05	#1
Feek ex SAS Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: JO01ou Posts: 10,062	32 bit Vista on an old PC. This afternoon, I made a snap decision which could have been either good or bad. I decided to install Vista on the PC which the rest of the family use. Recently it had started doing silly buggers with some applications, some games would no longer run and an OS rebuild was the only realistic fix, I did one of the things I do sometime which is to just bite the bullet, say "what the ****" and go for it, just like Joel Goodsen in Risky Business. No eggs here though The system is an AMD XP3000+ 32 bit CPU with 1Gb RAM and an ATI 9600 graphics card. Not high spec at all. I removed the 80Gb drive and fitted a spare 120Gb jobbie. Threw the DVD in and booted. 40 minutes later the OS was on. The first thing I did once it booted was to add a 2Gb USB key as a readyboost cache because I was expecting the performance to be utterly dire on a machine with 1Gb. I patched it, set up user accounts, installed Office and set up email (copying back each users .pst file from the old drive), threw Diskeeper on and added Avast. So now the AV is running the three weekly scan it does to checksum all the files (or whatever it does), the indexing service is running it's initial scan and diskeeper is trying to defrag the drive whenever the CPU is idle. It should be running like an absolute dog. But it's not. Even with all this disk activity going on in the background, it's perfectly usable. Aero is running and it looks fine. The lowest figure on the Windows Performance Index thing is 2.2 and that's the graphics performance due to the old 9600 but the CPU, disk and memory are all hitting between 3.2 and 3.9 which is perfectly acceptable. I tried updating the graphics driver but no matter how I do it, whether I download the full package or do it through Windows Updates, it screws the driver completely and the graphics drops to 1.0 and it crawls so there's a problem with that somewhere but it's working fine and well with the driver that Vista ships with so I'm leaving it at that. I installed all the SIM2 packages for LMF and they work well, I install the game that Mrs. Feek was having problems with (Vampire Masquerades Bloodlines) and that's working well. Firefox is in and running, as are a few other utilities. I checked task manager and even with a fair bit open, it's only using roughly half the physical RAM. I'm quite surprised by this, the x86 version seems to have a much smaller memory footprint than the x64 version. So I'm currently happy. The family are happy. I've left UAC turned on so that they hopefully can't break this particular OS build. I'm also surprised at how well it's running, I was expecting to be hunting around trying to find more memory for it this evening. Lets hope it continues to work well. __________________

17-12-2007, 05:12	#2
Stan_Lite Stan, Stan the FLASHER MAN! Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: In bed with your sister Posts: 5,483	I have it running on my old Asus laptop with a 1.6 GHz Dothan CPU, 512Mb RAM and onboard graphics. It's not particularly fast but it works fine for the basics. The chipset isn't supported to run Aero so that is not available but it doesn't seem to make a hell of a lot of difference. Kelly uses it more than me while she's watching her girly pish on the telly as it sits in the living room, so she'd know better than me how it performs - but on the occasions I've used it, it seems perfectly capable of playing a bit of music whilst surfing the web or working with documents. I wouldn't think it would multitask well but it's not used for anything other than the above. I did have it Folding for a while but that really did slow it down and it wasn't much use for anything then so I stopped it (output was very low anyway). __________________ Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean I... Last edited by Stan_Lite; 17-12-2007 at 05:15.

17-12-2007, 09:09	#3
Mark Screaming Orgasm Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Newbury Posts: 15,194	x86 does indeed have a considerably lower memory footprint than x64, and I'm not just talking Vista here - this applies to everything. Some software I wrote a while back can run either x86 (311KiB) or x64 (1,544KiB) versions. Admittedly that's on Linux so Windows may not be so heavyweight, but I'm sure you still get the idea. Even so I found that Vista 32-bit running under VMWare with 512MB RAM allocated was something I'd not wish on anyone (XP with 384MB was fine). That may well have been due to VMWare though as it was old hardware.