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General discussion

Sluggish Computer

Dec 25, 2004 8:33AM PST

I have just acquired a second hand computer. It is loaded with XP Pro has 128 Ram. But is very slow to operate. I have now found that W 98SE is also still on the machine. The hard drive is not partitioned. I suspect that XP Pro was installed without formatting the hard drive. I am contemplating formatting the drive, and then reinstalling XP Pro. Any suggestions about this please.

Discussion is locked

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minimum requirements?
Dec 25, 2004 8:50AM PST

Only having 128 MB of RAM will not be enough to run either XP Pro or Home. That operating system needs 512MB to run well. You can get by with 256MB but, it really is the lowest amount required. I recently upgrade an older notebook from 256 MB to 384 MB and the increase in performance is really noticable.

How old is the second hand computer? How big is your hard drive? Do you have all of the hardward drivers and product key numbers? There are a lot of unanswered questons you need to ask yourself before starting a restore.

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I agree-----------
Dec 26, 2004 3:36AM PST

to test your machines capability try running SISandra downloadable from www.cnet.com it will analyse your system and recommend suitable upgrades. you definitely need more Ram to run XP!
XP will certainly not run over the top of any win 98 based program. As the release of service pack 2 for XP indicates, it is already volatile!

Hope this helps,

BestWishes for the New Year,

Tony

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sluggish computer
Dec 26, 2004 8:53AM PST

The first thing you should do in install another 128M of memory. If you are going to use graphic intensive apps go to 512Meg.
If you do not have any critical data on the machine I would reinstall XP Pro.
You did not state you are getting a dual boot option. If not W89 may not be a complete installation, only residual files.

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Sluggish Computer
Dec 27, 2004 6:51AM PST

Defrag! And if it was connected to the internet get rid of addware.