john banks

I have a network of 8 PCs running Windows 95 (not sure how to tell what release it is and if that is important). Most of them are 300-400 or so MHz PII or Celerons with 64 MB, 6GB drives. They are creaking a bit... upgrading the RAM to 192 MB means that the hard drive on my personal machine is hardly ever accessed, and the main delays are seconds at a time waiting when it is running 100% CPU usage. The main server is I gather quite competent.

I want to spend a minimal amount to upgrade the four most important machines, and I honestly thing a motherboard, Athlon, CPU, case/PSU and 256 MB would help massively, whilst retaining all the old stuff otherwise - including the tiny hard drives, monitors and OS. There is no government money to upgrade them all properly for new machines which is what we really need, but it may come in about a year's time, so I want a stopgap upgrade for £1000 or less.

Although plainly stupid to use an old OS and hard drive, will I run into any problems with Win 95 on this sort of spec? Looking at the hardware, I hope the motherboard would recognise the old drives and boot from them. I would need display and network drivers, would that be it? May I struggle to get drivers for Win 95?

I don't have the time to reinstall everything, and no wish to purchase new versions of Windows and Office etc.

In terms of bottlenecks, how slow are the 6GB HDDs that came with a typical PII 350 system?

I have a built and installed a few PCs myself before and quite happy doing so, but I want to keep the time and installation costs to a minimum.

Any hints appreciated.. I am thinking of the following assembled bundles:

ATX Case 300W
ASUS A7N266-VM Nforce VGA Audio LAN DDR 266FSB
Athlon XP 2200+ (266FSB) inc fan and heatsink
256MB PC2100 DDR

£190 each inc VAT.

[Edited by john banks - 8/29/2003 2:59:18 PM]

[Edited by john banks - 8/29/2003 3:09:05 PM]

leeps

hi john

i don't really know what ur using the network for so i will try my best to answer ur question. Based on what ur currently running im guessing this is not an intensive network (cos ur specs are quite old). Then compared to what u have the cpu, motherboard and ram will make a huge difference. The old 6gb hardrives are usually only 5400 rpms compared to the 7200 rpms hdd nowdays. This means if u are are accessing the hardrives a lot it would also make a noticible difference to upgrade those particular hardrives. Cos the cpu does the processing but it is constrained to the speed of the hdd as well.

Using win95 with the newer hardware should be no problem provided that u install the drivers properly. If u build these new systems ur gonna have to reinstall the os on those systems, u can't just move one hardrive to another system. The os on your current computers won't just pick up the new hardware ... sorry

Hope this helps

leeps

john banks

So it is optimistic to put it into safe mode and then look for new hardware?

When I changed my motherboard on a Win 2k system it just found everything and worked, I had to find one or two drivers for the sound, but that was it. Am I being optimistic?

john banks

Is a Duron 1.3 a lot slower than and Athlon 2200+?

I think the 1.3 is a genuine clock speed and the 2200+ is really about 1800?

I can get the 1.3 system for £144 each

Mr.Cookie

john i have that same mobo with a 1ghz plus (can't remember exactly) duron running in it it's got 256meg ram and an old 6gig hard drive running xp pro connected to a belkin router with 3 other pc's and an xbox it can struggle from time to time but i think this is purely 256meg ram and xp if it was 98 i think it would fly motherboard like all asus's i've used is very good and a doddle to set up.

Si

Delboy2

1.3GHZ Durons are a very capable processor benefitting from the morgan core. I have built a few 1GHZ+ systems and seem very reliable. The major differences between the Duron and Athlon will only become apparent if used for high spec gaming and processor intensive applications which the Athlon will definately shine. The Duron will be fine for your'e application but supply case cooling (Exhaust Fan) as they run fairly warm. Also if you go for the early Asus nForce board you have to manually install the drivers (No Auto Install facility) which is a tad long winded but the board is very capable with Nvidia on board graphics.

[Edited by Delboy2 - 8/29/2003 6:19:45 PM]

leeps

I know that if u just move a hardrive from one computer setup to another, usually the os doesn't work. U can cos u aint gonna lose anything. The 1.3 duron is a lot slower than the 2.2 amd, even though the 2200 amd is only 1800 mhz that number is not important cos thats not the real processing speed. Thats why its labled 2200 cos it can compete with intel 2 ghz. The durons are a lot cheaper mainly due to the fact that they have less cache memory. This doesn't really matter if your doing simple processing and the likes, however if you are going to need a lot of cpu power i would advise against duron's and celerons ....

leeps