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#1
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Movin' on up?
I'm running W98SE on a ThinkPad 770E with 96 mb RAM and a 5 gb IDE
drive. Is there any logical move up the system ladder for minor home computing (minimal web surfing like TV Guide, email, news, small program running, no action gaming - only stuff like solitaire, etc., some music playing) without resource upgrading? I've heard bad things about ME and 2000. I'd expect XP to demand far more resources. If I did upgrade my 770E memory and drive capacity, would it really benefit me noticably? Jim L -- "Don't call it a crisis until you can't fix it," Obstructionist Party. |
#2
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This page shows the minimum and recommended requirements for Windows XP and
it appears that your system meets the minimum requirements but not the recommended. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h...n/sysreqs.mspx My suggestion would be not to upgrade this laptop but to put that money towards a new system. New laptops can be had for very little more than the cost of adding RAM, upgrading your hard drive and purchasing a new operating system. The new system will come with more RAM, larger hard drive, and Windows XP plus a much faster processor, probably a DVD/CD-RW drive, built in wireless and wired networking, USB 2.0, etc. You might want to check out Http://www.pricegrabbers.com or one of the other sites that searches multiple retailers for prices just to see what you can get these days. Also check out your Sunday newspaper for ads from Office Max, Office Depot, Staples, etc or see them online. I have a friend who just got a new HP from Office Max for about $500 including shipping. You might also want to just keep this system as is for a while longer. I would not expect you to see an upgrade give you a big performance boost for the type of usage that you describe since it doesn't appear to stress the resources that you currently have. Your Internet browsing is limited by the speed of your Internet connection and not likely by your system's resources. PattyL wrote in message ... I'm running W98SE on a ThinkPad 770E with 96 mb RAM and a 5 gb IDE drive. Is there any logical move up the system ladder for minor home computing (minimal web surfing like TV Guide, email, news, small program running, no action gaming - only stuff like solitaire, etc., some music playing) without resource upgrading? I've heard bad things about ME and 2000. I'd expect XP to demand far more resources. If I did upgrade my 770E memory and drive capacity, would it really benefit me noticably? Jim L -- "Don't call it a crisis until you can't fix it," Obstructionist Party. |
#3
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On 03/22/2005 at 08:20 AM, "PattyL" said:
Thanks for your reply Your Internet browsing is limited by the speed of your Internet connection and not likely by your system's resources. This (and a new utility) suggests a new question. The utility shows TXing to be a lot slower then RXing. Does system speed affect that much? Jim L -- "Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein were obviously very, very different," No No the Mous. |
#4
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I'm in the same boat (old laptop, minimal uses) and REALLY appreciate the
info --- reinforces my resisting shelling out for another one just now. Thanks. "PattyL" wrote: This page shows the minimum and recommended requirements for Windows XP and it appears that your system meets the minimum requirements but not the recommended. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/h...n/sysreqs.mspx My suggestion would be not to upgrade this laptop but to put that money towards a new system. New laptops can be had for very little more than the cost of adding RAM, upgrading your hard drive and purchasing a new operating system. The new system will come with more RAM, larger hard drive, and Windows XP plus a much faster processor, probably a DVD/CD-RW drive, built in wireless and wired networking, USB 2.0, etc. You might want to check out Http://www.pricegrabbers.com or one of the other sites that searches multiple retailers for prices just to see what you can get these days. Also check out your Sunday newspaper for ads from Office Max, Office Depot, Staples, etc or see them online. I have a friend who just got a new HP from Office Max for about $500 including shipping. You might also want to just keep this system as is for a while longer. I would not expect you to see an upgrade give you a big performance boost for the type of usage that you describe since it doesn't appear to stress the resources that you currently have. Your Internet browsing is limited by the speed of your Internet connection and not likely by your system's resources. PattyL wrote in message ... I'm running W98SE on a ThinkPad 770E with 96 mb RAM and a 5 gb IDE drive. Is there any logical move up the system ladder for minor home computing (minimal web surfing like TV Guide, email, news, small program running, no action gaming - only stuff like solitaire, etc., some music playing) without resource upgrading? I've heard bad things about ME and 2000. I'd expect XP to demand far more resources. If I did upgrade my 770E memory and drive capacity, would it really benefit me noticably? Jim L -- "Don't call it a crisis until you can't fix it," Obstructionist Party. |
#5
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A lot of the Rx data will be compressed, whereas very little of the Tx data
is compressed. -- Jeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) wrote in message ... On 03/22/2005 at 08:20 AM, "PattyL" said: Thanks for your reply Your Internet browsing is limited by the speed of your Internet connection and not likely by your system's resources. This (and a new utility) suggests a new question. The utility shows TXing to be a lot slower then RXing. Does system speed affect that much? Jim L -- "Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein were obviously very, very different," No No the Mous. |
#6
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On 03/23/2005 at 07:09 PM, Callie
said: I'm in the same boat (old laptop, minimal uses) and REALLY appreciate the info --- reinforces my resisting shelling out for another one just now. I'd love to get the fastest, most powerful notebook available and forget PC's completely. I find it really unfortunate that notebooks cost way, way more compared to PC's (actually, way, way more than I'll ever be able to afford) when new. Jim L -- "Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein were obviously very, very different," No No the Mous. |
#7
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In ,
had this to say: My reply is at the bottom of your sent message: On 03/23/2005 at 07:09 PM, Callie said: I'm in the same boat (old laptop, minimal uses) and REALLY appreciate the info --- reinforces my resisting shelling out for another one just now. I'd love to get the fastest, most powerful notebook available and forget PC's completely. I find it really unfortunate that notebooks cost way, way more compared to PC's (actually, way, way more than I'll ever be able to afford) when new. Jim L Jim, Prices are really dropping. You can get a decent laptop at fairly good prices. I've taken a peek at Pricewatch.com (this would be WITHOUT an OS) for a fairly good price. Take a peek in this area of the site: http://www.pricewatch.com/h/prc.aspx?i=336&p=4 I do a great deal of shopping through their site and I recommend that you read the feedback portion. Keep in mind when reading them that MOST people don't bother to leave feedback unless they're upset. Happy shoppers tend to move on and forget about feedback. I tend to leave positive feedback every time there is some and, to be honest, I've never had to leave negative feedback yet. Then again I am a bit anal about this sort of stuff and I read all of the feedback given before ordering and I usually contact the company with some inane question and wait to see how long it takes them to answer and how well they answer the question before making a major purchase with the company. If you look in the category under $500 you can get a 1 GHz for a bit less than $500 with shipping included. It's not state of the art. It's refurbished. It does still come with a warranty (always check that before buying) and you already have an OS. If you want one with an Operating System you can find a "decent enough" lappy for under $750. There's one that I was just looking at (will actually probably consider buying it just because I want to see what Acer's been up to lately as I'm generally a Toshiba fan for lappies but I've never been 100% brand specific when there's a better model at a better price available) that has a 40 GB HDD, DVD-CDRW, Wi-Fi, XP Home, 2.8 GHz, and 256 MB RAM. Not bad at all really. State of the art? No, there's bigger and better but there always will be. I buy a new tower seemingly every other month or so to add to my collection here and never ever have the absolute best product available. I shop slow, smart, and I get what I want at the best price that I'm able to find. Considering that I live in a VERY remote area it's only natural that I buy online but even if I didn't I'd probably continue to do the same just because of the benefits. To get to the nearest acceptable computer store I'm looking at a 150 mile round trip but sometimes I make the trip to see the product before I buy it. Anyhow, I just wanted to point out that there were some decent products available at very good prices these days. The above Acer is, in my opinion, a steal at that price considering it wasn't that long ago that a laptop was costing me about $3000 and had far less acceptable hardware than the above does. There's also Froogle.com which is also able to be used per your country so you could use froogle.co.uk if you lived in the UK for instance. Galen -- Signature changed for a moment of silence. Rest well Alex and we'll see you on the other side. |
#8
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On 03/25/2005 at 04:31 PM, "Galen" said:
Take a peek in this area of the site: http://www.pricewatch.com/h/prc.aspx?i=336&p=4 I do a great deal of shopping through their site and I recommend that you read the feedback portion. Thanks. I'll (gak) give this a look. I used PriceWatch for years until it got to where when you did a search they displayed several times more stuff you were not searching for than you were searching for - making them primarily a broadcast advertising station. So to speak, if I look for a certain kind of dog I get hits on all kinds of pets, pet food and accessories. Jim L -- "Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein were obviously very, very different," No No the Mous. |
#10
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On 03/25/2005 at 04:31 PM, "Galen" said:
http://www.pricewatch.com/h/prc.aspx?i=336&p=4 I do a great deal of shopping through their site Frankly it must be a lot of work. I clicked "Buy" on a dozen items. All but one took me not to the item but to the company's home page. That one took me to a "Not available" page. Jim L |
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