P200 strong enough for Windows 98

[Wilan Wong]

My friend said that my system is not good enough for Windows 98. (Runs at full speed) It's a Pentium 200 MMX, 32MB RAM, 4Mb Video Card, 15inch monitor, SB16, PCI, 2.5Gb Hard Drive (UltraATA/33. I think..) He said that the processor wasn't strong enough. I thought that 32Mb RAM is not enough for Windows 98, if a add more RAM making it 64Mb. Would I see some difference?

[bdog]

I would say that you should see an improvement from the 64 mb. while a 200mhz isn't going to be a speed demon, it is definitely enough to run win98. We have several 166 mhz machines running win98 as well as a 90mhz machine with 128mb ram that is a print server for 20 computers.

[medo]

Hello,


Do not worry. Just add some RAM and it will run better. Friend of mine has P166 and 64 RAM and there is no problem.

Good luck.

Medo

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Eli]

I've run W98 (first edition) on a P75 with 8 meg ram (I had to borrow ram from another system just to install it... lol). It was unbearably slow, but workable. Now it's overclocked to 100MHz and has 24 meg ram and it works just fine. It uses more hard drive space than W95, but itn't any slower. Good luck.

[richamies]

I had W2k running on a P100 and it was more than 'useable'. Memory makes more of a difference than the CPU you have in normal day-to-day running.

ps The P100 had 64mb http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[jad1097]

I had win98 running on a 486DX2 66Mhz with 32meg ram and it ran fine.
Don't know if Microsoft® Windows® 98 Second Edition will run on your computer?
Here are the minimum requirements your computer hardware must meet in order to run Windows 98 Second Edition http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

Computer/processor: 486DX/66 MHz or higher processor.

Memory: 24 megabytes (MB) of memory; more memory improves performance.

Hard disk:
-When using FAT16 File system, typical installation requires 260 MB of available hard-disk space, but may range between 210 MB and 400 MB, depending upon system configuration and options selected
-When using FAT32 File system, typical installation requires 210 MB of available hard-disk space, but may range between 190 MB and 305 MB, depending upon system configuraiton and options selectedTypical installation requires approximately 205 MB of free hard-disk space, but may range between 140 MB to 315 MB, depending on your system configuration and the options you choose to install.

Drive: CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive (3.5" high-density disks available for additional charge).

Display: VGA or higher-resolution monitor.

Peripheral/miscellaneous: Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device. http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/guide/Win98/SysReq/default.asp

So see your friend is not correct.

[Cold Boot]

A P200 should be entirely adequate to run Win98,but an additional 32 megs. should make a noticable difference.

[M1pilot]

Memory is the key in your case. I installed Win98 on one of my nieces computer....an old 486DX4-100 with only 8mb! It's horribly slow,
but workable. When I can find some simms for a decent price around here, it should perk the machine right up! It won't be a speed demon, but for what she needs it for, it'll do.

-M1pilot

[Jinx67]

Hi your P 200 should be fine running win 98 more ram would speed it up though. Until you get more ram try closing all running programs except for Explorer and systray you can either use the ctrl+ alt+ del method, or get one of those nifty utilities like Tweak-all from ZDNet. That will help out some till you get more ram.

[scotter]

ok so I was messin around with a bunch of old boards I had hooked a hard drive with win 98 on it to a old board with a DX2-33 chip and 4 meg of memery http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif it booted and ran was slow as all get out and took for ever to load but it did and you could actualy do things with it with out it puking lol http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Moe]

<begin rant>

But, Win98 (FE or SE) is the biggest POS Operating System(!?) i have ever used. I would not reccommend it to *anyone*, and here's why:

One, you said it for me, it's far to inefficient with hardware. Win95 does most of the same things with far fewer resources.

Two, it is probably the most unstable production OS I have ever used

Three, I have never seen an OS that can screw itself up as much

Four, I know that it is for compatibility, but the performance hit you are taking by still having a large part of the OS being 16-bit is enormous. We haven't seen a 16-bit processor since the i386, which is now 3 generations old! Modern chips such as the pentium and PPro-based chips are all optimized for 32bit operation, and there is not reason not to take full advantage of that in your operating system.

In my opinion, WinNT or Win2k are much better alternatives to the 98 any day.

In my opinion Windows 2000 is the best thing that has happened to Win9x users that don't want to switch to Linux.

</end rant>