Is my MB and Processor to slow for winXP?

[ocoini]

Hey!
I'm looking to buy some RAM for a kinda old computer, but maybe the motherboard and Processor is too outdated for windows XP to begin with?

From belarc advisor:
Processor
233 megahertz Intel Pentium II
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Main Circuit Board b
Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P2L97 REV 1.xx
Bus Clock: 66 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software, Inc. #401A0-0105 12/02/97

Memory Modules
Slot '0' has 16 MB
Slot '1' has 16 MB
Slot '2' has 16 MB
Slot '3' has 16 MB


So my questions; will a cupple hundred RAM be enough to speed up this old noice maker to a notice-able diffrence? Or should I look into getting a new Motherboard and processor?
(The computer is only used for light web browsing, email and writeing)

This is the first place I looked so does anyone know exactly what kind of memory I will need if I choose to get more of it? Hopefully I will find out somewhere else if no-one here knows.

 

[milkrocks]

Don't Bother - From my experiences most machines that run below 500mhz are pretty painfull in Windows XP. You dont need a machine like many build on the forum to be pleased with a WinXP experience, but I dont know about a PII 233 being very usable even if you can manage to install about 256mb of ram in it. A machine with 64MB of ram and a PII will be more or less useless under XP.

 

[kb3edk]

I agree with milkrocks, your computer is probably too old to run WinXP effectively. I seem to remember Microsoft's "offical" spec for the OS to be something along the lines of a Pentium III 500 MHz, and 128MB of RAM. If you just need to get this box up and running, best to scrounge around for a copy of Win 98 or ME, or failing that, try installing one of the more "user friendly" Linux distributions... I ran one called "Mandrake" on my PII/233 for many years.

As far as hardware upgrades, you will see a very noticeable performance improvement moving from 64MB RAM to 128MB... somewhat less so above that. When I was on this platform, because the bus is 66MHz and the PII processor fits into the unusual motherboard "slocket" I found myself very limited in terms of upgrade options. I think the Pentium II/first generation Celeron tops out either at 333 or 400 MHz. There is one radical solution which is to use a second generation Celeron in a slocket adapter (the most popular one is the Powerleap PL-IP3T) but because of the 66MHz bus speed on your motherboard even the fastest second generation Celeron (1.4 GHz) will only run 2/3 as fast (~900 MHz).

So my advice for you is, don't put any money into this computer except $10 or $20 for more RAM... if you can save up just $100 or so you can get a very nice used PIII which will run WinXP and much much more.

-Adam in Philly