P4 3.06Ghz enough to run Win7?

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I'm doing some organizing of my computer stuff, eBaying (selling computer parts), etc and I have this Asus P4T 533-C board, 512mb Rambus, ATI 9800

All I need the system to do is boot into windows and load up Firefox..

Will it work?

 

[Sable]

Yep. I;ve installed 7 on most of my old computers. You won;t get any decent graphics drivers though, just generic "just functional" ones. But fine for Fireferret.

edit:

512GB rambus? I assume you mean 512MB. 7 chugs with anything less than 1GB. XP isn;t that much better but it's better if you only have 512MB.

 

[SPBHM]

512GB Rambus

MB right?

that's your main problem, it's not going to be a pleasant experience with Win7, even on XP, with a modern antivirus + web browser it's going to be bad because of the limited amount of memory.

 

[Saylick]

Definitely. I have W7 running on an old Atom netbook. If it can run on that, I'm sure a 3 GHz P4 will be able to handle W7 fine.

 

[snouter]

And with winter approaching it will help heat the house!

I kid, I kid! Sort, of...

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

lol, whoops

 

[24601]

512 mB of ram will only run Windows 2k Pro well, but will run XP passably.

Running anything after XP on less than 1-2 gB ram is just masochistic.

 

[Engr62]

You might look at installing a Linux distro on that system. Linux Mint 15 has brought a couple of my old systems back to life. If you only need the system for internet browsing and office type applications, Linux Mint 15 is perfect.

System requirements:
http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=140656

 

[John Connor]

512MB is plenty fot XP. That's what I had until I installed a GB back then. You only need 64 MB of RAM for XP. That's what I had for an old laptop. With Windows 7, 1 GB is what you want for 32 bit and 2 GB for 64bit.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/system-requirements

 

[Jimzz]

As said the CPU is ok but the ram is low.

Looks like you have 2 other memory slots open. If so $5 shipped will add another 512mb
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-512...8039882?pt=US_Memory_RAM_&hash=item46157a2fca

 

[toyota]

512MB is plenty fot XP. That's what I had until I installed a GB back then. You only need 64 MB of RAM for XP. That's what I had for an old laptop. With Windows 7, 1 GB is what you want for 32 bit and 2 GB for 64bit.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/system-requirements

it was fine back then but try actually running it now with modern browsers and apps with less 512mb and see what happens. even 7 years ago my backup pc running XP with 384mb was constantly hitting the hard drive just trying to do anything more than have a few tabs open. same for my netbook running XP as even 1gb was not really enough without constantly closing things.

 

[John Connor]

You can download old versions of Firefox, though outdated they will work.

 

[Torn Mind]

Yes. I have installed Win 7 on a Socket 478 system. ECS PM800-M2 with 1.2 GBs of RAM. CPU is a 3.2 Ghz P4. The CPU needs to be overclocked a bit though to around 3.3-3.4 GHz just to make the difference between tolerable and intolerable under Windows XP. 7 is slightly snappier.

 

[Torn Mind]

Yep. I;ve installed 7 on most of my old computers. You won;t get any decent graphics drivers though, just generic "just functional" ones. But fine for Fireferret.

edit:

512GB rambus? I assume you mean 512MB. 7 chugs with anything less than 1GB. XP isn;t that much better but it's better if you only have 512MB.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=drdram

 

[bononos]

......
All I need the system to do is boot into windows and load up Firefox..

Will it work?

If you're going to run older versions of ff, try and find the versions which aren't gimped. There were a few older versions which gave noticeably bad performance. I have an old P3 512Mb which ran win2k and FF ok, slow but tolerable.

 

[PliotronX]

I don't think it will install with less than 1gb RAM but the P4, like my old AthlonXP system running for my mother runs fine with 1gb.

 

[Matt1970]

I wouldn't run any version of Windows 7 with less than 2 Gigs of Ram. I can't tell you how many systems I have upgraded from 1 to 2 gigs with Windows 7 and the difference is night and day. Can it run on that? Yes, but you will be pulling your hair out waiting on it to do anything.

 

[tweakboy]

No,

 

[DigDog]

__________________
Rig1: Xeon L5639, Asrock X58, Nvidia 0db 210, Samsung 128Gb 840 Pro, Cherry MX Blacks, 2009 Seasonic X 650w, Aluminum Full tower, 86w idle - Main
Rig2: i7 970 @ stock, EVGA 760 Classified, GTX 670 FTW, Elpida Hyper CL6.6.6.16, Vertex LE 100Gb, Samsung Evo 120Gb, Cherry MX Reds, Sidewinder X3, Enermax Revo 950w, Obsidian 800D. 171w idle - UT3 machine

you srsly telling you haven't got $100 to put together a barebones?
do the right thing and give that P4 some rest.

 

[SPBHM]

512MB is plenty fot XP. That's what I had until I installed a GB back then. You only need 64 MB of RAM for XP. That's what I had for an old laptop. With Windows 7, 1 GB is what you want for 32 bit and 2 GB for 64bit.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/system-requirements

if you are running pure XP without the SPs, not using the Internet (or using your 56kbps modem to view old pure html sites with IE6), and only running office 2000, sure, 64mb is going to work, and 512mb is more than enough... but... updated XP, with a modern AV, running current websites/flash/Java is a disgrace, I tried that recently, it's pretty easy to hit the memory limit and waste a lot of time with the PC desperate for memory using the slow pagefile.

back in the day I was happy with 128, 256mb using XP, but it's simply not good enough... jumping to 1GB would make a huge difference, I think 1GB for XP, and 2GB for Win 7 (x86) are a realistic minimum requirement for a decent experience.

that $5 2x256mb of rdram sounds good, I have a hard time imagining another case where such a small investment could make a huge difference like this.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

If you can get 512MB extra RDRAM on the cheap, it should be good to go. 512MB is stretching things just a little to far with modern software. I have seen some P4s running 7 well with 1GB. Just don't expect miracles.

I'd really recommend a Linux distro for such an old system.

512MB is plenty fot XP. That's what I had until I installed a GB back then. You only need 64 MB of RAM for XP. That's what I had for an old laptop. With Windows 7, 1 GB is what you want for 32 bit and 2 GB for 64bit.

Not really. You can technically run XP on 64MB RAM, but don't install either service packs, any sort of modern AV or use any of the bundled software. Forget about running a modern browser too, firefox with one tab open eats much more then that.

I remember a new install of win2kSP4 uses 56MB RAM for the OS alone.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Yep, memory is the main issue. CPU wise, even a 2Ghz P4 with 1GB would run Win7 perfectly fine.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

you srsly telling you haven't got $100 to put together a barebones?
do the right thing and give that P4 some rest.

Just trying to find some use for it. I don't think it would sell.

EDIT: I think I gave my brother my spare Rambus.. another 512mb worth.. i can see if I can get that from him.

 

[Techhog]

I'd say install a Linux distro if you can't get more RAM. Hell, even if you can...

 

[dinker99]

You can download old versions of Firefox, though outdated they will work.

I prefer Pale Moon over the standard Firefox and 3.6 is as good as current versions:
http://www.palemoon.org/download-v3.shtml