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Possible to run Vista with a CPU < 800Mhz?

H

HiME

Senior member
I have a couple P3 systems lying around so I'm thinking about sticking them together and build the following system

P3 700Mhz
160GB HD
32MB graphic card
512MB RAM

The only part where this system won't meet the min. requirement of Vista is the CPU. Can someone tell me if this system will run Vista?

Please don't ask me why do I to run Vista, any inputs are welcome!! Thanks
 
No, and I'd be surprised if the install program would even let you install. I tried running Vista on an old Celeron 1.2GHz laptop with 640MB of ram and it was torture. I formatted it the next day and put XP back on.
 
I thought a P3 700Mhz will make it though since Microsoft posted 800Mhz as the "recommended minimum system requirement" for the CPU. Anyway, any more inputs before I let this thread die? Had anybody actually tried it before?

How high was the CPU utilization of your laptop on Vista? Was it CPU limited or RAM limited? Assuming you are doing basic internet surfing.
 
I don't even remember. Having more ram might have helped but the processor, video card, and hard drive were still too slow. The vista minimum requirements are just that: minimum. It may install and run but it won't be a pleasant experience. I don't even know why you would want to do this anyway. Vista will use the total 512MB just to boot. You will have no free ram.
 
Think the 1ghz min is meant to give wiggle room for a Celeron or an older pentium IV? A 700mhz P3 "might" be on par with either....
 
Originally posted by: Shawn
I don't even remember. Having more ram might have helped but the processor, video card, and hard drive were still too slow. The vista minimum requirements are just that: minimum. It may install and run but it won't be a pleasant experience. I don't even know why you would want to do this anyway. Vista will use the total 512MB just to boot. You will have no free ram.
Click to expand...

The ram comment here is inaccurate. Vista lowers its footprint to coincide with the available RAM. A system with 512MB of ram will have some wiggle room. Again, it sucks to do, but Vista wont use all 512.
 
Originally posted by: Tegeril
Originally posted by: Shawn
I don't even remember. Having more ram might have helped but the processor, video card, and hard drive were still too slow. The vista minimum requirements are just that: minimum. It may install and run but it won't be a pleasant experience. I don't even know why you would want to do this anyway. Vista will use the total 512MB just to boot. You will have no free ram.
Click to expand...

The ram comment here is inaccurate. Vista lowers its footprint to coincide with the available RAM. A system with 512MB of ram will have some wiggle room. Again, it sucks to do, but Vista wont use all 512.
Click to expand...

Not really. Vista runs a lot more services than XP and doesn't really have any way of lowering it's footprint. Vista with 512MB of ram will start using the page file right away.
 
And have you run it personally with 512? I found it using at least 96MB less than 512MB on boot. Conflicting evidence would be interesting to investigate.
 
Originally posted by: HiME
Originally posted by: Tegeril
I'm gonna go with yes because of this: http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm

Though it would suck a lot.
Click to expand...

That test is aimed for XP only, so it won't apply to Vista. I know for sure Vista won't install with less than 512MB of ram, but I'm not sure whether the "real" min requirement for the CPU is 800mHz.
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Was kind of a joke, but I do see the point. Would be interesting to see how much ram you could remove after the install and still get it to boot.
 
I've got Vista in VMWare with 512M assigned to it and it's not too bad. Currently taskmgr says the commit charge is ~300M.
 
Yeah, I said at least 96MB less because I booted XP in Virtual PC 2007 and it would work with 96 and not 128, so clearly it varies based on what you have starting up (these comps in question have a few things at startup), but as I said before, it does not use all 512 on a 512 install.
 
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