What Operating System to install on an old Athlon XP 3700+ system?

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Kroze

Kroze

Diamond Member
Apr 9, 2001
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I have Windows XP installed on it right now and it's pretty slow. It won't even play Youtube @ 720P without stuttering. Should I try Linux? What do you guys recommend for this system?

AMD Athlon XP 3700+
1.5gb DDR Ram
Geforce 6800 Ultra 8x AGP 256mb
80gb HD 7200RPM
 
Z

Zxian

Senior member
May 26, 2011
579
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Operating system won't give you more power. If your XP installation on that system is slow, you might want to figure out why instead of just jumping ship. Those specs should be plenty for XP.

Not being able to play modern Youtube videos is another matter, although proper software and drivers should be able to help.
 
S

SimMike2

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2000
2,577
1
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The 80gb hard drive might be way old. So even if it is 7,200 rpm, the data per platter might not be very good, so it might be slow as snot. SSD would really give you a nice boost in performance. I have an older notebook with 1.5GB of RAM and an Intel 80GB SSD. It works pretty darn good with Windows 7.
 
lxskllr

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,147
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I agree with both of the above mostly. Youtube shouldn't be an issue at all, regardless of video size. That computer's plenty for anything Youtube has. An SSD won't do much for Youtube performance, but if you have the spare cash, it's a great upgrade that can travel to a new machine when you get one. It's one of the few upgrades you can make to an old computer that isn't just throwing away money.

I'd try a fresh install of XP.
 
Bubbaleone

Bubbaleone

Golden Member
Nov 20, 2011
1,803
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I'll also vote for 7: Originally equipped with Windows 2000 advanced server and then later XP Pro, I've been running Windows 7 x86 on an old (circa 2001-2002) Dell 400sc with a 3.2 GHz Pentium for about two years, with very few problems and very good performance with a 8x AGP Radeon X1950 256MB.

It's a bit older but pretty much the same capabilities as your machine. Intially, acquiring a few compatible Windows 7 drivers was a bit of a pain but once that was done and after installing 4GB of DDR (Craigslist, 20 bucks), and a refurbished 120 Gb Maxtor HDD (Newegg, 30 bucks) it's been performing fine as a reliable backup machine ever since.
 
ViRGE

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
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lxskllr said:
I agree with both of the above mostly. Youtube shouldn't be an issue at all, regardless of video size. That computer's plenty for anything Youtube has.
Click to expand...
I respectfully disagree. He doesn't have a hardware H.264 decoder, meanwhile an Athlon XP is a K7 generation single core processor. 720P H.264 will murder his computer, and rightfully so. It takes a dual core K8 to smoothly play back high def H.264 in software.

There's nothing that can be done on a system that old to make it play HD video. It's nearly 10 years old.

In any case, reinstalling XP will probably make it less poky, especially if that XP install is as old as the system itself. But if YouTube is his principle concern then a reinstall won't do anything about that.
 
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lxskllr

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,147
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ViRGE said:
I respectfully disagree. He doesn't have a hardware H.264 decoder, meanwhile an Athlon XP is a K7 generation single core processor. 720P H.264 will murder his computer, and rightfully so. It takes a dual core K8 to smoothly play back high def H.264 in software.
Click to expand...

It wasn't that long ago I was doing 720p on P4 Northy @ 3.4ghz. That had HT, but my gfx card was a Ti4200.

Edit:
That was also running Ubuntu, which generally has poorer Flash performance than Windows.
 
sad_guy

sad_guy

Member
May 1, 2013
197
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SimMike2 said:
The 80gb hard drive might be way old. So even if it is 7,200 rpm, the data per platter might not be very good, so it might be slow as snot. SSD would really give you a nice boost in performance. I have an older notebook with 1.5GB of RAM and an Intel 80GB SSD. It works pretty darn good with Windows 7.
Click to expand...

yeas but will that motherboard support an SSD?
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
86
Kroze said:
AMD Athlon XP 3700+
Click to expand...
The highest they ever made was a 3200+.

Geforce 6800 Ultra 8x AGP 256mb
Click to expand...
With an 8000 or newer series, Youtube videos should play fine. AGP leaves you in a bit of a bind, though, so if you want to get a video card, trawl eBay.

lxskllr said:
It wasn't that long ago I was doing 720p on P4 Northy @ 3.4ghz. That had HT, but my gfx card was a Ti4200.

Edit:
That was also running Ubuntu, which generally has poorer Flash performance than Windows.
Click to expand...
This is Windows, though, and if it could handle it, then no, it did not have poorer flash video performance :). Youtube plays choppy even with low-end Core 2 Duo CPUs, w/o hardware decoding, today, which should leave that P4 in the dust. Overall, web browser flash video playback is the one thing :mad: that people with basically no performance requirements can't do well enough on old hardware. Non-web playback is fine, usually, just with some dropped frames, but flash video players need hefty CPUs, or dedicated hardware to call. An AGP 8000 series or newer Geforce from eBay should take care of that, of course.
 
sm625

sm625

Diamond Member
May 6, 2011
8,172
137
106
I wouldnt waste time with windows 7. Your best bet is windows 8 with a newish low end discrete gpu. (Assuming you can use a pci express budget card like a HD6450 or a GT610 that costs $30 from newegg.) The youtube and netflix metro apps are supposed to make much better use of hardware acceleration. Windows 7 wont get you jack. Silverlight is jacked it will probably always be. So you might get a better youtube but you wont get a better netflix.

Given both the cost of windows 8, and the cost of that card, I must point out the fact that for not much more you can purchase an entire fully functional used PC from the Core 2 E8xxx era which is powerful enough to handle youtube and netflix out of the box. I have bought several of these for under $100, including shipping. Given these great prices, I see no reason for anyone to be using anything from the P4/Athlon 64 era anymore.
 
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jacktesterson

jacktesterson

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
5,493
3
81
Windows 8

64GB SSD would make it feel like a new PC. Main thing would be to Pickup a low end modern GPU for $20 used too like a 5450 or even a 4350. (same as 5450 minus Direct X 11 which doesn't matter anyways for this level of GPU)

Im running 8 on a couple older systems with 2GB ram just fine

Edit: Never saw your running an AGP card - They are still available in the Radeon 4000 series right up to a 4670 but are more expensive.

Your probably just better off buying a H61/G540/Single 2GB Ram for now... be cheap and upgradable and would be a huge upgrade.

or

A complete used system. I bought my father a Athlon II 250 based E-Machines system with 4GB of Ram and a 320GB hard drive a month ago for $125.00 off kijiji.... then slapped in a used $60 SSD off ebay and put on Windows 7 (I had a copy not using) and he has a system that will do anything he wants. He tells me all the time how fast it is. This is just with the onboard Nvidia 7025 GPU. (It has the Nvidia 680 chipset, older AMD chipset) I can tell you 100% it will play YouTube/Netflix HD as well as MKV's with MPC-HC.
 
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Fallen Kell

Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,161
510
126
In anycase, there is an AGP card with supposedly does h264 decoding:
ATI Radeon HD3450
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=PC-3450AGP

There are posts all over the net that you simply needed the right codec, which is probably default supported now (at the time they were talking about the Cyberlink h264 codec). I don't own this card, but from everything I see, it should work.
 
jacktesterson

jacktesterson

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
5,493
3
81
Fallen Kell said:
In anycase, there is an AGP card with supposedly does h264 decoding:
ATI Radeon HD3450
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=PC-3450AGP

There are posts all over the net that you simply needed the right codec, which is probably default supported now (at the time they were talking about the Cyberlink h264 codec). I don't own this card, but from everything I see, it should work.
Click to expand...

4350's and 4670's come in AGP flavours
 
Magic Carpet

Magic Carpet

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2011
3,477
233
106
Kroze said:
I have Windows XP installed on it right now and it's pretty slow. It won't even play Youtube @ 720P without stuttering. Should I try Linux? What do you guys recommend for this system?

AMD Athlon XP 3700+
1.5gb DDR Ram
Geforce 6800 Ultra 8x AGP 256mb
80gb HD 7200RPM
Click to expand...
Why not upgade to a cheap dual-core, those S939 X2's should be in the range of 15-25 bucks? What's your mainboard?

Windows 8 is the best Desktop OS, right now, but you need to upgrade some hardware first.
 
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