supercharging a dinosaur for internet

pengyou

New Member
I have an 800 mhz pentium 3 that I am looking for a motherboard for. I want to make it an internet machine. Yes, I know it is old...but I want to have a designated internet machine to keep virus's confined to one machine. I usually open 15 to 20 windows at a time, will be downloading files while listening to music, reading e-mails, googling for research materials, reading news magazines, etc all at the same time. I have broadband.

My questions:

Which piece of hardware has the greatest impact on speed? Video card? memory? hard drive? I already have the cpu, so that is not changeable.

Is there a particular OS will make this faster? 98? XP? some flavor of Linux?

Which browser will be faster?

How much memory is enough? too much?

How do I optimize the OS?

Anything else?
 

bratton

New Member
to start, the cpu is going to determine your speed, then ram. if youre using windows it should definitely be an older version.

although, youd really be better off yardsaleing someone elses dinosaur, or getting a cheap dell, hp, gateway etc
 
Last edited:

Camper

New Member
Is there a particular OS will make this faster? 98? XP? some flavor of Linux?
Linux "Xubuntu", Win 98 and Win2000 will also be good.

Which browser will be faster?
Firefox

How much memory is enough? too much?
512MB if you want to use Windows XP.
Minimum of 64mb for Windows 98.

How do I optimize the OS?
With Windows use msconfig to limit the amount of programs running.
Xubuntu is using XFCE a lightweight GUI designed for older PC's
 
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Shane

Super Moderator
Staff member
i think Windows 98 would run fine on that system...2000 would be okay also.

i use to run windows 2000 on a P2 400Mhz and 128 Mb of ram and it was fine.
 

oscaryu1

VIP Member
Is there a particular OS will make this faster? 98? XP? some flavor of Linux?
Linux "Xubuntu", Win 98 and Win2000 will also be good.

Which browser will be faster?
Firefox

How much memory is enough? too much?
512MB if you want to use Windows XP.
Minimum of 64mb for Windows 98.

How do I optimize the OS?
With Windows use msconfig to limit the amount of programs running.
Xubuntu is using XFCE a lightweight GUI designed for older PC's

Minumum for 98 is 24MB...
128MB Minumum for XP.

I'm pretty sure your not gonna get even 10 browers on that CPU before it slows down. At 3/4 broweres your CPU will probably be at 100%. Overclock? JK :p
 
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