Old Pentium 4 computer Dont Throw away

Hi all
I've just upgraded an old P IV laptop computer to W7 x-86 and it REALLY FLIES. (Sony VAIO PGC 816)

(2GB RAM Full Pentium IV (not Celeron) 2.8 GHZ.

This gives some of the more modern laptops a real run for their money -- of course a full P IV is not a sensible choice these days for a laptop as the power consumption is Humungous -- you are lucky to get 90 mins of battery time with this one - especially with the HUGE screen and it weighs a ton.

However as an extra computer it's worth it (glad I never chucked it -- I added 1GB of RAM to it - it has 2 slots).

I just can't believe how FAST this old dynosaur is -- still has a beautiful screen so I'm using this one also as my TV / DVD viewing machine now.

I upgraded via XP home===> vista ultimate x-86 (non activated) ==> W7 RTM x-86 (from technet).

All the drivers were found.

Very happy with this although I wouldn't take it on the road - much to big and heavy.

Cheers
jimbo

I to am running win 7 on a P4 with 2Gb of ram, and it flies. Battery time is about 80 minutes per battery, not bad, but not great either. :)

I have 3 P-IV desktops and they love win 7. Not the keenest on aero, but backup servers adn media servers dont need it

Same here. I installed the Home Premium RTM on a P4 2.4 with 512 megs of RAM, tweaked it a bit and now it boots from the BIOS splash to the desktop in about 45 seconds.
Now if I could only undervolt this processor, this thing would be perfect! It's idling at 42C (20C room temp) right now but shoots right up to 70C if I give it the beans.

gforce23 said:

Same here. I installed the Home Premium RTM on a P4 2.4 with 512 megs of RAM, tweaked it a bit and now it boots from the BIOS splash to the desktop in about 45 seconds.
Now if I could only undervolt this processor, this thing would be perfect! It's idling at 42C (20C room temp) right now but shoots right up to 70C if I give it the beans.

I would pull the fan, clean the interface areas, re-apply quality paste and re-install the fan. Maybe even a new $20 fan.

Antman said:

I would pull the fan, clean the interface areas, re-apply quality paste and re-install the fan. Maybe even a new $20 fan.

Should've mentioned that earlier. I have a meticulous habit of cleaning the internals of all my PCs and laptops every 3-4 months. The P4 processor has a month old smear of Tuniq TX2 and a high airflow PWM fan was installed about 3 months back.

Check my specs! My main rig is a P4. So is my other. This thing runs awesome, even for games. I credit that to Win 7, my knowledge of setting stuff up and the decent video card.

Hi there
also an interesting topic - note I was doing UPGRADES XP HOME==>VISTA Home Premium===>W7 Ultimate.

"C" Drive amount of data used on W7 -- 10GB, on Vista was 17 GB. Can't remember what XP used but W7 certainly is leaner and meaner tha VISTA.

I'm very pleased I've got a really useful extra machine. I was on the point of taking it on a one way trip to the tip.

Cheers
jimbo