Windows 7 on OLD computers

[Darryl Licht]

Darryl Licht,

Welcome to The Dinosaurs Club


We have No Meetings or Badges, but we sure surprise users

with our installations !


" Doc "

Dinosaur... well after 15 years in the industry, I do feel like a dino at times! Still good with a DOS prompt and sometimes it comes in real handy!

I must update regarding performing windows updates on this old baby... I'm on my 3rd windows update (these are going a tad on the slow side). My 2nd update failed at last 2 of the 7 files. <-- but 1 was an IE update, and I had mistakenly left ie open... so I think the cause of that update failure was in fact a loose nut behind the keyboard!(d)

BTW--- I LOVE UR AVATAR DOC! BIG BTTF FAN!

 

[dnr53]

I put RC1 on a Compaq laptop with 500 mhz cpu, 256 ram and a 40 gig hard drive. No clue what the video puts out but it did run pretty good...as good as the Pro 2000 that was on the original drive. It died though. Froze up and even after putting in the old drive with Win 2000 it would just freeze.
Gave it a good burial-double barrel from 5 yards but I did save the drive, dvd and the memory.

 

[Darryl Licht]

This is more practical than my dinosaur project...

Doc: You have inspired me to post some more results on old PC's!

This is an older project and much more practical from a cost/benefit standpoint... not to mention what many people who may be contemplating an upgrade to Win 7, may currently own.

The system is a Dell Dimension 4600 that was actually rescued from a dumpster at an apartment building a friend of mine moved into! It (computer... not friend) now lives in my garage on my workbench!

You may ask yourself why would someone throw away a perfectly good PC? Answer... YES! ....it had a virus!

I think I will call it T-Wrex!

Its sooo much smooter than XP, and this is a system that would not run Vista!

It has a P4 2.8GHz, and only 768MB of RAM. It too has a FX-5200 video card that runs aero perfectly! Add 2-4GB of RAM, and perhaps a larger HDD and this thing will really rock!

 

[LPDad]

For sheer ENTERTAINMENT VALUE:

BUMP.

(so all the Forum Newbies can appreciate the Skillz of those in this thread--the sheer inability to throw away outdated and obsolete hardware)

Note Also the SHEER WASTE of time involved.

I am still laughing

 

[Darryl Licht]

For sheer ENTERTAINMENT VALUE:

BUMP.

(so all the Forum Newbies can appreciate the Skillz of those in this thread--the sheer inability to throw away outdated and obsolete hardware)

Note Also the SHEER WASTE of time involved.

I am still laughing

Laugh away Daffy!

It wasnt a sheer waste of time as you put it... It took me 3 mins to boot and use a USB with Win7 install files on it. I started the install, took care of other business, came back an hour or so later and wala... finished!

Laugh all you want, but this forum is to show techies, noobs, whomever... that Win7 will install on much older equipment than Vista ever thought about! And run better than XP on most equipment!

This is the first OS Microsoft has ever put out which actually LOWERED the Hardware requirements over the previous OS.... so many of us want to see how "low can we go"! REMEMBER not everyone can go out and buy or build a new PC everytime MS puts out a new OS!


Lastly, as to your "sheer inability to throw away outdated and obsolete hardware" comment: This server went out of service 2.5 years ago, it was a champ for 8 years; and frankly wasnt worth anything to anyone except me the builder/owner! If you've got it flaunt it! LOL!
:roflmao:

In the future, if you dont have anything constructive to say, or relevant to the threads topic, please move on!

 

[LPDad]

Oh Dear, You COMPLETELY Misunderstood me Mr Licht !!!
(or perhaps I was a little too obscure in my poor attempt at humor).

1. I, myself, have ridiculous amounts of "old hardware" clutting up my Closets and Garage. (my long-suffering wife will attest to that!!)
2. I was JOKING about the amount of time (me included) that we "use up" doing such things..just to see if they are possible...even though they might not have a long term practical use. (cmon...Window 7 on a P-II with <1 Gig of memory???? may work but not very quickly).
3. I applaud such INVENTIVENESS.

as far as:

In the future, if you dont have anything constructive to say, or relevant to the threads topic, please move on!

I would not have BUMPED this thread (for all to thoroughly enjoy) if I did not think it worthwhile.

Sorry if I was misunderstood, I will, in the future, try to avoid such misunderstanding.

...Unfortunately My Boss (Wife) has given me a Ultimatum (call it a deadline of sorts) to CLEAN out all that "old computer crap (her words, not mine)...or else.... so my days of enjoying the really, really old hardware are numbered---cause I know where my 'bread is buttered".

 

[Darryl Licht]

LP:

That's a downside of written only communication in the digital age, yes I thought you were attacking all of us who loaded Win7 on dinosaurs! We dont get to see each others sarcastic expressions! :sarc:

I too have my own boss (wife v2.0) and I had to throw out my original IBM PC/AT and several AT lunchbox PC's years ago... It was tuff on me but they were all slow at DOS & Win3.x and I needed the space!

Glad we cleared that up...

WHO'S NEXT IN THE DINO CLUB???

 

[Sammy Noote]

@gforce23


Did you do anything out of the ordinary to install W7 on your A7N266-VM board? When I ran the Compatibility app it showed the "NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management" as not compatible. I'm not entirely sure what it does, but it looked like a deal-breaker to me.

 

[Sammy Noote]

As a follow-up to the previous post:

I went ahead and installed W7 on my A7N266-VM board and it works with no problem at all. The NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management whatsit didn't work as predicted, but it made no difference to the installation or the functioning of the computer.

W7 has given the old machine a new lease of life. Good result.

 

[DocBrown]

As a follow-up to the previous post:

I went ahead and installed W7 on my A7N266-VM board and it works with no problem at all. The NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management whatsit didn't work as predicted, but it made no difference to the installation or the functioning of the computer.

W7 has given the old machine a new lease of life. Good result.

Nice going Sammy Noote



" Doc "

 

[Darryl Licht]

As a follow-up to the previous post:

I went ahead and installed W7 on my A7N266-VM board and it works with no problem at all. The NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management whatsit didn't work as predicted, but it made no difference to the installation or the functioning of the computer.

W7 has given the old machine a new lease of life. Good result.

Sammy:

From your specs looks like you might want to throw a lil RAM in the old gal and keep her around a while longer!

Are you running Aero?

Whats your WEI? <--- Please post!

 

[chev65]

I just installed Win 7 Ultimate on my old P4 3.0 HT pentium board with 1GB memory and a 160GB harddrive. I built this machine 8 years ago.

It's like having a new lease on life for my old P4 machines.

I did have to clear the cmos twice with the jumper in order to get Windows 7 to install to my old P4 machine. Everything was going very slowly for some reason. After I cleared the cmos the installation went flawlessly.

This seems to be a recurring problem when ever I install Windows 7 on a machine that once had XP or Vista on it. The same thing has happend on 4 completely different machines so far, on both notebook's and pc's using different media.
It only seems to be a problem on the very first installation.

I'll post my WEI for this old P4 machine later.

Ok I ran it on both my P4 machines. This one recieved a 4.0 and my old Dell P4 recieved a 4.2. Running flawlessly on both machines as of today. I also found some decent drivers for the old audigy 2 ZS sound cards also from Daniel K but had to torrent them.

 

[torrentg]

My P4 still kicking strong, no doubt. I have another P4 1.5 GHz non-hyperthreading running Windows 7 with current uptime like 14 days or so.

 

[Darryl Licht]

I just installed Win 7 Ultimate on my old P4 3.0 HT pentium board with 1GB memory and a 160GB harddrive. I built this machine 8 years ago.

It's like having a new lease on life for my old P4 machine.

I did have to clear the cmos twice with the jumper in order to get Windows 7 to install to my old P4 machine. Everything was going very slowly for some reason. After I cleared the cmos the installation went flawlessly.

This seems to be a recurring problem when ever I install Windows 7 on a machine that once had XP or Vista on it. The same thing has happend on 4 completely different machines so far, on both notebook's and pc's using different media.
It only seems to be a problem on the very first installation.

I'll post my WEI for this old P4 machine later.

I havent had to do that on an machine! Hmmmm only thing I did was check to see if BIOS was latest version and it was in all but one case!

 

[acegolfer]

I'm running win 7 pro on Dell D410 laptop. WEI is 1.0 but it runs fine.

 

[chev65]

I just installed Win 7 Ultimate on my old P4 3.0 HT pentium board with 1GB memory and a 160GB harddrive. I built this machine 8 years ago.

It's like having a new lease on life for my old P4 machine.

I did have to clear the cmos twice with the jumper in order to get Windows 7 to install to my old P4 machine. Everything was going very slowly for some reason. After I cleared the cmos the installation went flawlessly.

This seems to be a recurring problem when ever I install Windows 7 on a machine that once had XP or Vista on it. The same thing has happend on 4 completely different machines so far, on both notebook's and pc's using different media.
It only seems to be a problem on the very first installation.

I'll post my WEI for this old P4 machine later.

I havent had to do that on an machine! Hmmmm only thing I did was check to see if BIOS was latest version and it was in all but one case!

This is the fourth machine that would not install Win 7 unless I cleared the cmos. And today I was getting stuck at expanding files on my old Dell machine which is a very common problem when I googled it.

I used a different CD and it magically installed. The very same CD worked on another machine.

Whats strange is that all machines were completely different and all used different CD's to install with. The good thing is that everything works flawlessly now that Win 7 is installed

 

[wahoobob]

I am running on a 5 year old Thinkpad - Lots of help is available at Windows 7 Launch - lenovo community for IBM and lenovo machines.

 

[Sammy Noote]

Sammy:

From your specs looks like you might want to throw a lil RAM in the old gal and keep her around a while longer!

Are you running Aero?

Whats your WEI? <--- Please post!

I'm afraid it'll only take 2X512MB of memory, so I'm already maxxed out. Yes, I'm running Aero - in fact, that was one of the attractions of Win7; it just looks so much better than XP. I picked up the Radeon 9600XT card on eBay for £18 ($30) just for that purpose. And I'd love to post the WEI, but it runs through its routine and finally tells me that there was a problem and it couldn't complete. I don't know what the culprit is, but I suspect the hard drive.

The WEI is, in fact, the only glitch I've had with this installation.

 

[Sbrideau]

What's that gadget you're using torrentg, I have a similar but it doesn't give the uptime .

 

[torrentg]

It's mCPU Meter. It shows output by multicores/threads too. This screenshot I had it on there is only a P4 single core, single thread.

Still up!