Which Win7 on weak old pc?

Goran Petric · Mar 8, 2016

Just bought crappy old pc for 14 $
It has crappy XP, and i want to put win7 on it, now the question is, since its pretty low spec, will home/basic version run a bit faster than ultimate? In my country it's not illegal to 'pirate' software for personal use, so i can install anything i want, have pretty sweet bootable usb.
Is ultimate more resource hungry than the others?

Specs are : intel celeron 430 1.8ghz, 1.5gb ddr2, intel q965 graphic chipset (supports dx9), 80gb hdd, and suprisingly enough has sata connections all around

USAFRet · Mar 8, 2016

Win 7 Home.
And, of course, you have a valid license for this.

barto · Mar 8, 2016

1.5 GB DDR2? Don't install Windows 7. It will need at least 1-1.5 GB to run. As for which version of Windows, neither version is faster. The versions only have different features enabled.

I wouldn't install it. I don't think it will work. If it does work, you'll have zero RAM to do anything else on the pc other than look at the desktop and play Minesweeper.

Goran Petric · Mar 8, 2016

It even has XP Pro sticer on it

Lenovo/IBM office thingy, so microsoft got their share of money for this rig

I am too used to win7, i cant watch at that xp . Drivers also..ijuck, nothing works properly on xp couldnt make minecraft run, thats all i need this for
To run minecraft while i use my main PC on the other part of the desk

Goran Petric · Mar 8, 2016

Min for 32bit says 1gb, i have 4 512mb sticks but one is not registering... will try cleaning with aceton and if that doesnt work, a bit of baking in the oven

Sooo all windows 7 run the same? use same amount of resources?

barto · Mar 8, 2016

Goran Petric :

Ah yes, the "exact recommendations" from Windows. I restarted my PC which is using Windows 7 PC Pro 64 bit. Before I started anything other than the standard system monitoring software (EVGA Precision, Razer Software etc) I was sitting at 2.06 GB. You do realize how silly it is to think "well I have the minimum"? Again, the moment you start using other applications, that remaing 0.5GB will be gone in a flash. Maybe if you add more RAM but until then, it's not really worth it.

Goran Petric · Mar 9, 2016

Can you put 2x 512mb and 2x 1gb in 4 slots?
I could get him 2 of these http://www.ebay.com/itm/1GB-DDR2-667-667Mhz-PC2-5300-5300U-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Desktop-PC-DIMM-Memory-RAM-/331786752026?hash=item4d4008101a:g:tYcAAOSwG-1WzStt

barto · Mar 9, 2016

You would need to find the model of your motherboard and see what it supports.

jsmithepa · Mar 9, 2016

Not trying to burst your bubble but I hope things work out.

Got a old PC which says to support up to 1G RAM but when I try to up it from 512M, it became unstable, I concluded that limit was theoretical.

Another laptop, I had to get help from the community, if only took ram that were "low density" 16 chips, instead of 8 chips I wanted to buy, all other specs the same.

Phew.

Math Geek · Mar 9, 2016

most stripped down version of win 7 is called the "starter" edition. it came on a few netbooks back in the day. it took all the eye candy (aero theme) and some other stuff and saved some serious resources this way.

might be worth looking into if home is too much for it.

Goran Petric · Mar 18, 2016

I put ultimate on it, its is just too damn slow

And also chipset is too old doesn support minecraft version over 1.7.2, and lower versions it runs at 5fps, so my hopes of it running mc as a side pc is gone

CPU is at 100% all the time when browser is just open. Will try starter edition

Math Geek · Mar 18, 2016

a lot of what slows down with win 7 is the aero theme which will overwhelm old graphics and the search/superfetch features. they eat up a lot of ram and resources.

i have a win 7 installer based on win 7ultimate that has been so stripped down it fits onto a CD. yes that's less than 700 mb for the install!! this thing will run on a 15 yr old xp machine no problem. but all the eye candy and optional features have been stripped out as well as anything that could be added back later on if needed. it is not the windows 7 kernel slowing things up it's all the extra fluff that comes with it. start turning off stuff and removing things and you'll be surprised how well it can run even on older hardware.

Goran Petric · Apr 9, 2016

It's Lenovo thinkcentre darlington-g rev 3.2 mbo LGA 775 socket with celeron 430 (single core 1.8ghz), now im thinking of buying better used cpu, they are
fairly cheap, now, can my mbo support any 775 cpu or there are some limitations? And which ones are the best 775 ddr2 intel processors out there? I'm not too familiar with those

Math Geek · Apr 9, 2016

i can't find a cpu list for that mobo. lenovo has it organized based on model number and not part number. what model is the thinkcentre? i found a list for a different model but i don't think it is the same mobo. only thing that turns up is a bunch of ebay listings for the mobo.

i doubt it will accept any 775 cpu as oem's tend to limit what works. but to get the list i need the model number for the system to search lenovo site.

Goran Petric · Apr 12, 2016

It's IBM Lenovo Thinkcentre m55 type 8805 (was pretty hard indetifying it)
I tried to put q6600 in there, doesnt work, wont boot, fans just spin like crazy and no picture, have ''latest'' bios update.
Max supported cpu is probably dual core e6600 like its stated on lenovo site. They stopped updating microcode for newer cpu-s long time ago. That q965 chipset SHOULD support 1066 quad cores, but it doesnt, because Lenovo.
I also tried E8XXX just for the giggles (1333 fsb) wont work.
And no bios overclocking possible whatsoever on ''Lenovo Thinkcentre darlington-g rev 3.2'' motherboard

Just writing it down so that other people can have their answers when googleing this in the future

Math Geek · Apr 12, 2016

i was assuming it was the m55 since it showed up so many times for that mobo but had to be sure. pretty limited cpu selection for it but that is the nature of the beast when dealing with pre-built systems.

i have a Pentium D 820 lying around but that's about it from that list of supported chips.

Goran Petric · Apr 27, 2016

Yeah it really sucks with bios updates, cant even make E5200 work (fsb800). I upgraded to 5 gb of ram, win7 works with celeron 430, not too bad at all.
Then i upgraded to that stupid windows10 just to check it out. It is superslow and unresponsive, it cant compare to how it ran on win7.
Cant even browse the internet, win10 is much more power hungry than win7

Math Geek · Apr 27, 2016

i have found win 10 to be just as easy on low end hardware as win 7 ever was once stripped down some.

i have win 10 running on the old netbook and it is just as good as it was with win 7 once i shut off a couple things it did not need. tweaking windows is always needed on low end hardware and probably always will be.

Tony_63 · May 24, 2016

hi, can u explain which parts/services of win 10 you suggest to remove/turn off to maximise speed/usability. and any pointers/experiences. or link to an article. thanks a lot. very (very) encouraging to see your post. while I prefer the win 7 look/desktop its worrying that will not be supported. Best, Tony

ps wish I was a maths geek -trying to read Bayesian Methods for Hackers [White Hat]

Math Geek :

Math Geek · May 24, 2016

will you be running home or pro version of in 10? pro has group policy in it which makes it a lot easier to turn off some stubborn stuff.

in either case, download this little program autoruns https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx and load it up as an administrator. then uncheck anything starting up you don't need. lots of windows mail, windows defender, and a ton of other stuff you can turn off at start-up.

then start turning off services. check out black viper's page for win 10 services. http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/ it's a good place to start. lots of obvious stuff like phone/messaging apps you don't need on a pc plus a ton of other stuff that is safe to turn off.

i found windows defender to be a horrible resource drain on my low end netbook so it was the first to go. you can also make these couple changes to speed thngs up a lot as well. these are eye candy stuff that is not needed other than to look pretty. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3030200/windows/how-to-make-windows-10-faster-5-ways-to-speed-up-your-pc.html #2 on the list is a good performance boost for old hardware

finally, if you prefer the older start menu and look there is a free option that puts it back into win 10. it's called classic shell http://www.classicshell.net/ not a big resource hog, i actually run it on my netbook as well.

Tony_63 · May 25, 2016

this is great!

win 10 pro .

I am wondering also if same "discipline" should be applied to any program used/intalled. I found that Nitro pdf while a very nice program is huge memory hog..as an example.

would one just use task manager (or research) to assess load imposed by each program.

Its really important not to be "forced" into a constant bi annual upgrading cycle- do nt you think?

On a different subject if a graphics card has Linux drivers/support eg the Nvidia CAD cards would

a. the performance of the card in Linux be better than in Windows. Or not

b. also would the hardware spec be lower for the LInux config. compared to the Windows for the same/equivalent performance

going to try your steps/advice now re Win 10 Pro.

Based in UK Kent-countryside, sheep etc ....not a lot to do - tbh

Math Geek :

Math Geek · May 25, 2016

i am not a liux user so i really have no idea how it performs compared to windows.

win win 10 pro you get the group policy editor. type "group policy" into cortana and it will find the editor. here you can manage a lot of the settings and turn on and off a lot of things you can't otherwise. under computer configuration/administrative templates/windows components you will find many things to adjust including windows defender, windows update and lots of other things.

just make note of what you change cause when windows updates next time it will likely turn most of it back on for you. should not be any major update until the july anniversary update hits but it's possible there may be an interim smaller one before then. also good to know what you changed in case something stops working or you start getting errors. easier to fix the problem you caused when you know what you did

Which Win7 on weak old pc?

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