Compaq Presario Question

Formatted drives are always less than what the manufacture says it is.
Read the other posts in this section for more info.

It also probably has a hidden partition with system diags, lots of prebuilts have that.

40 billion bytes = 40,000,000,000 bytes

divided by 1024 x 3 times

= 37.25 GB

Minus another 2.75 GB for Windows and the pagefile, etc

= 34.5 GB (Free space ?)

If it isn't free space it must be partitioned elsewhere (eg: the system / on disk BIOS enhancements / diagnostics mentioned above....)

Also remember all files are generally rounded up to the nearest 4 KB (in NTFS by default cluster size), and that the MFT, file system logs, etc will also take up some space. (Ironically the smaller cluster sizes double the amount of space that stuff takes up).

the partitioning and the use of space for OS explains it well enough for me.

I see you are an AMD guy. me too. this compaq with the intel cpu is my mom's computer. I've been trying to think of ways to upgrade it.
waste of time maybe??

upgrading a compcrap is a waste of time. Not to mention sometimes impossible due to all the proprietory crap they use in them.
Whats the specs on it and what does she use it for and we might have suggestions on what you can do.

the only thing my mom uses her coal burning comcrap for that actually 'may' require a better system is digital photography. you're right about upgrading.

there's a lot of digital photos on the HD, which could easily be put on DVDs
other than that, putzing and surfing.....email, yada yada

_________________________________________________________
Operating System System Model
Windows Millennium Edition (build 4.90.3000) Compaq Compaq PC
System Serial Number: 2H13JD4KC1JY
Enclosure Type: Mini-Tower
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
867 megahertz Intel Pentium III
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: Compaq 06C0h
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Compaq 686C3 01/04/2001
Drives Memory Modules c,d
40.00 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
16.54 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

COMPAQ CD-ROM CRD-8484B
LG CD-RW CED-8080B [CD-ROM drive]
Generic floppy disk drive (3.5")

Generic IDE hard disk drive (40.00 GB) -- drive 0, No SMART Driver 128 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM1' has 128 MB
Slot 'DIMM2' is Empty
Local Drive Volumes


c: (FAT32 on drive 0) 37.07 GB 15.16 GB free
d: (FAT32 on drive 0) 2.93 GB 1.38 GB free
Network Drives
None detected
Users (mouse over user name for details) Printers
default

HP DeskJet 830C Series Printer on LPT1:
Controllers Display
Standard Floppy Disk Controller
Intel 82801AA Bus Master IDE Controller
Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo) Intel(r) 82810E Graphics Controller [Display adapter]

Unless shes getting in to actually editing and stuff on the photos I would stick with what you got.
If you want to make it more reliable I would go ahead and see if you can get a 256 stick of memory and an upgrade to windows xp home. But nothing more.

You could easily build her a newer computer that would fit her needs for an easy 400 to 500 bucks at the most.
Get a motherboard with onboard graphics, 512 meg ram, dvd burner and an xp 64 3000+ and shell be good to go for a long time.

With 1 GB of RAM (2 x 512 MB) a laptop gets a nice boost, as it reduces accesses to the HDD (more memory available for apps = less paging, and also more memory to be used as OS Disk Cache when not in use by apps).

On a laptop this is a 'Good Thing(tm)' as the HDDs are typically only 4,200rpm (give or take) on the Pentium III models.

You could perhaps even upgrade the HDD to a 5,400rpm or 7,200rpm one, with more space (say 60 to 80 GB) and speed.

Being an older model you may be able to source the above suggestions at quite good prices. Just double check the interface / connections for each.

Heck I run a 4,200rpm 60 GB on my laptop, albeit with 1 GB RAM and 1.8 GHz processor, and it runs fine for 'laptop tasks'. Going from 512 MB to 1024 MB gave it quite a kick (Although I knew it would before the upgrade  , even if I don't use the memory. As above the extra memory goes to disk cache + decreasing pagefile access on the very slow rpm HDD).

PS: Running HP/Compaq Presario V2402AU (Battery life not the best, but far from the worst, and was so cheap compared to the 'long life' models one can afford 2-3 x batteries for it anyway, plus memory upgrade to 1 GB  ).

:idea: Depending on usage, a fast CPU or fast video GPU will not help a laptop as much as the above suggestions for most users & tasks laptops are often used for. Having a large widescreen + good speakers, keyboard with good feel to it + touchpad (with vert/hortz scolling on sides), etc are far more useful objectives for a laptop user. The piano white finish is just the icing on the cake. (Besides the low price - I suspect we may think alike :wink: ).

who are you responding to?
No where is it mentioned that he has a laptop. Its a mini-tower.

((You could easily build her a newer computer that would fit her needs for an easy 400 to 500 bucks at the most))

((Get a motherboard with onboard graphics, 512 meg ram, dvd burner and an xp 64 3000+ and shell be good to go for a long time))

sounds good. any mobo suggestions?

((I ain't signing nothin))

love yer sig!!!

  - Touché

The Compaq Presario line is mostly laptops, I missed the spec above that advised it was a mini-tower.

Doh  

There are plenty of other threads on cheap desktop PCs.

it is a mini tower, yes.

There are plenty of crappy persario desktops too, I know, I've thrown a LOT in the trash!   (anyone remember the 5000 series?)

my mom has a presario 5010US. I'm using it right now. it's perfect for emailing and using word perfeft 6.0  

other than that, it's a boat anchor.