Windows 2000 RAM

[Scenic]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

Haha, yea, that site about running Windows on the slowest PC you can manage is kinda fun, do you have the link, didn't find it again...

http://74.125.39.113/translate_c?hl=...DY1-E2FAJxWO3w

but that's (by now) outdated...

that guy ("Antz") was successfully booting XP on an underclocked Pentium (socket 4) system..

took 4 1/2 hours to boot to the desktop...

why? because he replaced the crystal on the board that generates the clock for the FSB
XP @ 2MHz and later even 1MHz

but for some strange reason it BSOD'd at 1MHz while booting (shortly before the desktop should appear). 2MHz worked "fine" though.. lol

he also set up a video stream of that pc booting back then..

[i4004]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

yeah, but you know germans...they're extreme tinkerers..hehe...

as for me, i hate installing os even on fast machines...

i installed xp recently on one slow machine...i hope i'll never be doing that again...

i find it weird somebody is actually waiting hours for os to boot...
uh...ok, probably not sitting in front of it waiting, but still...urghm...

[Scenic]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

he started booting it before he went to bed... so...no problem there

and the webcam video stream was running (and recording to his other PC.. so he could figure out how long it took to boot)

[gdement]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

but for some strange reason it BSOD'd at 1MHz while booting (shortly before the desktop should appear). 2MHz worked "fine" though.. lol

I think the problem you could run into with severe underclocking is the DRAM chips. It might not get refreshed rapidly enough and crash.
DRAM is often advertised as "self refreshing" but I don't know what that really means. If the clock signals are slow then it must screw up the refresh at some point.

Might have to swap video cards and SIMMs to find the "best" combo. Maybe these guys should test Prime95 at 2mhz to see if it really works.


If you could somehow get it to run on SRAM you could probably go as slow as you want. You'd also have to find a video card with SRAM on it, and I've never heard of that. I think all the various video memory techologies have been DRAM based.

[bgavin]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

Why not use an 8088 and be done with it?



I still have an original IBM PC with two 360k floppy disks and the CGA color monitor. It even has the 8087 NPD option.

Go baby go...

[gdement]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

Why not use an 8088 and be done with it?



I still have an original IBM PC with two 360k floppy disks and the CGA color monitor. It even has the 8087 NPD option.

Go baby go...

An 8088 doesn't support the required instruction set. This unusual little "sport" is about building the slowest PC that can boot Windows XP.

Based on what people use in these machines, I guess a Pentium is required. I would think a 386 or 486 might work but I guess not.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

Had and AST 486 on ME but Xp and ME are apples and oranges.

[Wizard]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

The nutty fun I did was put 98 on 2.2GB SCSI FH 5.25" hard drive (10 platters at 5400rpm) on a Everex 386DX 25 cache computer. As usual, the hitch is old hard drive and CPU is slowing this machine down because of poor cache design that everex used long ago (found this out later that there was lawsuit about it).

Cheers, Wizard

[bgavin]

Re: Windows 2000 RAM

Kinda like drag racing, in reverse...



386 and 486 don't have the Pentium processor extensions, so I'm almost dead sure they won't support XP. The above comment was the only valid use I have for the 8088, other than adding weight to my garage attic during wind storms.

[ edit ]

When I was a lot younger, and gave a shit about performance, I compared my 8088 with a BASCOM xmodem implementation with the same program written in Atari BASIC running on an Atari 800. The Atari won. By a lot. I rewrote the Atari code in 6502 assembly language, and it went even faster. Gotta love that constant Load Accumulator / Store Accumulator stuff.