[the_constructor[_2_]]

I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what it is,
not the speed.

Jim

[Toby]

On 10/01/2011 23:15, the_constructor wrote:
I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what it is,
not the speed.

Jim



When you turn the PC `on, and it beeps at you (usually the keyboard
lights flash) you should have the chance to press DEL or F2 to go into
the BIOS setup - this will usually tell you in there.

Otherwise
http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdiag.html

it may tell you at the very start when it beeps too - you and press the
pause key usually to pause the boot here.

--
Toby...
Remove pants to reply

[Cash]

the_constructor wrote:
I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what
it is, not the speed.

Jim

IIRC, try right-clicking on the MY Computer icon on the desktop and the
Properties and you should see the information towards the bottom under
Computer.

Cash

[JW[_4_]]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:15:30 -0000, the_constructor wrote:

I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what it is,
not the speed.

Jim

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
--
Cheers

JW

[Harry Bloomfield[_3_]]

It happens that Cash formulated :
IIRC, try right-clicking on the MY Computer icon on the desktop and the
Properties and you should see the information towards the bottom under
Computer.

Win98 ???

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

[Tabby]

On Jan 10, 11:15*pm, "the_constructor"
wrote:
I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what it is,
not the speed.

Jim

Put a memtest86 cd in and boot. You'll see the cpu freq and amount of
ram right away. You may need to go into bios to tell it to boot from
cd before hdd - leave it that way.

In the unlikely event that its a very old 95 era machine heavily
upgraded you might need to use a memtest floppy.


NT

[Matty F]

On Jan 11, 1:20 pm, Harry Bloomfield
wrote:
It happens that Cash formulated :

IIRC, try right-clicking on the MY Computer icon on the desktop and the
Properties and you should see the information towards the bottom under
Computer.

Win98 ???

I'm running Win98SE and that procedure tells me this:
Computer
AuthenticAMD
AMD Athlon(tm)XP 2500+
224.0MB RAM

[Midge]

I dare say there will be some die-hards who reckon such a machine is still
useable, but you tend to find anything that has 98 on it originally will
really struggle these days as it will be more than 10 years old. Anyone who
had beefed a machine of that era up would have upgraded it to XP too if they
had any sense, so chances are yours is standard.

Its not just CPUs that have moved on, its the entire machine architecture
(memory, disks, USB interfaces, CD/DVD drives, graphics etc.) - and this is
reflected in the minimum system requirements for any software you want to
run these days.

I've just chucked out an 800Mhz PIII from the Win 98SE era for a friend,
(couldn't even give it away though I did manage to flog the XP upgrade pack
it had). If your machine had 98 on originally (as opposed to 98 SE) it
could even be a PII.

Support for Win 98 was dropped by Microsoft back in 2006 so most new
software releases and products don't support it either. Newer USB devices
will be a pain too as they won't bother to write drivers for 98SE.

If you do keep it for any reason, throwing some extra s/h RAM at it will
help it the most for just a few quid.

PS - I'm not against old machines. I still run a 3.2G P4 with 2G of memory
on XP, but even this setup is starting to show its age as software tends to
get more obese over time.

Midge.

[the_constructor[_2_]]

"Midge" wrote in message
...
I dare say there will be some die-hards who reckon such a machine is still
useable, but you tend to find anything that has 98 on it originally will
really struggle these days as it will be more than 10 years old. Anyone who
had beefed a machine of that era up would have upgraded it to XP too if
they had any sense, so chances are yours is standard.

Its not just CPUs that have moved on, its the entire machine architecture
(memory, disks, USB interfaces, CD/DVD drives, graphics etc.) - and this
is reflected in the minimum system requirements for any software you want
to run these days.

I've just chucked out an 800Mhz PIII from the Win 98SE era for a friend,
(couldn't even give it away though I did manage to flog the XP upgrade
pack it had). If your machine had 98 on originally (as opposed to 98 SE)
it could even be a PII.

Support for Win 98 was dropped by Microsoft back in 2006 so most new
software releases and products don't support it either. Newer USB devices
will be a pain too as they won't bother to write drivers for 98SE.

If you do keep it for any reason, throwing some extra s/h RAM at it will
help it the most for just a few quid.

PS - I'm not against old machines. I still run a 3.2G P4 with 2G of memory
on XP, but even this setup is starting to show its age as software tends
to get more obese over time.

Midge.

I don't mind that it is an old machine, 286, 386 or 486 would have suited me
better for Ham Radio programming of Philips and Motorola radios as a slow
machine is required.

I have just done a search for the motherboard and come up with this:

http://active-hardware.com/english/r...d/ga-6wmm7.htm

Jim

[Dave Liquorice[_2_]]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:32:30 -0000, Midge wrote:

I dare say there will be some die-hards who reckon such a machine is
still useable,
snip
I've just chucked out an 800Mhz PIII from the Win 98SE era for a friend,

Very much stil useable. That is what my server is. It does the job
without fuss and being a PIII only has a large slow fan in the PSU so
is pretty damn quiet. Runs SME Server, a very stable and reliable
"out of the box" linux based server/firewall/gateway solution.

Depends what you want to do with the machine, email, news and web
doesn't need a octo core 500GHz processor with 6TB of RAM and a
couple of PB of disc space...

--
Cheers
Dave.

[the_constructor[_2_]]

"Tabby" wrote in message
...
On Jan 10, 11:15 pm, "the_constructor"
wrote:
I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what it
is,
not the speed.

Jim

Put a memtest86 cd in and boot. You'll see the cpu freq and amount of
ram right away. You may need to go into bios to tell it to boot from
cd before hdd - leave it that way.

In the unlikely event that its a very old 95 era machine heavily
upgraded you might need to use a memtest floppy.


NT

Many thanks to all for the advice, I have just ran this program:
http://www.wizard-soft.com/cpuspeed/index.htm
and it showed the the speed of the processor was 467.7 MHz, which hopefully
will do fine for what I need.

Jim

[Midge]

If you have a specific need, then great - I ran some old 486 machines until
about 2003 as they were just doing a simple job using a DOS application. It
was the equipment they were connected to which went unsupportable first!

It looks like the motherboard is for a Celeron, so given the age, and the
fact the earliest 266 Celeron didn't have a L2 cache, it could be anything
between 300Mhz and 533Mhz.

You should be able to confirm from the chip if none of the other methods can
correctly identify it. See
http://www.oldcpu.cz/CPU/Intel/Celeron-PPGA-socket-370

Midge.

[Midge]

Makes sense - 466 is one of the flavours.

"the_constructor" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Tabby" wrote in message
...
On Jan 10, 11:15 pm, "the_constructor"
wrote:
I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what it
is,
not the speed.

Jim

Put a memtest86 cd in and boot. You'll see the cpu freq and amount of
ram right away. You may need to go into bios to tell it to boot from
cd before hdd - leave it that way.

In the unlikely event that its a very old 95 era machine heavily
upgraded you might need to use a memtest floppy.


NT

Many thanks to all for the advice, I have just ran this program:
http://www.wizard-soft.com/cpuspeed/index.htm
and it showed the the speed of the processor was 467.7 MHz, which
hopefully will do fine for what I need.

Jim

[Mike Clarke]

On 11/01/2011 09:17, Dave Liquorice wrote:
Depends what you want to do with the machine, email, news and web
doesn't need a octo core 500GHz processor with 6TB of RAM and a
couple of PB of disc space...

.... unless it's got Vista on it :-)

--
Mike Clarke

[Tinkerer]

"Matty F" wrote in message
...
On Jan 11, 1:20 pm, Harry Bloomfield
wrote:
It happens that Cash formulated :

IIRC, try right-clicking on the MY Computer icon on the desktop and
the
Properties and you should see the information towards the bottom under
Computer.

Win98 ???

I'm running Win98SE and that procedure tells me this:
Computer
AuthenticAMD
AMD Athlon(tm)XP 2500+
224.0MB RAM

http://compreviews.about.com/cs/cpus...Athlon2500.htm
--
Tinkerer

[Bob Eager]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:17:13 +0000, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:32:30 -0000, Midge wrote:

I dare say there will be some die-hards who reckon such a machine is
still useable,
snip
I've just chucked out an 800Mhz PIII from the Win 98SE era for a
friend,

Very much stil useable. That is what my server is. It does the job
without fuss and being a PIII only has a large slow fan in the PSU so is
pretty damn quiet. Runs SME Server, a very stable and reliable "out of
the box" linux based server/firewall/gateway solution.

What made me upgrade was the terrible power consumption. My firewall was
using 60-70W, and it's on 24/7. A faster CPU and I'm now using 15W..total.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

[The Natural Philosopher[_2_]]

Midge wrote:
I dare say there will be some die-hards who reckon such a machine is still
useable, but you tend to find anything that has 98 on it originally will
really struggle these days as it will be more than 10 years old. Anyone who
had beefed a machine of that era up would have upgraded it to XP too if they
had any sense, so chances are yours is standard.

Its not just CPUs that have moved on, its the entire machine architecture
(memory, disks, USB interfaces, CD/DVD drives, graphics etc.) - and this is
reflected in the minimum system requirements for any software you want to
run these days.

I've just chucked out an 800Mhz PIII from the Win 98SE era for a friend,
(couldn't even give it away though I did manage to flog the XP upgrade pack
it had). If your machine had 98 on originally (as opposed to 98 SE) it
could even be a PII.

Support for Win 98 was dropped by Microsoft back in 2006 so most new
software releases and products don't support it either. Newer USB devices
will be a pain too as they won't bother to write drivers for 98SE.

If you do keep it for any reason, throwing some extra s/h RAM at it will
help it the most for just a few quid.

PS - I'm not against old machines. I still run a 3.2G P4 with 2G of memory
on XP, but even this setup is starting to show its age as software tends to
get more obese over time.

Midge.



Old WiN 98 machines with half a gig of ram will run linux well enough.

[The Natural Philosopher[_2_]]

Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:17:13 +0000, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:32:30 -0000, Midge wrote:

I dare say there will be some die-hards who reckon such a machine is
still useable,
snip
I've just chucked out an 800Mhz PIII from the Win 98SE era for a
friend,
Very much stil useable. That is what my server is. It does the job
without fuss and being a PIII only has a large slow fan in the PSU so is
pretty damn quiet. Runs SME Server, a very stable and reliable "out of
the box" linux based server/firewall/gateway solution.

What made me upgrade was the terrible power consumption. My firewall was
using 60-70W, and it's on 24/7. A faster CPU and I'm now using 15W..total.

Ditto for my headless server.

[Peter Scott]

On 11/01/2011 00:05, JW wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:15:30 -0000, the_constructor wrote:

I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what it is,
not the speed.

Jim

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

Peter Scott

[bod]

On 11/01/2011 11:24, Peter Scott wrote:
On 11/01/2011 00:05, JW wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:15:30 -0000, the_constructor wrote:

I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running Win98.

How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me what
it is,
not the speed.

Jim

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

Peter Scott



I agree, it is very good.

--
Bod

[Adrian]

Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information - or
even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the machine's quick
enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU speed which is the
biggest bottleneck.

So what am I missing?

[BartC]

"the_constructor" wrote in message

Many thanks to all for the advice, I have just ran this program:
http://www.wizard-soft.com/cpuspeed/index.htm
and it showed the the speed of the processor was 467.7 MHz, which
hopefully will do fine for what I need.

"Midge" wrote in message
news
Makes sense - 466 is one of the flavours.

I ran it on mine, came up with 'actual speed', 2700MHz, but 'published
speed' was also 2700MHz.

Sounds a bit suspicious actually; a bit like driving a car with a rated top
speed of 120mph, and achieving exactly 120mph top speed.

Is it really measuring anything, or just reading out the clock setting from
some register or other?

(I also tried CPUZ that someone else posted; that came up with a core speed
of 800MHz, a multiplier of 4, and a HT link of 2000MHz (whatever that lot
means).)

--
Bartc

[bod]

On 11/01/2011 11:46, Adrian wrote:
gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information - or
even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the machine's quick
enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU speed which is the
biggest bottleneck.

So what am I missing?



The information.

--
Bod

[Adrian]

Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information -
or even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the machine's
quick enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU speed which
is the biggest bottleneck.

So what am I missing?

The information.

Well, yes, but is it information, or just data? Why should I care?

[bod]

On 11/01/2011 11:57, Adrian wrote:
gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information -
or even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the machine's
quick enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU speed which
is the biggest bottleneck.

So what am I missing?

The information.

Well, yes, but is it information, or just data? Why should I care?



Handy to identify not only your CPU info, but type of memory
installed/Graphics card etc, all in one place.
Obviously wasted on you.

--
Bod

[Adrian]

Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that
I install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information
- or even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the
machine's quick enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU
speed which is the biggest bottleneck.

So what am I missing?

The information.

Well, yes, but is it information, or just data? Why should I care?

Handy to identify not only your CPU info, but type of memory
installed/Graphics card etc, all in one place. Obviously wasted on you.

Yes, it clearly is. That's why I'm asking - because I would like to know
whether there's something I'm missing.

Unless you're producing some benchmarking, to produce quantifiable
performance stats for comparison purposes, I can think of no reason you
would need to know - other than purely for interest's sake.

[bod]

On 11/01/2011 12:07, Adrian wrote:
gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that
I install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information
- or even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the
machine's quick enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU
speed which is the biggest bottleneck.

So what am I missing?

The information.

Well, yes, but is it information, or just data? Why should I care?

Handy to identify not only your CPU info, but type of memory
installed/Graphics card etc, all in one place. Obviously wasted on you.

Yes, it clearly is. That's why I'm asking - because I would like to know
whether there's something I'm missing.

Unless you're producing some benchmarking, to produce quantifiable
performance stats for comparison purposes, I can think of no reason you
would need to know - other than purely for interest's sake.



I often upgrade other peoples computers, the prog is very handy for that
info.

--
Bod

[Adrian]

Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

Handy to identify not only your CPU info, but type of memory
installed/Graphics card etc, all in one place. Obviously wasted on
you.

Yes, it clearly is. That's why I'm asking - because I would like to
know whether there's something I'm missing.

Unless you're producing some benchmarking, to produce quantifiable
performance stats for comparison purposes, I can think of no reason you
would need to know - other than purely for interest's sake.

I often upgrade other peoples computers

Right...?

the prog is very handy for that info.

Again - BUT WHY? What do you need to know all of that info for?

If you're replacing the CPU or graphics, then all you need is the socket/
slot spec, which a quick look will tell you. If you're increasing the
memory, then all you need is the brand/model of the machine or mobo - and
that can all be got from either the sticker on the front or (at the
outside) the BIOS.

[Steve Firth]

the_constructor wrote:


I have just done a search for the motherboard and come up with this:

http://active-hardware.com/english/r...d/ga-6wmm7.htm

I had, in fact still have, a similar dual Celeron motherboard. It was in
use a file and print server until recently. It was happily running
Ubuntu at a reasonable speed.

[John Williamson]

Adrian wrote:
Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

Handy to identify not only your CPU info, but type of memory
installed/Graphics card etc, all in one place. Obviously wasted on
you.

Yes, it clearly is. That's why I'm asking - because I would like to
know whether there's something I'm missing.

Unless you're producing some benchmarking, to produce quantifiable
performance stats for comparison purposes, I can think of no reason you
would need to know - other than purely for interest's sake.

I often upgrade other peoples computers

Right...?

the prog is very handy for that info.

Again - BUT WHY? What do you need to know all of that info for?

If you're replacing the CPU or graphics, then all you need is the socket/
slot spec, which a quick look will tell you. If you're increasing the
memory, then all you need is the brand/model of the machine or mobo - and
that can all be got from either the sticker on the front or (at the
outside) the BIOS.

If you're upgrading, it helps to know what's there, and that in turn can
tell you whether it's worth upgrading and how far the upgrade can go.
CPU-Z can also tell you this in a minute or so after booting from a CD
without opening the case, which can be an issue at times.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[bod]

On 11/01/2011 12:13, Adrian wrote:
gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

Handy to identify not only your CPU info, but type of memory
installed/Graphics card etc, all in one place. Obviously wasted on
you.

Yes, it clearly is. That's why I'm asking - because I would like to
know whether there's something I'm missing.

Unless you're producing some benchmarking, to produce quantifiable
performance stats for comparison purposes, I can think of no reason you
would need to know - other than purely for interest's sake.

I often upgrade other peoples computers

Right...?

the prog is very handy for that info.

Again - BUT WHY? What do you need to know all of that info for?

If you're replacing the CPU or graphics, then all you need is the socket/
slot spec, which a quick look will tell you. If you're increasing the
memory, then all you need is the brand/model of the machine or mobo - and
that can all be got from either the sticker on the front or (at the
outside) the BIOS.


Saves having to go into the Bios.
It also tells you the Mobo Number and version/date/PCI Express or AGP of
Mobo etc. Also the Dram timings etc(in real time)...handy if you are
overclocking a computer.
In short, it gives all the info in one place, in seconds.

--
Bod

[JW[_4_]]

On 11 Jan 2011 12:13:39 GMT, Adrian wrote:

Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

Handy to identify not only your CPU info, but type of memory
installed/Graphics card etc, all in one place. Obviously wasted on
you.

Yes, it clearly is. That's why I'm asking - because I would like to
know whether there's something I'm missing.

Unless you're producing some benchmarking, to produce quantifiable
performance stats for comparison purposes, I can think of no reason you
would need to know - other than purely for interest's sake.

I often upgrade other peoples computers

Right...?

the prog is very handy for that info.

Again - BUT WHY? What do you need to know all of that info for?

If you're replacing the CPU or graphics, then all you need is the socket/
slot spec, which a quick look will tell you. If you're increasing the
memory, then all you need is the brand/model of the machine or mobo - and
that can all be got from either the sticker on the front or (at the
outside) the BIOS.

Why go to the effort of undoing everything, fighting your way through dust
and cobwebs, delving through wiring looms, when something like CPU-Z will
tell you everything you need to know? Socket alone does not tell you what
CPU you can use. That is up to the mobo/BIOS combination. Often, a quick
look isn't possible to check the socket, as the HSF will obscure the actual
socket plate.

It's also handy as a simple check that everything is running at the correct
speeds. Some old machines that I built defaulted to a lower bus speed. Yes
- the BIOS would tell me that on POST, but if already running, why reboot
when you can find out immediately? The BIOS generally doesn't give detailed
information regarding the CPU, such as the stepping etc.

--
Cheers

JW

[Bob Eager]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:57:17 +0000, Adrian wrote:

Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that
I install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information -
or even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the machine's
quick enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU speed
which is the biggest bottleneck.

So what am I missing?

The information.

Well, yes, but is it information, or just data? Why should I care?

You can identify the socket or slot type easily enough (although you'll
have to open the case). In the event that the machine isn't fast enough,
it's quick to tell if there is a faster CPU you can put in, or whether
more is needed.



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

[JW[_4_]]

On 11 Jan 2011 12:28:25 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:57:17 +0000, Adrian wrote:

Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that
I install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information -
or even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the machine's
quick enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU speed
which is the biggest bottleneck.

So what am I missing?

The information.

Well, yes, but is it information, or just data? Why should I care?

You can identify the socket or slot type easily enough (although you'll
have to open the case). In the event that the machine isn't fast enough,
it's quick to tell if there is a faster CPU you can put in, or whether
more is needed.

So if there was a big heatsink obscuring the socket area, you could
determine if you were looking at a Socket 1155 or Socket 1156 machine by
sight? ;-)
--
Cheers

JW

[The Natural Philosopher[_2_]]

Adrian wrote:
Bod gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying:

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

I agree, it is very good.

I can honestly say I've never had a need for any of that information - or
even cared particularly about the clock speed. Either the machine's quick
enough, or it isn't. If it isn't, it's rarely the CPU speed which is the
biggest bottleneck.

That depends on what you are doing: Here, now, when processing 3D and
other graphics, its often 'go and make a coffee' whilst it chugs its way
through 100,000 sided polygons..


Sunday night I did an export from one program to another. To get things
accurate experience shows that exported curves sometimes blow up,
exported polygons do not..however the program then needed to turn those
back into curves.
There were over 700,000 nodes...came down after conversion to about 1000.

So that's where CPU goes. Graphics manipulations.


OTOH I had greats success running web/file servers and suchlike on
400MHZ systems with 256M RAM.




So what am I missing?

Graphics.

[Tabby]

On Jan 11, 8:32*am, "Midge" wrote:
I dare say there will be some die-hards who reckon such a machine is still
useable, but you tend to find anything that has 98 on it originally will
really struggle these days as it will be more than 10 years old. Anyone who
had beefed a machine of that era up would have upgraded it to XP too if they
had any sense, so chances are yours is standard.

putting xp on a 98 machine is a poor idea, its simply too heavy an
operating system. 98 has many issues, but most are resolvable, whereas
xp on such old kit would make it imitate a slug.


Its not just CPUs that have moved on, its the entire machine architecture
(memory, disks, USB interfaces, CD/DVD drives, graphics etc.) - and this is
reflected in the minimum system requirements for any software you want to
run these days.

I dont know any task barring video software that wont run on a 466
celery. Lots of programs wont, but for pretty well everything there's
a leaner designed bit of software that will go fast on such old
hardware, given the right OS etc.


I've just chucked out an 800Mhz PIII from the Win 98SE era for a friend,
(couldn't even give it away though I did manage to flog the XP upgrade pack
it had). *If your machine had 98 on originally (as opposed to 98 SE) it
could even be a PII.

Support for Win 98 was dropped by Microsoft back in 2006 so most new
software releases

Most new software has no business running on a P2. You need a distro
designed for an old PC, and for apps either bundled light apps, as
linux generally does, or else hand picked light apps for win, if for
some reason you msut run win.


and products don't support it either.

Yes - though again for most stuff its easy to get used hadrware even
now that will run fine


Newer USB devices
will be a pain too as they won't bother to write drivers for 98SE.

Not normally needed, nusb3.1 solves all that. Dont use win98 without
nusb, its out of the box handling of usb is painful.


If you do keep it for any reason, throwing some extra s/h RAM at it will
help it the most for just a few quid.

max it out, it makes all the difference. Freecycle is handy for old
ram.


PS - I'm not against old machines. I still run a 3.2G P4 with 2G of memory
on XP, but even this setup is starting to show its age as software tends to
get more obese over time.

Midge.

A lot of people make the mistake of picking obese software, it really
is optional.

On a 466 I'd probably run Antix or perhaps Puppy for a general purpose
desktop.


NT

[Andy[_24_]]

Very much stil useable. That is what my server is. It does the job
without fuss and being a PIII only has a large slow fan in the PSU so
is pretty damn quiet. Runs SME Server, a very stable and reliable
"out of the box" linux based server/firewall/gateway solution.


Which version of SME Server are you using as a matter of interest?

[Tim Downie[_3_]]

Peter Scott wrote:
On 11/01/2011 00:05, JW wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:15:30 -0000, the_constructor wrote:

I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running
Win98. How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me
what it is, not the speed.

Jim

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

Not ever felt the need to try it but does it do more than the system info
available in Microsoft Office software? (Open Word/Excel or other program,
go to "Help/About/system info".

Tim

[JW[_4_]]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:53:46 -0000, Tim Downie wrote:

Peter Scott wrote:
On 11/01/2011 00:05, JW wrote:
On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:15:30 -0000, the_constructor wrote:

I have had a PC given to me. Looks quite old and it is running
Win98. How can I tell the speed of the processor.?

I have looked in START/CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM but it only tells me
what it is, not the speed.

Jim

If none of the other responses works, try CPU-Z.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Use this first! It's excellent. It's now in my set of software that I
install as standard.

Not ever felt the need to try it but does it do more than the system info
available in Microsoft Office software? (Open Word/Excel or other program,
go to "Help/About/system info".

Tim

Yes. A bit more technical - and shows actual speeds etc.
--
Cheers

JW

[Dave Liquorice[_2_]]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:46:02 +0000, Andy wrote:

Which version of SME Server are you using as a matter of interest?

7.5.1 fully updated as of 16 days 16 hrs ago. It just works. B-)

v8 is at beta 6 but I don't want to play with that on a live system.

--
Cheers
Dave.