Name: jackbomb Date: October 17, 2007 at 21:32:01 Pacific Subject: The 180MHz Vista PC (screencaps) OS: Vista and XP CPU/Ram: Various Model/Manufacturer: jackbomb
Comment:
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Bill Gates would sigh. I got Vista Home Premium, complete with Aero Glass, to run on a 180MHz (underclocked) Pentium II with 256MB of RAM and a Geforce FX 5200 graphics card.
Background info: I originally wanted to get Vista to install on a Pentium 133MMX on a Super 7 board, just like I did with XP a couple of years ago on computing.net. Unfortunately, that did not work out. The system would always hang during installation, no matter what I tried.
So I went on to the next best thing: an unlocked Pentium II-300 underclocked to 180MHz on a Slot 1 440LX-based board.
The Procedure: I completed the first stage of Vista installation on a much faster machine--a 1.66GHz Pentium III with 2GB of RAM. This was done to avoid any potential road blocks that may have popped up if I had tried the first part of the installation on the P2 (minimum system requirement issues).
After part 1 of Vista Setup completed, I re-installed the hard drive in the P2 system to finish the rest of the installation. Surprisingly, it went very smoothly and finished without any glitches, unlike the Super 7 board.
The processor was a very old, multiplier-unlocked Pentium II-300. I ran the motherboard at its lowest multiplier setting (3.0X). This created what CPU-Z calls a Pentium II 200MHz processor. I underclocked the CPU even further by reducing the bus speed to 60MHz. This resulted in a 180MHz Pentium II.
I then installed 256MB of PC100 memory, which was automatically underclocked to 60MHz to match bus speed. I installed an Asus Geforce FX 5200 video card to ensure that the Aero Glass interface would/could be enabled. The card ran in AGP 2X mode.
Still with me? Good! This is where the fun starts! :-)
Screenshot 1: Vista doesn't seem to think too highly of my hardware. WEI gives the system a 1.0, thanks to the uber-fast processor. You can also see CPU-Z proudly showing off the 180MHz Pentium II and 256MB of PC60 memory. Also notice that CPU usage is always at 100%, even when 'idling'. Vista fits into 256MB of RAM rather well!
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
Screenshot 2: Playing an MP3 file on the server under Vista with the compact Winamp program (much smaller than WMP 11) is impossible. Audio skips all the time. Under XP, this same machine plays MP3s with only 15-20% CPU usage.
You probably noticed that some of the elements of Winamp's interface are missing. That's because the system was still in the process of drawing them when I pushed Print Screen.
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
Screenshot 3: In order to really stress the video system (which was already plenty stressed at 800x600), I upped the resolution to the display's maximum 1920x1080. Aero Glass was extremely sluggish, but never crashed. You can also see that all of the Windows interface options are available for tweaking on this system. This PC just never gives up!
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
I did try Vista Beta 2 on a 500MHz first-gen P3 around two years ago. It felt at least ten times faster, but that was probably because it had 512MB of RAM and a higher-clocked processor. SSE maybe helped a little bit.
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
It was painful, but not as bad as you might think. Even with a mere 256MB of RAM (4 times less than what MS wants for Aero Glass), bootup time was just around 2 minutes, and as you can see from the Task Manager in screenshots 1 and 2, only 150-190MB of physical RAM was being used.
The worst part by far was the time it took for the CPU to render and then display the Aero glass effects. All animation was choppy as heck.
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
I cant believe it could do Aero Glass at all, even if it is incredibly slow I'm still impressed.
heh, I'm currently working on my own super P3 jackbomb. But having a bit of trouble with getting the hardware to play nice. Once I get it going I should try vista on my P3 to see how it runs for myself.
Good work though!
Mattwizz3 :
Vista Home Basic A7N8X-E Deluxe 2.2GHz Sempron 2GB DDR400 GeForce 6800Ultra
I was pretty shocked as well. I guess all Aero Glass needs is a Pixel Shader 2.0-compliant video card, and doesn't really give a damn about RAM or processor speed.
If you're looking to run Vista on your super P3, you might want to use a board that has a VIA chipset. The very common Intel i815 only takes up to 512MB of PC133 memory--not really enough for Vista. My board is based on the VIA Apollo Pro 266T, which has native Tualatin support and up to 3GB of DDR. You could probably get a board like this for cheap on eBay.
Whatever you do, have fun with it!
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
Tried it on a Socket 7 AMD K6-2 550mhz 512mb ram, problem is the onboard vga will not display normal mode, but it will display in safe mode. I take it that old VIA 64mb IGP can't handle it.
I'm pretty surprised that a Super 7 system has a 64MB IGP!
I think whatever caused my Super 7 system to hang during Vista installation was also video-related. On the P2 180MHz system, the screen would blank a few times during installation, but then come on again after a few seconds. However, on the Super 7 system, the screen would blank and stay dark.
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
Yeah, I have a Via based board. bu this particular M/B only has a Via Apollo Pro 133 chipset which supports a max of 768MB of PC133. Although the FSB is actually running at 150MHz which gives the system some more kick. The system needs an adapter to use a Tualatin processor but otherwise it's a reasonably capable. The only thing that doesn't like a higher PCI clock was my USB 2.0 card. I'll have to make do with the onboard USB 1.1
I just bought a 1.4Ghz P3 so I'm waiting for that to come. I was wondering if i should get a 1.4GHz Tualatin based Celeron instead, with a multiplier of 14x I think I could get at least 1.7GHz that would be sweet.
Heh, Super Socket 7 systems and Tualatin systems are the best!
Mattwizz3 :
Vista Home Basic A7N8X-E Deluxe 2.2GHz Sempron 2GB DDR400 GeForce 6800Ultra
I love my old super socket 7 system. My board is odd it has 2 slots but they are dual channel slots, it was one of the last super socket 7 boards made.
Mattwizz3, that 150MHz bus speed will definitely give it a boost. P3s, especially Tualatins, benefit greatly from faster bus speeds. They're pretty bandwidth-starved at the stock 133MHz.
Heh, just the opposite happened to my USB system. At my current 158MHz bus speed, the onboard USB 1.1 won't work. I had to buy a USB 2.0 card for it.
Cobra, 64MB IGP and dual channel memory on a Super 7 board? I'm intrigued! Which model is it?
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
Sorry I meant 32mb. It's a PC Chips motherboard with an ALi Aladin 7 chipset.
I tell you what was a solid cpu back in the day, those old Athlon slot 1's. I remember my friend having one and that thing had some performance for 550 mhz. It blew my K6-2 550 out of the water.
Yay! I got my 1.4GHz Tualatin in the mail today! Running like a dream @ 1.58GHz. Strangely the motherboard is able to correctly identify this CPU when it couldn't identify the older 1.13GHz Tualatin in before it.. Next on the list for this PC is a hand-me-down SATA hard drive, Its already got a PCI SATA controller ready. This thing is gonna fly!
Cobra, the Slot A Athlons were what actually made me notice AMD for the first time. Back in '99 when I was in the market for a new PC, I was definitely considering the Athlon-600. Benchmark scores were off the charts! Unfortunately, my wife, who would also use this PC, did not trust AMD and persuaded me to get a P3-550. Those first-gen P3s blew chunks...I regretted it. Damn TV ads.
Mattwizz, a Tualatin at 1.58 does fly! I was running mine at that speed till recently. Curious, what does it score in 3DMark01 (usually pretty CPU-bound)?
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
4509 3D Marks. I just installed it then ran it so all at defaults. Not sure if thats a crap score or what. I'm pretty sure it could get better.
I'll keep trying. Got a few more things to tinker with before I'm happy. Edit: PS: What is the stock V-core voltage for the 1.4GHz Tualatin processor. Is it 1.45V or 1.5V?
Mattwizz3 :
Vista Home Basic A7N8X-E Deluxe 2.2GHz Sempron 2GB DDR400 GeForce 6800Ultra
There's gotta be a video bottleneck going on there. What's you video card? My Tualatin @ 1.66GHz manages 14,500 with a 9800Pro and 19,200 with a 7950GT (and with the 7950GT, it's completely CPU-limited; that video card isn't even trying).
As for the voltage, I believe that one stepping ran at 1.5v while the other(s) ran at 1.45v. Mine runs at 1.45v.
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
jackbomb why don't you put up your old p3 specs again in your sig. People seemed a heck of a lot more impressed by those specs and you seemed to have started some cult following by overclocking old prcoessors.
My P3 Has a 64Bit 6200 350MHZ Core 530Mem (DDR2) Its running at AGP 2X because of the motherboard. This thing plays Flatout2 flawlessly at 1024x768 high settings (No AA or AF). It strangely struggles to play the intro videos but is fine in-game. It is also playing Dawn Of War and GTA Vice City all fine. Dont know why I'm getting bad 3D marks.. Oh well
Mattwizz3 :
Vista Home Basic A7N8X-E Deluxe 2.2GHz Sempron 2GB DDR400 GeForce 6800Ultra
There's the bottleneck. The GeForce 6200 (especially the 64-bit memory version) is not a very powerful card. The fact that the motherboard only supports AGP 2X doesn't help.
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
But I guess since it's back by popular demand (from you, lol) I could put the P3 sig back up. :P I just hope I don't come across Sabertooth while it's up. :)
AMD Opteron 185 @ 3.0GHz 4.0GB of OCZ DDR400 RAM 8800GTS 640MB at 625/2000 core/mem, 1500 shader Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe X-Fi, Vista 64-bit, yada yada
The 180MHz Vista rig is another "killer" idea & you should perhaps patent it.
As we all know, there are literally thousands of folks with decommissioned machines that wouldn't mind running Vista -- decently or otherwise. Although, you will need one heck of a salesman to pitch the exercise on a broader scale ..... LOL!
I might run 3D mark again with it overclocked and see what happens though. Cant do it now though because I need to get some thermal paste before I can fire her up again.
Mattwizz3 :
Vista Home Basic A7N8X-E Deluxe 2.2GHz Sempron 2GB DDR400 GeForce 6800Ultra
Windows Vista Ultimate may be better than stupid Home Premium for testing. Windows Vista btw is a waste for old computers, it takes up every cpu usage, but good job testing.
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