what is the best Windows version for this machine:

- MS-5169 Super Socket 7 mobo
- 500mhz AMD K6-2 (100mhz FSB x5)
- 196mb PC100 RAM
- 10gb hard drive
- ATI Rage 128 Pro 16mb AGP graphics card

i would like to run Windows XP on it, but will it be too crawling slow if i do? if not XP, what OS is recommended? i would rather use something newer then 98SE, it just seems too outdated.

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left behind by those who got there first.

Windows 2000 would run fairly well.

WILL POST FOR FOOD.

I agree with Zenith, however XP will run just fine as well as long as you turn off all the visual "enhancements". I have a 500mhz machine with 196 ram and XP and it runs plenty fast for what I need it to do.

Sorry to have to disagree with Stryker but even if you tweak the hell out of XP it will not run well on a K6-2. A PII/III 450 or a PIII 500Mhz would be fine but that generation AMD was not a great chip. If you could somehow find a K6 III 400450 and put it in that board you would be fine (yes, I know it is a 'slower' cpu based on clock speed but it inst, it blows them away). Run either 98 or 2K Pro, either will run fine. I've owned a ton of the K6 II's and III's running ASUS P5 ab boards up to 575 on the K6II's and even that fast couldnt hang with a K6III 400.

i didnt catch that part. mine is a p2 500. actually...I dont think i've ever owned a k6, so i'll have to take your word for that. I guess the best thing for him to do is try them both and see which one he likes?

errr....i mean p3 500

LOL yeah i know K6-II were not great chips, but yeah they are very plentiful so it is usually what you end up with. odd that they are so plentiful, considering they were such junk...

hmm...

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left behind by those who got there first.

Windows XP (aka NT 5.1) is just an enhanced version of Win2K (aka NT 5.0). Both will run on a K6-2 system, but not all that well. Your system is best suited for either Win98SE or WinME.

Here's an explanation & listing of all the NT versions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

This space for rent

maybe if i bump it up to 256mb of RAM...???

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left behind by those who got there first.

The real reason to get away from the 9x operating systems is because of the enhanced stability of the NT core operating systems. If the system is stable with 98SE, there is no real reason to upgrade. It is an old operating system, but that is old hardware.

I have an old K6-2+ system with a Gigabyte GA-5AA and 192 megs of RAM as a workstation at my job running 98SE. It works just fine, day after day, virtually no problems with it.

I much prefer 2000/XP, but set up properly and left alone, 98 usually isn't too bad.

Windows XP will run the best. Trust me.

I've even got an ancient Pentium 166MMX/128mb RAM system that runs Windows XP better than it runs Win 98SE. Sure, Win 98 starts up 20 seconds faster, but once XP is actually loaded, it flies along a lot smoother than 98 does.

XP seems to have better control over hardware than earlier (especially DOS-based) versions of Windows. Here's what I've experienced with my older P1 and P2 computers:

On my P2-450, Flash animations often run out of sync under Win 98SE. This is especially noticeable with the Flash-based Google Video player. Under Win XP, the flash constantly stays together.

While playing MP3s under Win 98SE, the sound will often stutter with lots of hard drive activity/programs loading. Under Win XP, MP3s never skip. (I used the same version of Winamp under both OSes)

Under Win 98SE, the P2-450 often lets the video fall behind the audio while playing back a DVD. Under XP, the audio/video stays in sync. (the same DVD software and video drivers were used with both OSes)

Windows 98SE doesn't handle graphic-heavy webpages as well as XP does on older hardware. The scrolling gets extremely jerky. While it's still jumpy under XP, it's nowhere near as bad as it is under Win98. And yes, I used IE6.0 on both OSes.

Another thing I notice with 98SE is the fact that the mouse pointer often jumps around while the hard drive is busy. This happens very rarely under WinXP.

"maybe if i bump it up to 256mb of RAM...???"
That's a very good idea.

Download the xp tool that will tell you if your Machine will work it will tell you if you will have hardware problems,

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/advisor.mspx

hey jack...did you use the same exact machine and just installed 98 and then xp or did you have two seperate older machines...one with 98 and one with xp?

Jack-you are comparing apples to oranges. Every chip you mentioned was an intel. We are talking about an AMD K6-II. Your information doent apply to this situation.

regardless i'm still curious if it was the same or 2 different machines :)

It is much more likely to run acceptable on a PII intel PC than a K6-II PC. I've had XP Pro run fine on a PII 266 with no problems at all but, since the question was in reference to a K6-2, I didnt go into that...

There is one thing I would like to know from Jack though. The minimum sys requirements for XP is a 233Mhz cpu and it will not install without that. That being said, how did you install it on a 166 exactly?

good question, sanchez

i have made XP run on a 266mhz system (P2) with 160mb of RAM and it didn't crawl too bad...but i prefer Windows 2000 Professional or Windows ME for anything below 350mhz.

just out of curiosity, do you people think XP will run on the laptop i am refubing to sell:

233mhz Pentium 'mobile'
160mb of RAM
6gb hard drive

will XP run on that??

so anyway, Windows 2000 Professional; will it run okay on the K6-2 system w/ 196mb of RAM??

why did AMD sell so many damn K6-2 CPUs if they are so crappy??

thanx all

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left behind by those who got there first.

For the compasisons I've made above, I used the same P2-450/192MB machine.
However, if I were to use my other slow machines, the same conclusions would be drawn.

The P2-450 used to run Win 98SE, but once it got updated to XP, it ran a lot better.

"how did you install it on a 166 exactly?"

I just installed it the way I did on my other machines. I remember reading a while ago that XP will install on any machine that has MMX. My 166 has MMX, so, I guess it "just worked."
And behold, it "just worked" better than 98SE did.

"Jack-you are comparing apples to oranges. Every chip you mentioned was an intel. We are talking about an AMD K6-II. Your information doent apply to this situation."

I have a K6-2 300. Same thing with this machine. XP just runs a lot more smoothly than 98SE does.
ALL of my older machines used to run 98, and all of them have been updated to XP. All of them run better with XP.

Josh, yes, XP will run on it. It would work better on 2K pro but it will run. Keep in mind that the I/O on laptop hard drives (especially the older ones) is slower so you lose performance there too.

My experience with XP on slower hardware has been, well, not so good. I was given a P2 266 machine that had XP loaded on it. The boot time was abysmal, as was the loading time for any applications. I would never inflict a machine with a sub 500 MHz CPU and XP on myself, or anyone else. Win2k is a good compromise between XP and 98, having a little less of a performance hit than XP, but most of the advantages of XP over 98.

I did throw together a machine with an Asus P55T2P4 and a K6-2 450 at 500 a couple of years ago. With 192 megs of EDO, it ran ok. Since I was giving it to someone who knew little about computers, I thought it was better to have the stability of XP over the increased speed that 98 would have had on that hardware. That is the only time I've put such a machine together without using a K6-2+. It ran ok, but the lack of the K6-2+ L2 cache made a very noticeable difference in boot and app loading times.

JoshC, the K6-2 was a big seller because it was substantially cheaper than Intel.

Windows ME or 98SE would run great on that machine. Anotheroption would be Windows 2000.

home built computer
windows 98SE
200mb ram
intel celeron@500mhz
8 mb Korea Data Systems Visual Sensations VS-5/VS-51/VSx-5 on SiS 620 video card
10GB HDD