win98 stability

[ColinRiche]

One of my machines is a PIII 650mhz 256mb win98 - which is not 100% stable

has occasional explorer errors and blue screen of death so its hard to determine if its a h/w or s/w problem

its only been used before for trading stuff and one microsoft game but even when its just being used as a net server and nothing else the errors can still appear.

is it possible to re-install win98 on top of itself and not lose any work or would i have to reformat ?

or as reliabilty is a must for trading should i just dump this machine and buy a new desktop for a few hundred ?

cheers

 

[JonnyT]

Do an inplace upgrade to XP.

JonnyT

 

[ColinRiche]

JT, yea thats the question i forgot to add

i suppose if i do switch it to XP at least i'll find out whether its a hardware or software problem and it might save the expense of a new PC.

But is the above spec powerful enough for XP ?
and should it be fresh install or is upgrade ok ?

 

[Rognvald]

I run xp on a 650 pentium with no probs - I have used it for datafeed and eraltime radio streaming on my small LAN with no difficulty. I have had some problems with the upgrade from 98 to XP and it i think universaly acknowledged that a clean install is better than the upgrade but this brings up the issue of the safety of data and settings etc on the machine.

 

[ColinRiche]

yea and if it means you lose some drivers that are not included within XP then it could mean sourcing the drivers all over again which could be a pain

i took out the modem and sound card - so thats 2 drivers i dont have to worry about but it does have 2 video cards - one AGP and one PCI so that might cause problems (both SiS i think)

also 2 HD 1 DVD and 1 CD/RW

 

[JonnyT]

A 650Mhz processor is fine for XP.

I have a laptop with a 350Mhz processor and 192M Ram and its fine running Sierra Charts, IB and Deal4Free on simultaneously.

However if you can add more memory take it up to 512M as thats the optimum for XP (Throwing more at it is generally a waste of time as in most cases with most apps it wont use it)

Don't worry too much about the drivers as the only things you are likely to get problems with are On-Board features such as Graphics and Sound. Neither of these will stop the PC working.

Ideally though a clean install is better. Think about using Ghost or Drive Image so you cam always revert back in the event of problems.

JonnyT

 

[ColinRiche]

JT

Cool, i have a copy of ghost so i'll remember to backup first.

I have seen copies of XP at my local computer fair, do they work cos i thought you had to activate it once installed ?

On a secondary thought, with the likes of Intel finding it harder and harder to increase the speed of computers what happened to the idea of parallel processing with systems having more than one processor ?

 

[oatman]

You do have to activate but M$ are not so strict as previously. They try to stop you using it on more than one machine, by monitoring the setup. If it changed considerably they would refuse activation. I think they gave up on that due to complaints from people who like to fresh install regularly.

 

[adrianallen99]

On a secondary thought, with the likes of Intel finding it harder and harder to increase the speed of computers what happened to the idea of parallel processing with systems having more than one processor ?

Intel will be working on processors a lot further down the line. Typically the prototype stuff they are working on we won't see on the market for 8-10 years. I know there was some work on a processor that used light and they had developed silicon that emitted light. This would obviously reduced a lot of the heat problems that would be associated with the chips avaliable now.

A lot of the time it is down to the cost and reliability of construction. They will have produced much faster chips, but they will be very expensive and unreliable.

 

[JonnyT]

Disagree,

Moores law is still working. i.e. Double the processing power every year.

Intel and others have chips available now with a lot more power but they feed them to the market to maximise returns.

JonnyT

 

[wheezergeezer]

Lots of servers have more than one processor, but in the main a top of the range desktop workstation is
more that sufficent for most peoples need, you can have the fastest pc on the planet, and still experience
a slow upload / download due to someone else's server !

 

[DaveJB]

Moores Law is going to hit a small problem with wavelength of the etcher one fine day....
Moore's 'Law' isn't a law, it's an observation of what happened so far, based primarily on the fact that efficiency can start out quite low and you still make a packet.... how many components you can etch in a given area is ultimately limited by the wavelength of the EM radiation used in the etching process.
That's probably more deatil than we really wanted, right?
Anyone figuring you can keep doubling without knowing how to halve UV wavelengths (for example) is destined to exist in either marketting or a Dilbert cartoon - from choice I'd pick the latter.
Returning to the subject - install XP, drivers aren't too bad (I've a really old 'generic' PCI card, 8Mb etc etc that I set up in XP no bother, drivers are amazingly easy to get hold of). Compared to 98 XP is a dream.
Dave

 

[Rognvald]

DJB
Yoyu are so right on all counts. XP vs 98 - I used to spend half my time rebooting! On the hardware front - finer pathways are reaching the stage where heat deterioration may set in after quite a short time thus guaranteeing a steady flow of business to cpu manufacturers.

 

[JonnyT]

But they might use a different technology.

I know of a British Company in Sheffield that make Intels current processors look puny. However they are not going to get much market unless they can sell the technology to Intel.

However Intel have Chips that make the current chips look puny. They do time the release to the market of new technology to maximise profits.

Moores Law is in no immediate danger...

Who says the chips in 2 years time will be etched on Silicon?

JonnyT