Can it run Windows 8.1

markyboy.1967

markyboy.1967

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Mark Molloy
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Hi, i have an old system at home which i want to give to my daughter but it needs an operating system.I was going to buy Win 8 or 8.1 but wasnt sure if it would run on it or not.The basic specs just now are-

P4 2.66 GHz
Asrock motherboard which takes DDR 667-max 4 gig
GeForce 9600 GT Graphics card
4G Ram
1TB Sata drive

My worry would be if the graphics card could cope or not with the requirements of the updated windows system( prefer win 8 as she has been using that lately)

Thanks...
 
What are you running at the mo? If it is Vista and it is OK, then WIndows 8 will be faster, if it is Windows XP and it is OK, then I wouldn't upgrade as that is an old PC
 
TBH, I wouldn't recommend a Win8 machine unless it was touchscreen. Love it on the netbook and tablet but a friend with a non touchscreen laptop is less keen.
 
markyboy.1967 said:
Cheers, she has been using a windows 8 and hence she wanted to use the same system on my old computer.Would win 7 run on the computer as i could maybe get her to try that...
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Yes win 7 will be okay. I have it running on some old p4 laptops.
 
sep9001 said:
Yes win 7 will be okay. I have it running on some old p4 laptops.
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Probably not

Windows 8 is faster than windows 7 which is faster than Vista. However they will crawl on that hardware IMO
 
CPU is a little slow but plenty of RAM, it'll run fine.

Check drivers though, motherboard mainly, should be fine.
 
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Dale_tem said:
Probably not

Windows 8 is faster than windows 7 which is faster than Vista. However they will crawl on that hardware IMO
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Windows 8 will run without a problem on a tablet with a 1.3Ghz processor and 2GB of RAM and Win 7 used to run well on poorly spec'ed netbooks.

I would think Win8 should be quite reasonable on a machine with a 2.6Ghz processor with 4GB of RAM.
 
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It is a P4.

This is before the dual core, before the core 2 duo, before the quad core core 2 duo and before the various I variants.

Yes the clock speed is high at 2.6Ghz, but it is what it does in the clock cycle.

I have a server with 2 xeons from the same era, dual 2.8ghz and they run like a dog on anything newer than 2003.
 
Would be inclined to agree. A P4 is pretty poor compared to today's standards.

That said 8.1 works ok on a vm with one core and minimum spec ram applied to it. It's certainly not snappy but it's doable.
 
I'm just going by all the reports of Win 8 being quicker than Win 7 on the same machine and I have used Intel Atom based netbooks with 2 GB of RAM running 7, and for general use they were quite acceptable.

I can't imagine a P4 is of poorer performance than a 1.33 or 1.6 Atom.
 
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neil_g said:
if its a Intel Core2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz for example then it should do fine (benches much better than a P4 2.66 or the Atoms).
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Yip that sounds very much like it...It was what i was thinking in my head but thought i would double check first...So that seems ok to run windows then?
 
The core 2 Duo should handle win 8.1 happily. It won't break records but it will defo be fine.
 
It will be alright with the system you have, windows 8 or 8.1 will run without any issues. Gfx card is capable to handle the OS and so does other HW.
If you can just add one SSD to boost up all would be better... just a suggestion.
 
yogesh said:
It will be alright with the system you have, windows 8 or 8.1 will run without any issues. Gfx card is capable to handle the OS and so does other HW.
If you can just add one SSD to boost up all would be better... just a suggestion.
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Wouldnt bother with the SSD as its just a temp pc for my daughter if she still wants it--she wasnt 100% keen when i offered it to her. If not i will see if the graphics card is capeable of running Photoshop 5 and put it on and use in the room.I already bought the Photoshop CC in the deal a few weeks ago so that is on the main pc.

Would need to see if the graphics card can run photoshop 5 though first.
 
Photoshop requires good amount of RAM both on card and mobo. 4gb is alright but also depends what kind of projects she runs.
It will run surely with windows 8.1, but could be bit slower when you do excessive work.
 
Spoke to my daughter who said she is buying a pc in the jan sales so will only need my old one for 3 or 4 weeks.After that i will see if it can run photoshop 5 and put it in the spare room. Sgain my worry would be the graphics card-i know it wont be as fast as my new pc but it wont get used much anyway-just when the wife has her friends over and i want some quiet time..lol..Cheers...
 
I didn't think the amount of graphics RAM made any difference, you either have enough for your display resolution or not.


(Ignoring the fact that some versions of CS can use the GFX CPU CUDA for processing)


/edit/ took that long to post that Neil snuck in ahead of me :D
 
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8 tends to be slightly faster than 7 on the same hardware. On marginal spec machines a cheap small SSD as the boot volume will really help...
 
redsnappa said:
Microsoft have a utility called Windows 8.1 Upgrade Assistant. After running it on your computer it will tell you if a Windows 8 upgrade is possible and inform you of what needs changing if some of the pc's hardware is not windows 8 compatible.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/upgrade-to-windows-8
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I think that tool won't run on xp.

Best bet is as Neil says, check the official requirements. The graphics needs to support directx 9 if thats your main concern.
 
PaulF said:
I think that tool won't run on xp.

Best bet is as Neil says, check the official requirements. The graphics needs to support directx 9 if thats your main concern.
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The graphics card box states it supports directx 10- if thats any use!
 
Core 2's should support NX.
Think you have to enable it in the BIOS
 
markyboy.1967 said:
Stuart, how do i do this from XP?
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You need to restart your machine Mark and boot into the BIOS. Not sure what key it will be for your machine, probably F8, F12 or DELETE. It may even come up on the screen with "press XXXXX to boot into BIOS"

Once in the BIOS you are looking for a command called enable XD flag
 
markyboy.1967 said:
Will have a look again. Tried earlier in the "Security" tab but didnt see anything like NX etc..
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It may be under the advanced section and may be called "NX", "XD" or "Execute Disable Function"
It may not be there if the motherboard has an out of date BIOS
 
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Mark...

I ran the Win 8.1 preview as a trial on a 3GHz P4 with 2Gbytes ram and an ATI Graphics card. It worked just fine and a lot snappier than XP on the same system. I did this mainly to see if all the programs I have would work, Lightroom, Photoshop, Proshow, GBTimelapse, Geosetter etc etc. Only two things wouldn't work 1) my Canon 8400F scanner because there are no Win 8 drivers, 2) my Current Cost Energy Monitor, for the same reason.
 
Mark...

I ran the Win 8.1 preview as a trial on a 3GHz P4 with 2Gbytes ram and an ATI Graphics card. It worked just fine and a lot snappier than XP on the same system. I did this mainly to see if all the programs I have would work, Lightroom, Photoshop, Proshow, GBTimelapse, Geosetter etc etc. Only two things wouldn't work 1) my Canon 8400F scanner because there are no Win 8 drivers, 2) my Current Cost Energy Monitor, for the same reason.
 
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