Win 2k on a K6-2?

[saturnotaku]

My parents are running a K6-2 350 machine with Windows 98. The longer I've been away from that particular OS, the more I dislike it. I know it may be a stretch but I'm wondering if Windows 2000 would run on this machine. It only has 128 mb RAM, but I think I could convince my dad to pick up some extra memory. He would object to a completely new computer, but memory wouldn't be a problem. They don't use the computer for more than checking e-mail and word processing anyway.

If you think this will work, let me know and I'll pitch the suggestion. :D

[Matthyahuw]

It should work fine, it might be a little bit slower than what you are used to, but it'll run...128MB is enough too, I've had Win2000 run on a P2-300 with 64MB of RAM just fine, and this was a laptop!

[thcdru2k]

it'll work. should be a good os for that system. i'd prefer win98 lite.

[volt]

I've installed it on a P2 233 :) 128 worked okay.

[saturnotaku]

Thanks - the slowest machine I've ever installed Windows 2000 on is a P3 500 w/128 mb RAM and a TNT1 vid card. It ran absolutely splendidly. I may give it a go and see what happens. Not like I don't have all their stuff backed up anyway. :)

[Starscream]

Until today at work (yes I had to go in on saturday, ugh) I was running 2k on a p1 233 with 64 megs of ram. It was pretty decent. Now I'm on a p2-266 with 256 megs of ram. Haven't used that much though but it is better. I'd like to have a faster cpu in it though.

[ragejg]

Every weekday @ work I crank much useability out of my HP Vectra VL PII 233 w/128mb RAM & a Cirrus Laguna gfx card runnin' Win2K... Never a stability issue. Never a crash. Never a long pause...

Here at work there's even a couple Pentuim 166's runnning 2K... and they sure don't feel like 166's.

I think that class of CPU would be helped by at least a DMA-66 HDD config when loading programs NOT on a network.

[saturnotaku]

I gave Windows 2000 a shot on that machine and so far it's working perfectly. It's ultra slow to boot up, which I expected, but once I'm in the OS it's surprisingly quick. IE, Word and other programs load faster than they did in Windows 98. Plus, a couple old DOS programs my folks still use work as well. So everything's cool, and very stable to boot. :D

[Blakhart]

Found the same results in 2k with a p2 233 and 128megs. Ran as fast as 98/me did. Ok I am even running xp pro on a 350 with 256megs. I use a separate drive/separate channel for the swapfile (2gig swap, os/app drive is 4gigs), and have every service disabled that is not absolutely needed. This box is my game server, and has the firewall and ics enabled. It is on a cisco 802.11b wireless, with a 3com nic feeding a switch that has 2 clients. The cpu usage stays at 3% and sometimes runs to 15%, depending on what the guys on the lan/ics are doing. I am impressed that with the little resources this box has, it runs well.

[VeritechK7]

k62 500 and p2 233 were the machines used. fast enough for the sister and mother respectively for what they do although my sister(older) might need a faster machine than the ones she's using for illustrator and stuff

[saturnotaku]

I just ran into a small snag - I found out the onboard USB controller wasn't working. Device manager reported it as an unsupported VIA USB controller. I downloaded and installed the VIA USB filter patch and it works like a charm. That old dinosaur has been given a new lease on life, especially since my parents' internet connection is now functional all the time after I installed a different modem. My folks are quite happy I've been able to save them from having to get a new system. :)

[VeritechK7]

good to hear man .. many peopel seem to marvel a th fact that have more than one system in my house. .but mainly it was done through the hand me down / donation process more than anything ..with my brother and my system being the only ones that are bought for. .the other two were handed down. my mom's system was the first system we ever built by ourselves. i took that with me to college. . now i looked to upgrade after hitting a few snags on a few games, got myself the tbird system , but then all the while my brtoher needed a systme of his own, he used his own money to buy his duron 800MHz system. my mom was stuck w/ a pentium 150 at the time so who could blame my brother for needing another computer for doing what he does on the computer? after coming home for spring break my mom was given the k6 system i had previously and my sister was given that crummy 150.. but that kept giving her problems. My friend from high school has kept touch w/ me for sometime already and he tells me that he's getting an extra pII board w/ 400 processor. . so hence the pII machine that was once his sister's is now going somewhere so he gives it ot me via my request and my wanting him not to throw it away as it could prove a good upgrad.e. now that's how i ended up w/ four computers in the house w/o buying a whole new system. Now I can add a fifth after getting stuff from my visit to the bay area. I got myself a compaq (old old old ) server but had some salvageable PARTS ..so i took those out .. and also i was given a motherboard and processor by the same person so i could add another case and hard drive w/ some memory ..and viola a fifth system

[ragejg]

Last nite we put WinXP (unskinned, stripped down) on an HP Vectra VL6 series 7 (P2 333, 192mb RAM)...

Works beautifully... somehow. We didn't have Win2K lyin around, and that Vectra wanted a special version of 98 to work rite, so we thought we'd try XP...

next up is trying XP pro (just for fun) on my dual Pentium Pro's @ 266 PC66SDRAM/SCSI RAID server... I'm thinking it might go, unless M$ tells me I'm not meeting the min. speed req... Whaddyou guys think? If the reccomendation is "no", then I'm just gonna wait till end of Jan... I'm throwing 2 Powerleap PL-Pro 533 Celerons in it... SMP compatible Celerons...:D:D I just gotta update the BIOS.

[Blakhart]

I ran xp pro on my p2 233, and it ran fine. With about 128 megs at first, then another 128 stick, and it runs about the same.
Wouldn't even think of using me/98 on these types anymore.
Maybe a fast version of linux with a small footprint browser/desktop.

[PsychoSy]

I installed WinXP on an old Compaq K6-2 system over this past summer. Yay. That was fun! :p The system ran great, loaded fast, and everything but you can just tell that WinXP was doing so under silent protest. At one point I could've sworn I heard a voice through the case speaker saying something like, "Uh...have I gone on record yet stating that I'd like at least 800Mhz to work with here?" ;)

[ToastGodSupreme]

Jesus, you guys never take risks.

Machine:
Pentium 100Mhz (66Mhz FSB, though I cranked it up to 100Mhz FSB and changed the multiplier on the chip to 1 since it was unlocked... most older Pentiums are unlocked).
64Mb SDR
2Mb PCI video
And a bunch of other crappy specs

Had win2k running on it. Can't say it did too much aside from be a fileserver, but win2k ran on it nonetheless

SOME of you guys really need to learn to tweak an OS. Turn off performance counters and unneeded services, etc, etc, etc.

[LORD-eX-Bu]

I have 2k running on a Pentium 110 Mhz with 128 megs of ram and a S3 Virge. Rock solid for a while, only thing is, CPU might be dying now, its been getting random restarts every so often in the past week. But yeah, it should work fine with all your stuff, I am running kinda old hardware on it, so I had to provide my own drivers for the modem and such.:D Great to hear its a success.:D