PCA Forums

The XP setup says that it's great on laptops BUT has anyone here tryed it yet by chance?
If so, comments?

My new laptop came with ME which seems OK to me but would anyone advise/recommend upgrading it to XP or just leave well enough alone?

One word: RAM!

I wouldn't install it on anything with less than 256Mb.

Also some lappies are notorious for obscure drivers. I'd definately Ghost the drive first unless you've got a system restore CD and don't mind using it if something goes wrong.

As far as RAM goes, do you think 256 is the "minimum"? Is it like Win2k where if you have more ram, the better? (compared to Win98 where from what I've been told, anything over 256 is overkill and can actually hender peroformance) I will be aquiring WinXP shortly and will most likely install it when I get a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM and I was mixed on weather I should get 256mb or 512mb (DDR)

One more question, does WinXP run noticably slower and have some of the same problems with games as Win2k originally had (as in not supporting certain games) I've only played with WinXP a little at school in my A+ class and it looks pretty nifty (once I take off that annoying skin! )

I guess my question is should I upgrade from good old trust Win98/SE? Or are a lot of companies already putting out software/drivers that are compatible with WinXP?

If everything's OK in Win98, you might not enjoy the new problems with trying to get XP working with your existing hardware as well as it is now. I just saw on tonights news that hardware compatibilty problems may exist on PCs over 2 yrs old and that's seemingly part of my present problems on my 3 yr old PC now running XP (from Win2K).
Here's a good informational forum previously posted here where I've been reading up a bit on this new OS, almost makes me want to buy a MAC (NS!).
http://www.xp-erience.org/modules.php?o ... file=index

As for my laptop, it's only got 128mb and doing fine with ME so I can't justify adding ram just to try XP on it. Doubtfull at this point.

i'm running xp home on my thinkpad a21m which is new (bought it a few months ago). i bumped the ram to 512mb tho since it's so cheap (did that before xp tho). i like it, fast bootup, fast shutdown. more stable than 98se but not as clunky as win2k.

~erik

I discovered today at Toshiba's website that mine qualifies for a free XP upgrade once MS gives them whatever "version" Toshiba wants to use, apparently driver related IMO. I don't know if they'll suggest more ram or not but it'll be several weeks anyway.

I would not even consider installing Win2K or WinXP on a system with less than 256Mb if you're a gamer or power user.

128Mb might be enough for your grandparent's XP system if all they do is browse and email, but no one who hangs out in this forum is likely to enjoy the performance.

Depending on price, I might add more ram to it but it being a laptop (not a good gaming machine IMHO), it's gaming performance isn't important.

Yah, but are you a power user? Do you have more than one window open at a time? Do you use ram hungry apps like Photoshop?

Besides, ram is cheap - even for laptops.

i picked up 512mb (2x256) from crucial for under 100 bucks shipped. so yeah, ram is cheap, even for laptops. seems to be working now, so, nevermind about that glitch.

~erik