[Clueless Furball]

I'm building a low end system. So far I've bought a Asus P5RD2-VM motherboard.

It only has DDR2 slots and the manual said that it will only support DDR2 DIMMs. The smallest ones that it supports is 256 MB. Though I'm not sure what makes more sense. Buying a 256 MB dimm or a 512 mb dimm. I plan to run Windows 98 SE edition until I have money for Windows XP Home. And when I got that I planned to upgrade the memory enough so that Windows XP wouldnt need a swap file. I only need my computer for basic purposes (Web browsing, chating etc). Though I also want to upgrade to Windows Vista down the road.

My motherboard has intergrated video, and it uses a LGA775 socket that supports Intel Pentium D/4 and Celeron proccesors.

Do you think that it's a good idea running Windows 98 SE on a modern system, or should I wait until I have the money for Windows XP?

Any suggestions/information would be helpful.

And I'm sorry if this message isnt totally clear. I'm not that good at asking for help on a forum.

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I'm building a low end system. So far I've bought a Asus P5RD2-VM motherboard.

It only has DDR2 slots and the manual said that it will only support DDR2 DIMMs. The smallest ones that it supports is 256 MB. Though I'm not sure what makes more sense. Buying a 256 MB dimm or a 512 mb dimm. I plan to run Windows 98 SE edition until I have money for Windows XP Home. And when I got that I planned to upgrade the memory enough so that Windows XP wouldnt need a swap file. I only need my computer for basic purposes (Web browsing, chating etc). Though I also want to upgrade to Windows Vista down the road.

My motherboard has intergrated video, and it uses a LGA775 socket that supports Intel Pentium D/4 and Celeron proccesors.

Do you think that it's a good idea running Windows 98 SE on a modern system, or should I wait until I have the money for Windows XP?

Any suggestions/information would be helpful.

And I'm sorry if this message isnt totally clear. I'm not that good at asking for help on a forum.

Always get the most ammount of memory you can. You dont need too much also.. 2gb is really the most you would ever need but you really should get 1gb if you can afford it. From 512mb to a gig of ram makes a big difference in performance.

XP would be better but if all you have is win 98 se then I guess youll have to use that unless you have enough for win xp.

256mb ram would be really really slow.. 512mb is decent but nowadays is pushing it on current games and apps. 1gb is what I would recommend.

[jrm20]

I'm building a low end system. So far I've bought a Asus P5RD2-VM motherboard.

It only has DDR2 slots and the manual said that it will only support DDR2 DIMMs. The smallest ones that it supports is 256 MB. Though I'm not sure what makes more sense. Buying a 256 MB dimm or a 512 mb dimm. I plan to run Windows 98 SE edition until I have money for Windows XP Home. And when I got that I planned to upgrade the memory enough so that Windows XP wouldnt need a swap file. I only need my computer for basic purposes (Web browsing, chating etc). Though I also want to upgrade to Windows Vista down the road.

My motherboard has intergrated video, and it uses a LGA775 socket that supports Intel Pentium D/4 and Celeron proccesors.

Do you think that it's a good idea running Windows 98 SE on a modern system, or should I wait until I have the money for Windows XP?

Any suggestions/information would be helpful.

And I'm sorry if this message isnt totally clear. I'm not that good at asking for help on a forum.

Always get the most ammount of memory you can. You dont need too much also.. 2gb is really the most you would ever need but you really should get 1gb if you can afford it. From 512mb to a gig of ram makes a big difference in performance.

XP would be better but if all you have is win 98 se then I guess youll have to use that unless you have enough for win xp.

256mb ram would be really really slow.. 512mb is decent but nowadays is pushing it on current games and apps. 1gb is what I would recommend.

[Clueless Furball]

Thanks for your help. I think I'm going to go with your suggestion since last time I checked 1 GB of RAM isnt that expensive. The last time I checked it was $105. Though if I use that much with Windows 98 SE, it wont run unless I download a special third party service back plus edit Vcache to be limited to a certain amount (Otherwise it will not run and show out of memory messages)

So I suppose I could buy two 512 mb DDR2 DIMMs. Though I'm not sure if those are readily available since as far as I know, DDR2 is fairly new and 512 MB is pretty low and most systems I see pre-built even low-end ones have atleast 1 GB of memory.

Or I may use my older computer, install it and the updates...

Don't mind me, I'm just trying to troubleshoot before I even have the problem. I dont mind if you correct me.

[jrm20]

If your sticking with win 98 for now just get 512mb, you can always get another stick later on if you go win xp.

It all depends on your budget and how much you are willing to spend. You really should get xp in my opinion. Win xp home is pretty cheap right now for the oem edition. Id try to get win xp home and 512mb ram atleast.

[jrm20]

If all your gonna run is basic apps like email and the internet then 512mb is plenty.

[Clueless Furball]

Well, I'm willing to spend $500 on the tower itself. I have spent $117 So far on the case and motherboard.

Though I still need:

ATX 2.0 PSU
CPU
And the RAM
Plus the OS if I'm not using 98.

I'm sure I want a Celeron D CPU

Though I'm not sure what kind of PSU to buy (except for it needs atleast 300 W according to some sources I've read)

[Neil Jones]

Couple of things:

1) Drivers are not available for Win98 on that Asus board. Plus it wouldn't run properly anyway even if they were, as the system is far too fast for Win98 to cope with. Go straight for XP now or wait a few more months for Vista.

2) You don't want to run XP without a Swap File. In fact Windows will complain bitterly about not having enough (any) Virtual Memory.

[Clueless Furball]

Thank-you for the help. I have more of a better idea how much memory I should get.

When I build the rest of the system I'll tell you whether or not it worked properly, if that's okay and not considered spam. I'm not really sure what's spam and how I should make feedback since I tend to get flamed for leaving positive feedback(They consider it spam) Though this could be my problem with my poor language skills.

[Clueless Furball]

Couple of things:

1) Drivers are not available for Win98 on that Asus board. Plus it wouldn't run properly anyway even if they were, as the system is far too fast for Win98 to cope with. Go straight for XP now or wait a few more months for Vista.

2) You don't want to run XP without a Swap File. In fact Windows will complain bitterly about not having enough (any) Virtual Memory.

I just wanted it so use the swap file as little as possible.

How much space should the mininum and maximum values be of the swap file for 512 MB of memory?

[jrm20]

http://www.tigerdire...sku=CP2-CID-356

CP2-CID-356 :: Intel Celeron D 356 3.33GHz / 512K Cache / 533MHz FSB / OEM / Socket 775 / Processor (0.1 lbs) $88.99


http://www.tigerdire...mp;sku=M56-7018

M56-7018 :: Mushkin 1024MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Memory (0.5 lbs) $114.99


http://www.tigerdire...mp;sku=M17-7500

M17-7500 :: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition OEM Version (0.16 lbs) $114.99

http://www.tigerdire...p;sku=T925-2060

T925-2060 :: Thermaltake / PurePower / 430-Watt / ATX / Dual 80mm LED Fan / 20/24-Pin / SATA Ready / PCI-E Ready / Power Supply (5 lbs) $54.99

total is $373.96

you didnt say anything about a harddrive, floppy drive, cd rom etc.. I picked out the items you said you needed under your budget..

Its a good idea to get a good powersupply like the one I chose because you do not want to get a cheapo power supply that will burn out on you in a couple months.. On the cheapo powersupplies they arent true power meaning what they say they output isnt really true. The one I picked it a true power psu which is good. I picked that paticular celeron because it had the best deal with 512KB cach on the chip. If you get a celeron dont get 256KB cache on the chip. The os i chose is 32 bit which is all you need but if you want the 64 bit its gonna be more expensive and over your budget.

Edited by jrm20, 05 September 2006 - 03:51 PM.

[Clueless Furball]

I accidentely posted more messages than I needed to (The buttons and stuff come up really slow on my computer)

Though that list of parts is really good. I didnt expect to find a Celeron D CPU for that cheap and it has more cache than I thought it would for that one..

And I already have a CD-ROM and floppy in it that came with the case