Optiplex GX1 XP upgrade

Question

My Dads optiplex GX1 has been running on an old windows98 install for years! I want to install Windows XP home.
He has problems (I suspect some bugs) so I'm inclined to format and do a clean install. Will I have problems?
Would you please advise me the best way to go about it? Would it be best to debug and just upgrade the current O/S (98)? He has plenty of memory, hard drive and processor.

jmwills · Answer

It's time to upgrade:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp
http://www.djdenham.com/Install%20Procedures.htm#Install

Driver Installation:
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&cs=19&docid=1A0C0937D62A8739E0401E0A55174744&journalid=4F1F82483DC811DBAE564F9328EE04A4&l=en&s=gen

newtech2140 · Answer

Okay, I installed Windows XP home, updated the bios and the computer is very slow! It's actually slower than it was with '98. Is there anything else I can do to help it out?

450mhz processor, 256mb ram I'm running out of things I'm willing to do to this machinebecause of it's age and speed.

jmwills · Answer

You had spyware and viruses with 98.  An upgrade to XP was not going to speed up the machine unless you added RAM.  XP like a minimum of 256 and 512 is good.  How much does that machine have?

newtech2140 · Answer

The computer has 256 mb of ram. My folks say that the computer is slower now than it was with '98. I didn't expect it to be faster, just not slower. I was downloading an anti spyware update and it took forever to download 119kb and it never finished the job. We called AT+T (his ISP) and they couldn't find anything wrong with his internet service.
I would like to finish downloading the rest of that antispyware program and scan his computer to see what I can find. I'm hoping thats the key to his problem.
Thank you for your interest.

jmwills · Answer

It should not be that much slower.  Where did you get the drivers from?  Have you chekced the processes to see what is using all the CPU cycles?  Did you connect to the internet BEFORE turning on the firewall and installing AV software?

newtech2140 · Answer

Are there drivers I should be using that didn't come on the XP disc? I mean,I had to get drivers from HP for the scanner and printer because they needed different drivers for XP, but I didn't know about XP drivers from Dell. I did flash the bios. The drivers question is what I was hoping to get answered coming here to this forum. I thought maybe I was looking in the wrong places.
Once I looked and the CPU cycles were 95% something like "system idle" I thought no kidding!
I did connect to the internet before installing Trend Micro PC cillin.

newtech2140 · Answer

I finished downloading all the Spybot Search and Destroy updates and did a scan. I downloaded AVG Free Anti- Spyware and did another scan. I got rid of some suspect programs from AT+T Yahoo DSL that just seemed to be causing problems. Dads computer started working a lot better. No speed demon, but acceptably. I Appreciate all your input, Thank You.

jmwills · Answer

Just keep those spwyare and AV programs on auto pilot for him.

Windows General

Optiplex GX1 XP upgrade

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