Tweaking a Windows98 Pc performance

[COIS2004]

Hi all hardware experts. I have just ben handed down an old windows 98 PC and it is running very slow at the moment (slower than i believe it should)

my question is
1.) How do i find out the CPU speed, is there a system tool to achieve this?
2.)Any tips to tweak its performance appart from defrag?
3.) also the pc has a lot of junk on (for instance the old users files) how do i format the PC or restore to factory settings...however i dont have a copy of windows 98 on disk so is there a way without uninstalling windows?

Thanks for any advice you can give on the three questions

 

[CitrixEngineer]

1) When the machine starts up, the BIOS reports the CPU speed. You can also find this by right-clicking My Computer and choosing properties. This will also tell you how much RAM you have, although that, too is shown by the BIOS on startup.

2) Add RAM. Remove any unnecessary background tasks (those little icons in the bottom right). Best tip for speed improvement is rebuild from scratch (but I note that is not currently an option). There are all manner of little tweaks you can do inside W98, but most are nothing to get excited about. The best tweak I ever found was learning how to manage the page file and file system - regular scavenges for *.tmp files, that sort of thing. Better improvements can be obtained by tweaking the BIOS - but you'd better know exactly what you're tweaking - and the make of BIOS (e.g. Phoenix, Award, AMI, etc.).

3) Can't be done with Windows 98. Formatting will REQUIRE the original disks to rebuild from scratch. However, you should be able to use Add/Remove programs in Control Panel to remove most unwanted software, then you can try deleting NON-SYSTEM folders. Again, if you don't know what you're deleting, then don't ;-)

More info about the machine (make, model, etc) would help if you want advice on how to upgrade its hardware, otherwise for software issues, try the Windows 98 forum.

Hope this is helpful

 

[ceh4702]

Normally I would say if you do not have the original Win98 CD, then you are not entitled to use the operating system.

However, here is something to try. Look at the hard drive and see how large it is by opening the My Computer Icon and then you will see the drives. Click on C:\ and go to properties. This should tell you the free space of the hard drive. You need about 384-500 Megs of free Space to run windows Well.

To free up space try this:

1. Open up Internet Explorer or whatever browser is installed and go to tools or properties and this may also be on an advanced tab. There should be an option to delete all temporary Internet Files. Sometimes these really build up over time and make the system run slow. Also reset the options to delet all old history information and all the files when you close the program or after a set period like 7 days or as soon as you close the program.

2. Go to add/remove programs and remove all the old programs. This is located in the Control Panel. This is the best way to remove old programs.

3. Go to windows update and try to update windows. There may be a site to do manual updates. I think they may have turned the update off for win98. I think you can order an update disk.

4. Look on the Hard drive and see if they have the win98 disk copied onto the hard drive. Some companies use to do this all the time to keep from having to use the disk.

If you right click on My Computer Icon and select properties you will see some of the bare statistics like the processor type and the amount of RAM you have. Adding some RAM may help a little. Win98 runs pretty good on about 128 Megs of RAM, but it may run on say 16 Megs in a pinch.

You may also look at the hard drive and try to determine what kind it is. A lot of older Win98 Computers had slower hard drives. For instance it is not uncommon to find a 5400rpm hard dirve in an older computer. It would be better to have a 7200rpm hard drive that is Ultra ATA compatible. Ultra ATA refers to the transfer speed, and the higher RPM's is more applicable to the seek, read, and write speed. Finding a better hard drive may help. However, you may be limited by the BIOS limit and the OS Limit for the maximum Hard Drive Size. This just means that if you add a 80 gig hard drive it might not work. If you can find a used 6 or 20 gig hard drive that may be more ideal. Even though there is a limit you could still use a new 40 Gig drive and use a Drive Overlay program to split the drive up into multiple partitions.

Since this is both Win98 OS related and hardware related try posting this in the Win98 forum.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Good point about ownership of the license to use the product - remember that there is no such thing as an evaluation version of Windows 98, and to use it legally, you must buy a copy.

Alternatively investigate Linux as a legal, free Operating System which has tons of free supported software. Recently I've seen Lindows 4.5 free on the front of Linux Format (normally $100). It is a flavour of Linux that will run Windows software (using a modifed version of WINE) - and it's pretty good!

 

[sulumnad]

there's a web page called Axcel216 maxx speed tips.

http://members.aol.com/axcel216

This has lots of stuff that's very informative about tweaking an operating system and the registry. This may help in your efforts, though applying these patches/tweaks on a clean install would give you the most benefits.

Marc
"Sure I can do it... But that'll cost ya

 

[cdogg]

More advice not already mentioned above can be found here:
faq615-3144


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[COIS2004]

Thanks for all great tips ill get to work to try some of themn out. (windows 98 is genuine just lost disk).

Thanks again

 

[FredWagner]

Remember, one of the simplest speedups is, after you've freed up space by deleting unneeded apps and files, is to defrag the drive! - or have you already done that ?

Fred Wagner
frwagne@longbeach.gov