Thanks for your input, and for the links
First, let me tell you that I have several "techie" friends (IT professionals) who tell me that many computer maufacturers -- Dell, very much among them -- discourage use of XP in their PC's that are more than a couple of years old. Some say they do it to get people to upgrade and abandon their old PCs... but for whatever reason, they are giving bad information. I have a friend who runs an IT department at a local college who runs XP with 64 mb of memory on Pentium 1 machines, as low as 133's. And though he doesn't get the game performance that he might on a newer machine (he doesn't do much heavy gaming, nor do I) he finds that XP speeds up the system and increases ease of use greatly, so he installs it in most of the college's PCs.
I have a Dell Dimension Desktop with a Pentium II 250 -- the only PC I own that I didn't build myself -- that had 128 mb of sdram, and XP works beautifully on it, for every application, even intense games. Yet, go to the Dell site (or talk to a Dell tech support person, as I did) and they'll tell you it won't work, or at least not well. Also, notice that Dell made their old PCs almost impossible to upgrade...maybe for sales reasons.
In any case, the laptop I'm getting (tomorrow) is a Latitude CPi D300XT, which is not on Microsoft's or Dell's XP list. Yet it has a 300 Mhz Pentium II, and I just bought two 128 meg EDO memory chips, which will put it to 256 mb or RAM. I will find out about all the drivers when I load it and run the compatibility test, but I have had XP since last summer (when I was a beta tester) and I went through all the growing pains of XP, and now I find it has drivers for just about everything, or quite usable drivers of some sort.
Despite the fact that Dell doesn't list this laptop among the recommended XP machines, here's is the XP compatibility list:
****
Here's What You Need to Use Windows XP Professional
PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended
128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space*
Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor
CD-ROM or DVD drive
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
Additional Items or Services Required to Use Certain Windows XP Features
For Internet access:
Some Internet functionality may require Internet access, a Microsoft .NET Passport account, and payment of a separate fee to a service provider; local and/or long-distance telephone toll charges may apply
14.4 kilobits per second (Kbps) or higher-speed modem
***
This laptop has all of this and more, so I doubt I will have too many problems. In fact, reading the Microsoft site, I found that XP has many features built in specifically to improve laptop performance, which 98 and the others don't. And remember, the Latitude CPi was built for and sold with Windows NT, which is the platform on which XP is based.
So... I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and I'll let you know what happens tomorrow night, hopefully typing a new message from my new (used) laptop!
Thanks again,
Dan
PS... A myth I want to clear up somehow, wish I could tell everyone with systems that require EDO memory (vs. SDRAM or DDR)... every computer dealer site I went to... probably nearly 100 of them... either did not sell 128 meg laptop EDO sticks or sold them for $200-$300. They all sell 32 and 64 meg chips, and the 64s tend to g for about $40. But the 128s jump to $200 or more! I couldn't believe it... I called a couple of the dealers and they said that the memory companies stopped making 128 sticks, which sucks, because the Latitude CPi and others can only use EDO, and have two 128 meg slots for them, and whether you use XP or 98, laptops need as much RAM as possible for speed.
Then, I found one site that not only has plenty of 128 EDO laptop sticks, but they sell them for about $75 each. Excuse me for advertising for them, but they deserve it... it's
http://www.18004memory.com. I found it on pricewatch.com.
I told a sales rep at another PC sales site that specializes in memory that I finally found the 128 EDO for laptops at a reasonable price. He told me there was no way that the dealer could be selling it for that price, or even at all, because the companies supposedly all stopped making the 128 EDO laptop chips, and, he said, "there are none out there anywhere."
"That company is selling you bogus memory that's probably not even made for your laptop, and if it is, it's probably made by some fourth-rate company, and it's not going to work well, if at all, in your laptop," he said. "There's a lot of shysters out there, especially advertising on PriceWatch. I'll be surprised if you ever even get the memory you paid for, and if you do, it won't be the right memory and it won't work. If you do get it, and it does work, call me back and I'll buy out their whole inventory, because we get requests for this every day, and I have to tell everyone the same thing... you can't buy that memory anymore, so you'd better buy a better laptop."
Well... the memory came today. It's 128 meg, and it's made by Dell. I checked out all the specs with Dell, and sure enough, it's theirs. The people I bought it from said they have tons of it. And though EDO is slower than SDRAM, I looked at the benchmarks, and the difference is fairly small.
I didn't call the other dealer back. He doesn't deserve my time, he filled me full of lies. If anyone needs EDO, DON'T pay the high prices, there's no need to.
So, I have a slightly damaged Dell laptop (only damage is a small crack in the back of the case) that I paid $250 for, and it's loaded with 256 of RAM that cost me another $150 or so. I can't find anything comparable for anywhere near that price anywhere on the Web... for that price, you get a Pentium 75 with 8 megs of RAM and a 2 gig hard drive. You can get the laptops at teamexcess.com. AND... reading the reviews show that the Latitude CPi D300XT was one of the 10 best laptops sold in 1999, and all they do is rave about it, on every level (aside from sound, so I bought some nice little speakers).
I think I'll be very happy... guess I can't tweak much though, eh?
Dan
