Steam powered vaio. O/S decisions please

fanger · 17 Jan 2006 at 13:23

Hi,
I've just acquired an old Sony Vaio N505SN Notebook for free.
Spec: intel PII @ 397Mhz, 128 Ram, 5.9 Gig HDD. Now, before anyone breaks out into uncontrollable laughter, I've got it to run simple powerpoints unattended at expos and stuff - so it doesn't matter if I lose it/ gets nicked, etc.
Simple question: which will run faster...win2k or xp?
It has to be one or the other as the powerpoints are version Office 2003.
Sensible knowlege-led answers only please.
Cheers,
fanger

Caged · 17 Jan 2006 at 13:28

There is unlikely to be a lot in it. Win2k will be faster out of the box, but XP can get to the same speed by disabling things. I say go with 2k.

fanger · 17 Jan 2006 at 16:15

cheers caged.
Can you recommend a tiny RAM using firewall/ antivirus combo at all?
thanks
fanger

Caged · 17 Jan 2006 at 17:11

If it's just for presentations I wouldn't bother.

fanger · 17 Jan 2006 at 20:47

Thanks again Caged. Erm, would be good if it could handle the odd email - as it has a wireless LAN card.

Caged · 17 Jan 2006 at 21:12

I'm not sure if 2k has a firewall on the network connections, that should be fine for you. Use Avast for antivirus and disable the on access scanning, you only need to scan files when they are created.

fanger · 18 Jan 2006 at 11:14

Thanks again Caged, will do.

Skilldibop · 18 Jan 2006 at 16:09

XP requires 128MB ram for it'self in reality to run at any credible speed you need 512meg. If you don't have 512meg and about 500MHz to play with XP will be slow, especially with graphics. 2k would be a lot happier with that system. All our older workstations are 1gig P3s with 512 RAM for XP else they have 2k on them. If they are slower than that normally we bin them because 98 sux and won't do AD on 2003

Hamish · 18 Jan 2006 at 16:29

OMG 505 series I used to want one of those so much when they came out! They are diddy IIRC

fanger · 18 Jan 2006 at 17:07

Actually, I'm really enjoying mucking about with it. I've loaded xp (eek)
Got rid of most services, etc, RAM usage on idle is about 80-85MB of a possible 128, cpu load 2-3%. It's a laugh. That's with AVGfree loaded as well. Word 2000 works alright as does powerpoint2000. And it looks great set up next to my main rig. I'm not going to ask it to do too much...just sit there and look pretty.

http://www.stageonestudio.co.uk/imagebin1/rig111.jpg