Windows 8 - The oldest hardware you've installed it on...

Published on January 25, 2013 By the_Monk In Personal Computing

So last night I decided to see if my old notebook from 2005 would be able to handle Windows 8 Pro.

With some minor issues I was able to get it installed and working quite well.

Hardware:

Dell Inspiron 6000

1.6Ghz Intel Pentium M centrino (533MHz FSB)

2 GB 533Mhz DDR2 RAM

15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) display - I sooooo miss this res on newer notebooks........sigh!

128 MB ATI Mobility X300 video chip

160GB 5400rpm HD

1st gen NEC Dual Layer DVD burner

Intel Pro 2100 b/g WiFi

SigmaTel Audio Controller

INFO:

The interesting thing here is. If my proc had been a Pentium M with the 400Mhz FSB it wouldn't have had PAE, NX and SSE2 and therefore Windows 8 would have failed to install. The Pentium M in my notebook has a 533Mhz FSB however, so it had the needed instruction sets and Windows 8 installed smoothly.

Immediately after install however it became apparent (since I was viewing the Windows 8 start in a 640x480 box in the middle of the screen) that my video chip had not been recognized by Win8. Checking around further in the device manager showed everything else had actually installed correctly aside from my Intel WiFi, and the SigmaTel audio chip was also not being recognized.

Since I tend to keep all of my driver packages archived for just such an occasion (yes I suffer from OCD......somewhat! ) I dug up the old DELL drivers for my display, WiFi and audio. I knew my best bet would be to unpack the files but cancel the auto-install and rather manually point the "update driver" dialog to the correct files. That method worked fine for both the video (thank god for that beautiful, beautiful 1680x1050 resolution!) and the WiFi network adapter (the wired network adapter had been properly installed by Windows 8 during the install). The audio driver however did not want to properly function until I actually ran the unpacked installer in "compatibility mode".

With those minor issues out of the way, my Dell Inspiron 6000D from 2005 is happily chomping away on Windows 8 Pro.

Colour me impressed.........way to go MS, pretty painless in my books!

Comments (Page 2)

the_Monk

on Feb 02, 2013

Roloccolor

reply 16

Was it only the FSB that made it possible to install win8 in the first place?

Well it's not the FSB itself that limits Win8 installs, it's the extended CPU instruction sets (being there or not). On Intel M series processors the one's with an FSB of 400Mhz do not have PAE, NX and SSE2 which as far as I know are required to install MS Windows 8.

Savyg

on Feb 03, 2013

I was going to put it on my laptop (Turion X2 Ultra) but I gave it to a friend a while back who said HIS friend is out of work and using it so I said keep it.

I was going to put it on my older spare machine (Athlon 64 X2) but I don't actually use that for anything. I'm sure it'd be a hell of a sight better than 7 on it since its got a 7300LE (woo crappy vidcards) but can't be arsed when I doubt I'll be using the machine for anything afterwards either.

So I guess this will stay the oldest hardware I have it installed on.

the_Monk

on Feb 05, 2013

Savyg

reply 18

I was going to put it on my older spare machine (Athlon 64 X2) but I don't actually use that for anything.

I hear ya. I have an Intel Pentium 805D kicking around somewhere I had intended to repurpose at some point, but I just can't get over how much power that Smithfield core sucks outta the wall (try it OC'd and you can watch the power-meter needle spin! hehe).

the_Monk

on Mar 05, 2013

I continue to be impressed with just how much better Windows 8 runs on this old notebook (Inspiron 6000) over the XP Pro it was shipped with, Vista Business and most recently Windows 7 Pro.

With Vista and Win7 it just seemed I started with an amount of free space on this notebook and then just ever lost more and more to the operating system(s) over time. I don't know if MS has made any changes/advancements to how it handles WinSxS or what but it seems to routinely free up some space now which didn't seem to be happening in Vista/Win7. Whatever sort of 'garbage collection' the OS appears to be doing is seemingly doing a much better job of it in Windows 8.

The 'sandboxing' of applications and IE 10 browser tabs/addons is a nice compliment to 'least privilege computing' offering greater security in Windows 8 over previous MS OSes and the new memory management in Windows 8 appears to have had quite the positive impact.

Anyone wanting to 'get more legs' out of that older machine running an MS OS? As long as it supports the CPU instructions I listed in my OP, go for it......Windows 8 will breathe some new MS life into that 'older rig'.

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