is there any hope for my old laptop?

#1 (**permalink**) 29th January 2004

i have an old Compaq Presario 1255 laptop. here are the specs...

333mhz K6-2 w/3D NOW!
160 MB of RAM
4 Gig HD
Windows XP Pro OS
NeoMagic MagicGraph 128ZV/ZV+/XD Video Card (at least, that's wha the
driver says)
Soundblaster Comp. Sound card

when i run bsplayer (which runs the best of all the players on this system) i can only run MPEG-1 at a bareable speed. is there anything that i can do to speed up the viewing and maybe be able to play some divx videos at a decent speed? would windows 98 work better on this old laptop? if anyone can help, please tell me! i've already switched my colors to 16-bit (over 24-bit or 32-bit which increased speed quite a bit) and my current resoultion is set to 800x600 @ 75hz refresh rate. thanks for any help!

Mumei · #2 (**permalink**) 29th January 2004

sorry for the double post. i thought that i was logged in! ^_^ my user name is mumei ^_^

Mumei · #3 (**permalink**) 30th January 2004

well, looks like it may just be dead ^_^ oh well. if anyone stumbles upon this thread and knows of a solution, please pm me! thanks again, guys.

BSPeter · #4 (**permalink**) 30th January 2004

(Where to find previous builds?: Look here)

Mumei · #5 (**permalink**) 31st January 2004

thanks! this is great! ^_^

BSPeter · #6 (**permalink**) 1st February 2004

Easy to find using "Search" possibility!

azraelle · #7 (**permalink**) 2nd February 2004

I have a somewhat similar laptop, Presario 1685, to be exact, with some non-standard upgrades, details for doing them yourself here: http://www.mgrudkin.clara.net/
and here: http://www.compaq.com/athome/support/msgs/1255-1275/

Using the instructions from the above sites, if you take your 1255 apart and replace the proc with a K6-2+ running at 500 or 550 MHz (should still be able to find one at either http://www.newegg.com/ or http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com/ for around $50), this should solve most, if not all, of your problems, as the k6-2+ has 256KB of on-chip L-2 cache ram, instead of 64KB on the earlier K6-2, and it is made with a .18 micron die size, versus .25 micron, which means it runs ALOT cooler as well.
You can also replace the existing HDD with a 20GB HDD using a link that is on Mike Rudkin's page (above). If you have the option, try reinstalling Win2000 with SP-4--it tends to be less proc-intensive than XP, and doesn't hog quite as much precious HDD space. I wonder if you were aware that the 1255 was marketed with only Win98, 1st edition, and was "officially" unable to run Win2000 (according to Compaq)?!

Mumei · #8 (**permalink**) 3rd February 2004

thanks! i'll find some cash and order the parts!

adicoto · #9 (**permalink**) 3rd February 2004

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...5e1307,00.html

Mobile AMD-K6Â®-2+ Processor Features

High processor clock speeds - up to 550 MHz today
Six-issue RISC86Â® superscalar microarchitecture
Large 64KB on-chip L1 cache
High-performance 128KB on-chip L2 cache
AMD PowerNow! technology for extended notebook system battery life
100MHz front-side bus for higher-performance memory and i/o
AMD 3DNow! Technology with new instructions for digital signal processing
Superscalar MMX technology for a rich multimedia experience
Low-power 0.18-micron, 5-layer-metal-silicon process technology optimized for notebook computing

azraelle · #10 (**permalink**) 11th February 2004

Allright, fine, 192KB of effective on-chip L2 cache RAM, as the L1 and L2 effectively, since they're both on the chip, and therefore access speed is the same internally, are the same. The K6-III+(450MHz), if you can still find one, has 256 KB of L2 cache, + 64 KB L1, totalling 312 KB of on-chip cache, which is what I replaced my 380MHz K6-2 with. It effectively halved the loadup speed of Photoshop 6.0, and the bootup time for Win2000 was considerably shortened as well. The number of dropped frames on the DVD player was cut almost to zero, especially after I maxed out the RAM at 192MB. Compaq should be shot for deliberately obsoleting the thing by limiting the BIOS to 128MB memory sticks (256MB sticks are unrecognized).

adicoto · #11 (**permalink**) 11th February 2004

Don't mix up L1 and L2 cache. They are two different things, doing different jobs. K6-II never had L2 cache. Only K6-II+, wich is a laptop designed CPU has L2 cache on-dye. Earlier K6-II did have an L1 cache of 64 kb and 128-2Mb of on-board (motherboard) L2 cache. Difference between them is that on-dye and on-board cache run at different speeds.

azraelle · #12 (**permalink**) 11th February 2004

While I realize that L1 and L2 cache are different, generally speaking, the difference was where it was at, and the speed it was accessed. You wanted your L1 cache (originally known as the "on-chip" cache) to be used first because it was right next to the cpu, and hence most quickly accessible, assuming it was large enough, without having to go and search for data/instructions (at a much slower speed) at the L2 cache, which was traditionally on the motherboard. That was why the Cyrix 486 chip was so much slower than its Intel equivalent--the Cyrix version had only 1KB of L! cache; the original Intel 486 had 8KB. When AMD put an "L2" cache on the chip too, yes the cpu would store, and search, first on the L1, but the overflow data on the L2 was essentially accessible at the same speed as the L1, so from an external perspective, L1 =~ L2. With the Compaq laptops that were sold with a K6-2, IF Compaq had put L2 cache on the motherboard (I don't know for sure whether they did or not), if you replace the K6-2 with either a k6-2+ or a K6-III+, the L2 effectively becomes "L3 cache", an animal that never existed before, and "is icing on the cake"!

Mumei · #13 (**permalink**) 11th February 2004

i can't seem to find a moblie amd k6-2+ anywhere. can anyone help me out with this?

azraelle · #14 (**permalink**) 12th February 2004

Looks like you're going to have to buy one on e-bay. A Quick check shows a K6-III+/450 selling for ~$31, and K6-2+/550 for ~$58. The k6-III+ is by far the better deal, if less well known; you can also overclock it to 500MHz before heat becomes excessive, especially if you use some arctic silver paste between it and the mickey mouse "heat spreader" that Compaq used.

Perkolator · #15 (**permalink**) 12th February 2004

Replace your windows with windows 98 SE, and add Cacheman which is a cache manager and ram defragmenter, use BSplayer o GDivX as your player and it should run at a decent speed.

Alternatively use another OS like linux or even better try Menuet OS which fits into a floppy so you can boot into Menuet just by starting your laptop with Menuet's BOOT floppy in it. http://www.menuetos.org/

There's also a player based on a linux kernel which is very thin called Movix, go to http://movix.sourceforge.net/ to find out more.

Basically if you are going to use your laptop to watch movies and it's not fast enough, try booting into a thinner OS like a linux, or DOS with a DivX player like QuickView Pro (http://www.multimediaware.com/qv/) or any other minimalistic OS like Menuet or any others. I would try this before upgrading the hardware.

Mumei · #16 (**permalink**) 13th February 2004

thanks. i'll try the software route first. the only thing is, i wouldn't mind a faster laptop ^_^