Where can I get a new operating system for my computer for free ?

[JDarvall]

:D I'm not going to muck about !..... thats what I want.

I've got an old computer setup, that I got for $300. It came with windows 98. This operating system( thats what it is right?) has shut down problems, which forces me to switch off at that wall a lot........hangs a fair bit too,,,,, annoyingly when I try to submit a long post !.....

The broadband bloke I spoke to on the phone said , that windows 98's like that. Some people have no problems, but others the complete opposite. Guess, I'm in the latter.

Considering that 98's very old, I was thinking that maybe I can get a latter version...like 2000 ? or whatever for free somewhere. Legally prefered, but I don't mind being a little shifty as long as its certain I won't get nicked :eek: ....scrub that last bit...has to be definetly Legal. absolutely ! :D

I've tried the updates for windows 98. It seemed to help for a while, then for no apparent reason the shut down and hanging problems started again.

I've been lead to believe that new operating systems are pricey....

Thanks
Jake

[keith53]

G'day Jake,

Trouble with the later OS software is that it requires later model processors, more memory etc to run. You should be able to upgrade for around $5/600 - box only. Use your existing monitor to save $$$.

The RRP on Windows is pretty high but you can usually get an OS bundled with a box for a lot less. Having said all that, if your existing machine can run a later OS, the other place to look for a reasonably priced OS would be a University Bookshop. I bought one here for SWMBO's PC for a little over $100. Good luck,

Cheers,
Keith

[craigb]

The only free and legal operating system I know of is Linux.

Buy a PC magazine, the CD on the front will probably have one of the distributions on it.

Word of warning, be prepared for a lot of dicking around if you decide to go for it. It's not as bad as it used to be but it still has a fair bit of a learning curve.

Also if you have an old machine it might have priblems too.

A licence for XP costs around $250 I think. Or you could just buy a new PC that comes bundled with it.

[bennylaird]

I would guess that it's not a software issue but more hardware. A reinstallation of 98 might fix the problems but I would be hesitant to try and put something like XP on an old machine. Can you work out what processor, memory, hard drive etc you have?

[JDarvall]

Thanks everyone.....still not sure really what to do....sounds like there's no getting around it....I'll have to spend some money.

I've got a Hewlett Packard Pavilion 6511

AMD K6 500Mhz processer
123 mb ram
4mb shared video memory
8gb hard drive
40x cd-rom drive
Iomega Zip Drive 100mb
Windows 98 SE

[Iain]

I had a pavillion and the hard drive slowed down, physically, the bearings were shot, could be a pavillion problem.
I went XP Pro with now 600gig hard drive and 1 gig RAM.
The hard drives are now fairly cheap compared to what they used to be.
Find a computer geek (like I did) who has a passion for single malt (or, insert flavour of choice) and XP will be no problem.

[craigb]

Thanks everyone.....still not sure really what to do....sounds like there's no getting around it....I'll have to spend some money.

I've got a Hewlett Packard Pavilion 6511

AMD K6 500Mhz processer
123 mb ram
4mb shared video memory
8gb hard drive
40x cd-rom drive
Iomega Zip Drive 100mb
Windows 98 SE

You have a very underspeced machine for what is available now. I don't think that XP would run very well in only 128mb of RAM.

I think you probably need to upgrade your hardware.

The good news is that PC's are pretty cheap theses days and you'll get a copy of XP thrown in with a new one anyway.

[Shedhand]

G'day mate I just love single malt :D:D:D
Go out and buy 2 things:

RAM - (Boost it to minimum 512mb) (its cheap as chips at the moment) You'll need to know what type of RAM you aready have.
A bigger hard drive. 40gig minimum. This should solve your problems hanging problems. The 'puter is trying to do too much with too little resources.

(Unless you a bit of a geek, I'd leave Linux OS's alone for the moment. It still has a pretty steep learning curve and the time is better spent in the SHED :D )

Turn everything off and unplug. (Ground yourself before you touch the gizzards of the PC).
Install the new RAM and Hard Drive.
Turn it back on.
The PC will take a bit of time to self test the RAM and mount the HD.
Reinstall Win98SE (this OS is fine for what you're doing.
After re-installing OS go to Windows Web Site and download and install updates and patches to the 98SE OS.
Re-install your applications
And Bob should be your uncle.

Cheers;)

[Barry_White]

There is one major problem with running 98SE and that is You may find that your ISP may not give you any support because Microsoft will no longer give any support to ISP's on the Win 98 platform. I know that Telstra wont even connect you now if you are running 98. I know this because they sent an email out outlining this.

What shedhand says that the specs are pretty low but perhaps just taking it up to 512 meg of ram will make an incredible difference in performance.

I was running a Pentium 3, 1.2mhz 128meg ram Laptop and it was struggling especially when multitasking and I put 512meg of ram in it and the difference was incredible.

I can now have 10 programs open multitasking and it doesn't even hiccup running XP Pro. and I use all Office programs as well as Photoshop and Dreamweaver which are high memory hungry programs.

[Ashore]

ADM 500meg processer I would have doubts on it running XP and the trouble is your mother board may not be suitable to upgrade to a 1.3

Upgrade the ram however if you have slots available.

However for a little help now try a disk clean and a defrag, cause if you haven't been doing this your machine will slow and can cause drop out etc...

If you look in programs.....Accessories ......system tools ..... disk clean

then go programs......accessories ... system tools ... Defragment

If you haven't done this before or for a while put it on overnight and let it go , If you have problems with the defrag let us know you may need to do it in safe mode but won't complicate the issue on how to do that now.

Rgds

[JDarvall]

Sounds like good advice on adding RAM... Sort of makes sense as well.

uno how the computer 'thinks'... how it grunts away, with that little red light that flashes when the hard drives working (:o) . Well, I've noticed that when I'm patient, and wait until its finished 'thinking', before I click on anything else, then....no problems. Rarely does the system hang.

But, if I flick from one page to the next, as you do, clicking away quickly, not waiting for the thing to stop thinking, then problems start....

Sort of impleys it just hasn't got enough grey matter.

What I've just written should show how little I know about these things :o

Anyway, I'll try that disk clean, and defrag........Thanks to all. :)

[bennylaird]

If you haven't cleaned up the spyware then you may be suffering form it.
Have fixed systems with tens of thousands of infections. Amazing how they speed up afterwards.

[keith53]

I've got a Hewlett Packard Pavilion 6511

AMD K6 500Mhz processer
123 mb ram
4mb shared video memory
8gb hard drive
40x cd-rom drive
Iomega Zip Drive 100mb
Windows 98 SE

Solution:

1. Feed chain into computer case - let it hang out about 1m.
2. Fill case with concrete.
3. Attach 4m of rope & a float to the chain.
4. Send to bitingmidge for use as an anchor for his rapidly-finishing canoe.:D

Good luck with it all..

[Auld Bassoon]

:D I'm not going to muck about !..... thats what I want.

I've got an old computer setup, that I got for $300. It came with windows 98. This operating system( thats what it is right?) has shut down problems, which forces me to switch off at that wall a lot........hangs a fair bit too,,,,, annoyingly when I try to submit a long post !.....

The broadband bloke I spoke to on the phone said , that windows 98's like that. Some people have no problems, but others the complete opposite. Guess, I'm in the latter.

Considering that 98's very old, I was thinking that maybe I can get a latter version...like 2000 ? or whatever for free somewhere. Legally prefered, but I don't mind being a little shifty as long as its certain I won't get nicked :eek: ....scrub that last bit...has to be definetly Legal. absolutely ! :D

I've tried the updates for windows 98. It seemed to help for a while, then for no apparent reason the shut down and hanging problems started again.

I've been lead to believe that new operating systems are pricey....

Thanks
Jake

G'day Jake,

I'm pretty sure that I have a copy of Windows 2000 at home. If so, I'll send you a PM. I know that I have a copy of NT4.

However, both (and especialy so with Win2000) need at least 128Mb RAM (preferably 256Mb or more) and Pentium-class CPU.

As others have mentioned, Linux can be obtained for 0$ - but, even with something like Xandros (which is about as user-friendly as Linux gets), it can be a pretty stepp learning curve to get it set up and running, especially if you want to run apps lime e-mail or office productivity tools.

If you're game, I'm happy to send you a Xandros install CD.

Cheers!

PS just read the later posts, and I'm afraid that a PC of that level spec probably wouldn't handle eith Win2000 or NT4 - a Linux (whichever distibution) would likely have issues in identifying the CPU, M/board, drives, video controller, etc.

[bennylaird]

Even an old clunker has it's uses. Set it up to drive your cnc router in the shed!!!!!!

[Ashore]

If you haven't cleaned up the spyware then you may be suffering form it.
Have fixed systems with tens of thousands of infections. Amazing how they speed up afterwards.

How right you are forgot that
Jake if you are not running Adawear then get the free download
Type adawear into google to find
and you need spybot also free , once again use google , you need these as well as your anti virus protection

[Studley 2436]

What you should do Ripper is get a new iMac which has a great screen takes no space relatively won't give you any grief in the way of freezes crashes etc etc etc. The new one runs on an Intel duo core 1.8ghz it is blinding fast.

MMMM sorry to all the windows people out there but it is a bit of a rusty Taiwanese stanley compared to the Mac OS which doesn't get virus's or crashes.

Studley

[Robert34]

How right you are forgot that
Jake if you are not running Adawear then get the free download
Type adawear into google to find
and you need spybot also free , once again use google , you need these as well as your anti virus protection

Jake

I'd add one more Ashores list that is SpyBlaster. You can find it with Google. It is also free. Just make sure that you update these every week.

Robert34

[bennylaird]

Spywareblaster is great mate, woof.

[Cliff Rogers]

Forget trying to get new memory for that model, you won't find it on the shelf in Australia, it will have to be ordered in.

You may also run into problems getting a new HDD to work in a PC that came with an 8Gb HDD.

Some motherboards have a barrier at 8Gb & others have a barrier at 32Gb.
You would need to get an 80Gb Samsung HDD that can be strapped back to 32Gb.

Skip trying to use NT4 'cos you will have a lot of farting around to do to get it to load on a HDD bigger than 4Gb.
Once it is loaded & had the service packs applied, it will work on a larger HDD but then you will need a utility to resize the partition without loosing Windows. It can be done but needs geek help.

A copy of Win 2K will run on that machine BUT.... it will take ages to start.
Once it has started, it is more stable than 98SE as long as the hardware is in good order.

Don't try to load Win XP on it as it will be far too slow.

Win98SE can give trouble but shouldn't be causing that many problems.
I suspect you may have Spyware or fat caps on the M/Board or both.

Try a clean up with spybot & if that doesn't fix it, don't waste any more money on it.

[Robert34]

I suspect you may have Spyware or fat caps on the M/Board or both.


Cliff

What is Fat Caps. Please explain, I've never heard of it.

Robert34

[Termite]

The average computer shop will knock you up a reasonable workhorse with XP included for about $800. By the time you muck about with getting XP and RAM and another hard drive for an older machine, the $800 will look pretty good.

[craigb]

The average computer shop will knock you up a reasonable workhorse with XP included for about $800. By the time you muck about with getting XP and RAM and another hard drive for an older machine, the $800 will look pretty good.

I tend to agree. Might even me able to get it cheaper than that though.
Another plus is that if it doesn't work you can take it back. :p

[Auld Bassoon]

One final thought here (from me):

Whether it be Jake, or any other PC-needy forum member, I've just had a look in the "rummage cupboard", a found a (I think!) 2.4Mhz P4 processor on a 512Mb RAM equipped motherboard, with a 32Mb nVidia Graphics card.

It also has on it a SCSI adaptor board, and I could throw in a whopping(!) 2Gb SCSI HDD. It wasn't that long ago that that sort of spec was the Dog's, ahem, sphericals...

Free to a needy home in return for the postage cost.

Note that it's the M/B, CPU, RAM, V/Card only - no (regular) HDD, case or PSU, never mind monitor, rat or keyboard...

(Twas the predecessor to the antecedent to the machine I mainly use now - so don't get those expectations up too high - but still a generation or three beyond Jakes HP kit). Sorry Jake! :D

[Cliff Rogers]

Cliff

What is Fat Caps. Please explain, I've never heard of it.

Robert34

There was a capacitor electrolyte scandal a while back.
Resulted in a lot of faulty capacitors on PC Mother Boards.
The electrolyte dries out, the cap (short for capacitor) gets hot, swells (fat) & ruptures & fails to do the job it was meant to do IE: Filter spikes of the power so the result is , the computer crashes often.

[JDarvall]

Solution:

1. Feed chain into computer case - let it hang out about 1m.
2. Fill case with concrete.
3. Attach 4m of rope & a float to the chain.
4. Send to bitingmidge for use as an anchor for his rapidly-finishing canoe.:D

Good luck with it all..

:D !..... sounds like I've got a piece of shi t sitting in front of me.

I took Ashores advice (thanks mate), cleaning and defraging...... the cleaning bit cleaned up about 4mb it said, if that means anything...the defraging, took 3 hours !...

Started defraging....left it, went grocery shopping, picked up the kids, went to the park, wiped their noses and arses, nicked out to the shed to cut a blade, hit the house again to find the thing still defraging !!!

Thanks again. So, try spybot, Adawear, spywareblaster(woof)....yes ?
If still &&&&house...dumb it, and by a whole new kit. ta. See how we go.

If you don't hear from me for a while, its not because I've got the &&&&es with any of you...... just, cause, uno. Computers stuffed, and decided to go fishing instead, using it as an anchor (why waste it on bitingmidge !).

:)

ps. how can you blokes live with all this computer jargon floating around your heads. I feel dizzy just from reading about some of it from your posts......

[Termite]

ps. how can you blokes live with all this computer jargon floating around your heads. I feel dizzy just from reading about some of it from your posts......
Try logging on to Overclockers or Afterdawn, if you're dizzy now they should be good for a total spin out. :D :D

[Robert34]

There was a capacitor electrolyte scandal a while back.
Resulted in a lot of faulty capacitors on PC Mother Boards.
The electrolyte dries out, the cap (short for capacitor) gets hot, swells (fat) & ruptures & fails to do the job it was meant to do IE: Filter spikes of the power so the result is , the computer crashes often.

Thanks for that Cliff.

Power spikes should not be a prob for me as I have a Battery Back Up Unit which; I believe is supposed prevent normal power spikes. Not lightning of course.

Rob.

[Termite]

Thanks for that Cliff.

Power spikes should not be a prob for me as I have a Battery Back Up Unit which; I believe is supposed prevent normal power spikes. Not lightning of course.Rob.
I think you will find that Cliff was refering to the spikes created in the power supply unit, not incoming line spikes.

[ozwinner]

What is Fat Caps. Please explain, I've never heard of it.



Its a Jackie Chann movie

Fat Caps and the Dragon.

Al :)

[namtrak]

Stop mucking around - go buy this (http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dimen_1100_au?c=au&l=en&s=dhs) for $898 delivered with flat screen, DVD burner and 1gb ram. Anything screws up and its all covered by warranty. Includes O/S

People spend far too much time being worked by a computer rather than working a computer.

Cheers

[Shedhand]

Agree with Namtrak. Go buy the Dell. Farting around with old junk is waste of money. Always assuming you have the reddies to afford a new one that is.;)

[scooter]

Have just done this cleanup thing on my PC.

Spybot can be had from safer-networking.org
Ad-aware can be had from download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html
AVG Anti virus from free.grisoft.com

Tip: don't do the defrag thing during unstable weather when the power may be interrupted...DAMHIKT.


Cheers................Sean

[derekcohen]

Hi Jake

If it is any consolation, the desktop machine in my study at home - that I use a lot for Internet, etc - is but a Pentium III 450 Mh. It has a 16 gb hard drive (...OK, STOP those giggles now!!:eek: ) and came with a whopping 64 Mb of RAM (NOW you REALLY better settle down!). It runs 98 SE!

Well, the truth is that it was quite slow, especially in comparison to my goody-specced Laptop, which is about 2 years old (and now due for replacement).

I did two things to the desktop - added more RAM (took it up to 200 Mb, anything more is really a waste on this machine), and I re-formatted the harddrive to make absolutely sure that there were no virus', etc to slow things down.

Now I will not pretend that it is a quick machine - I avoid manipulating graphic programmes such as Photoshop on it - but for everything else it actually runs pretty well. The extra RAM certainly made a difference to the speed. It rarely hangs, in fact I cannot recall it doing so (while my SP powered laptop does so a few times each week).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[ozwinner]

Have just done this cleanup thing on my PC.

Spybot can be had from safer-networking.org
Ad-aware can be had from download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html
AVG Anti virus from free.grisoft.com

Tip: don't do the defrag thing during unstable weather when the power may be interrupted...DAMHIKT.


Cheers................Sean

If you are serious about cleaning out the crud, you need this too.

http://www.stevengould.org/software/cleanup/

I use it every coupla weeks

Al :)

[JDarvall]

....assuming you have the reddies to afford a new one that is.;)

no not really. Poor bugger me (sniff)......ahhhh, I see now !.....thats why I should have stayed in school :rolleyes: ....Sorry Mum, I should've listen to you....:D .....JAKE !...WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU HAD A BATH !....yesterday mum.....WELL, HAVE ANOTHER ONE !...DON'T FORGET THE DEODERENT ! AND GET TO SCHOOL....ooookayy mum. ...Bloody higene cop, my mum was...still is. Take off your shoes, and walk into her house and she appears out of nowhere, mop in hand, following you, wiping off your footprints as you walk down the hallway....Love err, but what a nutcase....but she was right about staying in school, so I'd have the reddies, so I wouldn't have to stuff about and just buy a new computer, so I could work the computer instead of it working me....

Jesssus, why am I writing this crap.

[ozwinner]

so I'd have the reddies,

Mateeeeeee, Ive bucket loads of em, just say the word and Ill shoot ya a reddie.

Al :p :D

[JDarvall]

Mateeeeeee, Ive bucket loads of em, just say the word and Ill shoot ya a reddie.

Al :p :D

'the word'..... you want my address ?....ohhhhh, you mean that other kind of reddie ?....:rolleyes: .... too good to be true :p

[ozwinner]

'the word'..... you want my address ?....ohhhhh, you mean that other kind of reddie ?....:rolleyes: .... too good to be true :p

Launched.....................................hit..


Al :D

[scooter]

If you are serious about cleaning out the crud, you need this too.

http://www.stevengould.org/software/cleanup/

I use it every coupla weeks

Al :)

That's funny, Darrell Lea licquorice (sp?) does it for me :p :o


Cheers Al .............Sean

[Gumby]

Jesssus, why am I writing this crap.

I wondered that myself

[Ashore]

so has anything improved... ie................... in speed or drop outs

[Cliff Rogers]

...Power spikes should not be a prob for me as I have a Battery Back Up Unit ....

Yeah, I mean the ones inside the computer, not outside.

Best analogy I can give is like water hammers in your plumbing inside your house come from the taps inside your house, not the mains.

As your computer 'computes' it creates 'water hammers' & echos on the DC power rails running around you internal circuits.
The filter caps are to dull down those 'water hammers' & echos so other parts of your computer down interpret them as data.

[Shedhand]

Hey Apricot, why not slip some geeky schoolkid 50 bucks or a bucket of
McVomit to set it up for you?

[JDarvall]

I wondered that myself

oh really ?...... oh come on. Should be happy. I give you something to be sarcasic about, which sounds like something you like doing ... its fun rolling your eyes at people, right?...

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: ...I wonder, if one rolls their eyes enough, can one generate enough momentum to backflip......betya, that how they choose gymnasts in Russia. Nothing to do with body shape, or flexibility....its really all about sarcasim....The most smartass and sneering of kids are chosen...

WELL, CHILD, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP ?

:rolleyes: ahhh, I don't know, a bloody sibiarian snow shoveler ...:rolleyes:

GOOD ! ... YOU HAVE PROMISE ! WERWASFDWE-IVIC ! MARK HER DOWN. SHE BECOMES OLYMPIC GYMNAST ! NEXT......

:eek: But, I really want to be a vet :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: that be right !

EXCELLENT ! PUT HER AT TOP OF LIST ! WHO'S NEXT ...

(there you go gumby, something to roll your eyes at....fill the whole page with them why don't ya...I mean, 'you'....phew ! that was close, nearly gave you some poor spelling to critizise...:rolleyes: (backflip)

[JDarvall]

so has anything improved... ie................... in speed or drop outs

I'm not shore. The computer hung last night, just as I shut down...uno, how in DOS mode, with a blue screen, it saying that it has failed to shut down, press ctrl-alt-delete etc.....well, that came up, and the only way to turn the computer off was at the wall.....

which meant, when I started up again, it goes through a system check in DOS mode again, before starting windows again. PITA.

But, at least the screen hasn't frozen when posting..... thats been such a common problem, that its been a practise of mine, to copy my post into a saved text file off the desktop, before posting it, just to ensure I don't have to write it out again after it freezes......been doing that for over a year now..

My first computer. I was beginning to think that this sort of thing was normal. :o

I tried the adawear program. It hung. Then I got it working......I think that maybe there's no getting around it really....MY SYSTEMS JUST TOO BLOODY OLD. :D ....I'll have to stash some reddies and buy new.