Replies to post #570 on Dream Machine

[Bruce A Thompson]

Good Job!

Have you emptied your recycle bin and defragged?

Your 'puter should be running much faster now. I see your PC-Pitstop score is 500% higher.

I cannot in good faith advise you to download anything else on that hard drive at all. Your PC-Pitstop test reveals that your hard drive is on it's last gasping moments of life. You need to start backing up vital data to CD now while you still can.

Most of the programs you are running right now including 98SE need 128-512 MB of RAM to operate effeciently. That means that your machine is using swap files (Borrowed very slow memory on your hard drive) to get the job done. With the age of your HD it is being overworked way beyond it's design specs and will fail soon.

I have to tell you from having owned that same machine about ten years ago that you are missing out big time by keeping it. There are good programs out there that are bigger than your entire hard drive and take more ram to run than your entire hard drive has storage.

Next month, MSFT stops supporting 98. Installing ME or XP on your machine is not an option. That means either build another more modern machine or take enough programming courses to be able to write the updates for 98 yourself. Building a new machine is cheaper and safer.

I commend you for getting three times more life out of that machine than it was ever designed to give. I'm thinking a Viking Funeral would be in order.

BT