Laptop OS choices?

Hello all,

I have a question that may be kind of long, or turn into a long story.

I bought this laptop from a pawnshop. It worked fine but I think there is something fishy about it. It looks as if it was a company/corporate laptop. The OS is NT and it runs some scripts when you log on. I want to wipe the HD and put a new OS on it.
What are my options? What is the cheapest safest OS to buy?
If it has a CD/Windows Key on it should I use that one?
I have XP pro on my desktop currently.
I only want to use the Laptop to do some datalogging and maybe IE surfing, because I know it's not the "top-of-the-line system", I know what I can and can't do on it.

Thanks in advance!

 

I agree, something is weird. Maybe a laptop stolen from a company? I don't think anyone in the IT field would leave any information whatsoever on a company laptop before getting rid of it.

I'm not sure what I would do if I were you... Other than not buy stuff from a pawn shop.

 

lol I agree, but the price was unbeatable, and I needed something cheap to do some datalogging and prom tuning on my Fuel Injected car!

There aren't any folders or info on the system as I can see.
Looks like someone did do some cleaning up before they got rid of it.
But, the OS just runs some scripts that normally don't run on regular OS's.

I want to wipe it and put a new OS on it...

 

Should I use the Product Key/ID on the laptop system or buy a whole new OS?
The Key/ID on it now says windows 95 or 98, forgot which one.

 

i agree, this sounds like the perfect time to try out an anlternative os. i would reccomend downloading the knoppix linux iso from linuxiso.org and burning it to a cd to try out your hardwae compatibility. if all works fine, i would reccomend suse linux. good luck

 

Why is everyone so on to Linux? lol Also, what Key/ID should I use? Current or New?lol
I'm sorry, I'm not bashing or anything. I'm just trying to figure out what's so good about it?
I haven't had much time to read about it, do to:
I'm a an entry level IT support tech, and I'm busy learning Windows, and studying for my MCSA and still learning to datalog, tune, and reprogram Fuel Injected car proms.

busy... busy!

 

I think it's somewhere between these numbers:

600-800 mhz Intel Pentium III
512mb RAM
20gb HD
not sure on vid card?

That can handle XP right?

 

Thanks for the help everyone!!!

 

Hey guys,

I have another question...

I put XP pro on the laptop, but it's really really slow!
I checked out the task manager, and it was using up 100% of the CPU to run and only 23% of the Memory/RAM. I checked the Processes tab and I think there are two that caught my eye, one name System.exe and the other named System. Well the one named System was using up 95% to 97% of the CPU!
Does anyone know what this means? Bad CPU?

Thanks again!

 

Make sure the BIOS is updated, too. The stumbling block when it comes to XP is most often the BIOS not being compatible.

2000 might be an even better choice for that laptop.

 

Thanks Robo,

A couple of things that worried me:
No sound from the laptops built-in speakers or externally plugged to headphone jack.
I plugged in an intellipoint 3.0 USB mouse and it didn't detect it.
I didn't have network/internet access at the time of install and still don't yet. Will later today though.
The laptop doesn't have a network port on it. It has slots for Ethernet PC Card and another for Dial-up card and one USB port.
I have a Fast Ethernet 10/100 Base-tx by 3-Com PC card with network dongle cable.
I'm just afraid it won't detect it...

I did power up the laptop with nothing but the Power cable plugged into it before I tried the mouse and speakers, and it was still slow.
I have yet to try the laptop with any network connected to it until later.

Thanks,

 

Hey Now!!!
Hi d3xt3r!
I think that people are so keen on the Linux is because its free. And, if you tweak with it, you can really make it shine on older hardware. You can recompile the kernel and such things, make it lean and mean, for sure.

If you want to do the XP fast, why not check out Black Viper's guide to services?
You can reduce the "overhead"...

Link:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Of course, I must also give a link to the favorite *nix vendor of mine, even though it may be overkill:


http://www.edmunds-enterprises.com/linux/cart.php/ba/pdtl/product/263

And, good luck to you with regards to all of the studying and adventures in the IT job!!!

 

You can also use AIDA32, can identify all your hardware and provide links for drivers etc.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html

as posted by Adrynalyne update bios, may be needed to support XP

 

You should probably use EVEREST instead of AIDA. I mean, well, that's where it went and that's where better and newer support will be.

 

Hey guys!

Thanks again for all the help!
The laptop is, well already was up to it's highest bios.
I did a search here on the boards for "XP booting slow" and saw a long thread about 3COM cards sometimes causing slow boots.
Well that's all I had was 3COM cards, but I tried a different one I had and put the laptop on the network and it booted in seconds!
I also read on that same thread that sometimes it boots up slow because it's looking for the internet connection or an ip address?.
Well to make a long story short, I DL'd everything I needed from the "Windows Update" scans. I may do a couple of Black Vipers tweaks too!
So the laptop seems to be working great!!

Thanks again for all the advice guys, these boards are great!!