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I just got a Compaq Presario 1020 for an early x-mas present looking over the specs I found it to be woefully underpowered for my needs. Does this type of compaq had any proprietary things built into it that would stifle its upgradeing potential??

Is it the old notebook or is it a desktop? Several machines fit that description.

phongn wrote:Is it the old notebook or is it a desktop? Several machines fit that description.

its a notebook

If it is a Presario 1020 then you can put 32MB of RAM in it in addition to the onboard 16MB for a total of 48MB. If it is an X1020 you have a lot of additional options.

phongn wrote:If it is a Presario 1020 then you can put 32MB of RAM in it in addition to the onboard 16MB for a total of 48MB. If it is an X1020 you have a lot of additional options.

nope just regular 1020 presario is the memory upgrade it for potentail upgrades? Because I kinda wanted to gut the thing and put in the newest stuff that the case could hold and not have it explode or melt or something

Gah, it's the desktop? You need to be more precise. What are its specs right now?

no it is the laptop and its current specs are: Intel Pentium 120MHz, Hard Drive 1.08GB, Memory 16 MB EDO RAM and a PCI graphics card

Ohh, okay. AFAIK, the only upgrade you can do is the RAM. The video might use the PCI bus but it is probably soldered onto the motherboard, as is the processor.

Gah. That's a piece of poo. If I were you i'd ditch it at the first possible opportunity. Barring that, I'd upgrade the ram (as was said earlier). While it's open I'd look for anything that isn't soldered to the main board and see 'bout upgrading that. After that's taken care of I'd run a nice low system requirements distro of Linux on it. You might be able to get away with a modern GUI if you're lucky (with so little ram it would be a close shave). And before anyone calls me a Linux fanwhore, consider that Linux is probably the most capable operating system you could hope to get on that hardware.

You could run Windows 95 or NT on it as well. It might be convenient for things like Microsoft Office.

darthdavid wrote:Gah. That's a piece of poo. If I were you i'd ditch it at the first possible opportunity. Barring that, I'd upgrade the ram (as was said earlier). While it's open I'd look for anything that isn't soldered to the main board and see 'bout upgrading that. After that's taken care of I'd run a nice low system requirements distro of Linux on it. You might be able to get away with a modern GUI if you're lucky (with so little ram it would be a close shave). And before anyone calls me a Linux fanwhore, consider that Linux is probably the most capable operating system you could hope to get on that hardware.

ok well what distro of linux would you suggest, bare in mind that I have zero linux experience at all so I probably couldnt use a distro that is too different than standard windows

russellb6666 wrote:

darthdavid wrote:Gah. That's a piece of poo. If I were you i'd ditch it at the first possible opportunity. Barring that, I'd upgrade the ram (as was said earlier). While it's open I'd look for anything that isn't soldered to the main board and see 'bout upgrading that. After that's taken care of I'd run a nice low system requirements distro of Linux on it. You might be able to get away with a modern GUI if you're lucky (with so little ram it would be a close shave). And before anyone calls me a Linux fanwhore, consider that Linux is probably the most capable operating system you could hope to get on that hardware.

ok well what distro of linux would you suggest, bare in mind that I have zero linux experience at all so I probably couldnt use a distro that is too different than standard windows

Well then in that case unless you'd like to learn linux it might be better to follow phongn's advice (below)

phongn wrote:You could run Windows 95 or NT on it as well. It might be convenient for things like Microsoft Office.

and run an old version of 'doze on it. However, should you decide that you're open to learing Linux then you'll probably have a hard time of it. All the distributions that work well on the low end machines like yours tend to be hard to use and all the easy distros tend to suck resources like there's no tommorow. However, you could probably run just about any version of linux on that hardware as long as you limited yourself to the commandline but the problem with that is that i'll bet you want a desktop/window manager. If your interested i'll look into finding a gui that has low requirements for you tommorow.

You might be able to use it for some things, like Office and old games. I actually still keep a laptop similar to this around (Mine is a Compaq 5200, 120Mhz Pentium, 72MB of RAM, WIN98), but only for one reason. It has a serial port built into it (something impossible to find on new laptops these days) and the software I run on it only requires a very slow Pentium to begin with (I use it to do tuning and data logging on GM PCM/ECMs, mostly my 94 Z28 Camaro, and to do this I have to have a serial port). But if you don't have a good use for it like this, you are probably better off getting rid of it and not wasting your time trying to upgrade. Or learn Linux with it, as has already been said.

provided the system is more than 266mhz, you should be able to run win2k as well. which is probably the most stable of the pre-ME windows systems.

Windows 2000 on 48MB of RAM is painful.

And on a 120Mhz. Honestly, I'd recommend writing it off. Do it quietly, since it's a Christmas pressie and all...but you're wasting money sinking it into that thing, because it will never have any decent amount of power, and anything you invest in it cannot be recouped. You can't transfer the parts to a more advanced system, and ain't nobody gonna buy it for more than a dime. Wish I had better advice for you.

russellb6666 wrote:

darthdavid wrote:Gah. That's a piece of poo. If I were you i'd ditch it at the first possible opportunity. Barring that, I'd upgrade the ram (as was said earlier). While it's open I'd look for anything that isn't soldered to the main board and see 'bout upgrading that. After that's taken care of I'd run a nice low system requirements distro of Linux on it. You might be able to get away with a modern GUI if you're lucky (with so little ram it would be a close shave). And before anyone calls me a Linux fanwhore, consider that Linux is probably the most capable operating system you could hope to get on that hardware.

ok well what distro of linux would you suggest, bare in mind that I have zero linux experience at all so I probably couldnt use a distro that is too different than standard windows

DamnSmall Linux would probably work best simply because, at only 50 MB for the entire OS + programs, you'd actually have enough RAM to run it