Should I upgrade this PC to Windows 10 or should I not?

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  1. Posts : 609
    W10
       #1

    Should I upgrade this PC to Windows 10 or should I not?


    I have a Medion MD96360 laptop from 2007. It contains an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 processor with 1.8 GHz, an ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 graphics card and 2 GB of RAM. Currently I have Windows 7 on this machine and it is working, but it is slow. Watching YouTube videos in fullscreen with 720 pixels does not work without stuttering.

    I notice that there are no newer drivers for the graphics card; the Windows Upgrade tool tells me that this card would not be supported under Windows 10. For Windows 10 I found the advice to uninstall its driver and to use the "Basic Display Adapter" from Microsoft as a driver.

    What would you expect to happen, if I upgrade this machine to Windows 10?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 172
    Windows 10
       #2

    It's unlikely that you'll have a good experience running Windows 10 on this machine. You're not enjoying it with Windows 7, and the lack of hardware support from Windows 10 is only going to exacerbate your headache.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 703
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       #3

    Why not just make an image of your current system, then upgrade and clean install of Win10 / Win7 dual boot? That way you can evaluate the performance, assess whether it meets your requirements, without any risk of losing valuable data.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 4,453
    Win 11 Pro 22000.708
       #4

    The Microsoft Basic display drivers usually give much worse performance than specialized ones for the adapter.

    I'm a little surprised that YouTube videos run poorly under Windows 7 on that laptop. I have a 2008 Compaq with a QL60 CPU and an nVidia 8200m g graphics controller. (That has drivers approved for Win 10.) It's perfectly happy with 720P YouTube videos under Win 10 Home X64.

    If real Windows 7 drivers exist, it may be possible to install those in Win 10. (It's a little hard to tell. Win 7 could use XP drivers, XDDM, but Windows 8 and 10 require WDDM ones.)

    I'm not sure I'd recommend upgrading to Win 10 from 7. From 8.1, sure.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 6
    Win 10 Home 64B
       #5

    Joergi said:
    I have a Medion MD96360 laptop from 2007. It contains an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 processor with 1.8 GHz, an ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 graphics card and 2 GB of RAM. Currently I have Windows 7 on this machine and it is working, but it is slow. Watching YouTube videos in fullscreen with 720 pixels does not work without stuttering.

    I notice that there are no newer drivers for the graphics card; the Windows Upgrade tool tells me that this card would not be supported under Windows 10. For Windows 10 I found the advice to uninstall its driver and to use the "Basic Display Adapter" from Microsoft as a driver.

    What would you expect to happen, if I upgrade this machine to Windows 10?
    Can you use CPU Z
    CPU-Z | Softwares | CPUID
    to explain what motherboard you happen to be using? It should also be able to tell you exactly the RAM usage is and if you have a slot available. Using that to explain the motherboard here, a quick google check can verify if you can use more than 2 GB of ram in that system, therefore make it much more usable. Right now 2GB is your ouch point right now.

    Is it running 32bit as well, or 64 Bit? Those are important because high VRAM GPU's will suffer on a 32 bit system. Or at least I've had problems, prior to arriving to 64 Bit.

    Also, I'm checking now to see if that ATI can take a newer drive (MS can really burn when it comes to telling me my video card drivers are out dated. The people who worked far more R&D into them know more than MS when it comes to that)

    And ouch. As far as I can tell, last driver support was "24 Feb 2010" for that GPU. That being a stock driver--now if only you were on a nvidia card..... sigh, well, don't fret, on to the Legacy Mod sites!

    It appears the legacy mod drivers are infact alive, but.... I've never used them... It would be new territory for you.

    Realistically, overall, you need more RAM.
      My Computers


  6. Posts : 609
    W10
    Thread Starter
       #6

    Thanks for your opinions so far!

    I am running 32 bit Windows, but with an AMD Turion 64...

    Let me comment on some of your hints in more detail:

    bobkn said:
    I'm a little surprised that YouTube videos run poorly under Windows 7 on that laptop. I have a 2008 Compaq with a QL60 CPU and an nVidia 8200m g graphics controller. (That has drivers approved for Win 10.) It's perfectly happy with 720P YouTube videos under Win 10 Home X64.

    If real Windows 7 drivers exist, it may be possible to install those in Win 10. (It's a little hard to tell. Win 7 could use XP drivers, XDDM, but Windows 8 and 10 require WDDM ones.)
    Can you tell with more words, why you think that video playback should be working better for me? Am I missing something essential? Is it just my fault (wrong drivers or whatever) that it's working so slow?

    The latest drivers for the graphics card have the version 8.593 and are for Windows Vista:
    Legacy

    In the meantime I found a thread on the graphics card in Windows 10:
    ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 graphic adaptor driver - Microsoft Community
    In this thread, if I understand correctly what she writes, then CynthiaCooper got the Windows Vista driver to run under Windows 10.

    I have never used a driver from a Legacy Mod site...


    JohnMidnight said:
    Can you use CPU Z
    CPU-Z | Softwares | CPUID
    to explain what motherboard you happen to be using? It should also be able to tell you exactly the RAM usage is and if you have a slot available. Using that to explain the motherboard here, a quick google check can verify if you can use more than 2 GB of ram in that system, therefore make it much more usable. Right now 2GB is your ouch point right now.
    The motherboard is by MEDION, a modell SAM2010.
    Chipset: ATI Xpress 200 (RS480) Rev. 10
    Southbridge: ATI SB400 Rev. 80

    BIOS:
    Brand: American Megatrends Inc.
    Version: A1058AM7 V7.27
    Date: 04/25/2008

    RAM:
    2 Slots, Dual-Channel, each filled with 1024MB DDR2 RAM
    PC2-5300 (333MHz)

    What does that mean for the amount of RAM possible?
    Last edited by Joergi; 10 Sep 2015 at 16:28.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 6
    Win 10 Home 64B
       #7

    Alright, I've found nothing for or against putting more RAM in the motherboard. What I was getting at, as I've experienced it myself. Is that motherboard sometimes get picky on how much RAM they can handle, and how fast it goes. Real picky.

    In THEORY, you should be able to upgrade to 4G, or 8GB, Newegg lists mushkin as cheapest at the 4 GB, and 8GB. 149$s for the 8GGb. Doing so would give you more head room in using Windows 10, especially since 4 Gig is recommended when using Win 7 anyhow.
    Computer Hardware, Memory, Laptop Memory, DDR2 667 (PC2 5300), 4GB (2 x 2GB), 8GB (2 x 4GB) - Newegg.com


    The other laptop, well, that's a GeForce 8200M, and its actually quite a bit superior to the ATI chip.

    ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 - NotebookCheck.net Tech
    The Xpress was a basically used for different setups, you'll find the 200 there.

    NVIDIA GeForce 8200M G - NotebookCheck.net Tech
      My Computers


  8. Posts : 1,524
    Windows 10 Pro (32-bit) 16299.15
       #8

    I'm going to leave the advice on drivers to those who know much more than me.

    However I would definitely do this:
    WhyMe said:
    Why not just make an image of your current system.
    ... in my case I would use Macrium Reflect Free, take an image of the whole disk onto an external USB drive, and also make sure I had created the bootable Rescue Media and tested that I could boot from it. Other backup tools allow you to do similar things.

    Then you have a way back if it goes wrong.

    I'd also say I've had reasonably good luck in getting my old laptop to work with Windows 10 (different hardware to yours, but a similar age) but I've needed to manually download and install some drivers which were designed for earlier versions of Windows. In some cases I needed to run the drivers' setup program in compatibility mode for the OS they came for. But I also know that some driver installers refuse to work in Windows 10.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 69
    windows 10
       #9

    Joergi said:
    Thanks for your opinions so far!

    I am running 32 bit Windows, but with an AMD Turion 64...

    Let me comment on some of your hints in more detail:



    Can you tell with more words, why you think that video playback should be working better for me? Am I missing something essential? Is it just my fault (wrong drivers or whatever) that it's working so slow?

    The latest drivers for the graphics card have the version 8.593 and are for Windows Vista:
    Legacy

    In the meantime I found a thread on the graphics card in Windows 10:
    ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 graphic adaptor driver - Microsoft Community
    In this thread, if I understand correctly what she writes, then CynthiaCooper got the Windows Vista driver to run under Windows 10.

    I have never used a driver from a Legacy Mod site...




    The motherboard is by MEDION, a modell SAM2010.
    Chipset: ATI Xpress 200 (RS480) Rev. 10
    Southbridge: ATI SB400 Rev. 80

    BIOS:
    Brand: American Megatrends Inc.
    Version: A1058AM7 V7.27
    Date: 04/25/2008

    RAM:
    2 Slots, Dual-Channel, each filled with 1024MB DDR2 RAM
    PC2-5300 (333MHz)

    What does that mean for the amount of RAM possible?
    A new i3 Laptop is running $280 bucks now I would forget this and get one, a 2007 laptop, 7 Years old, is not worth upgrading ram
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 609
    W10
    Thread Starter
       #10

    I do not plan buying a new laptop and given that I would be able to get one for around 300 €, I will definitely not pay 150 € just for RAM.

    If it really made the system perceivably faster (do you think it would?), then I would be willing to spent like 35 € for 4GB of RAM.
      My Computer


 

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