posted on May 31, 2001 06:58:50 PM new
What would you consider a minimum computer that could run AW and Ebay?
Would a Pentium 2 handle it? I may have to get an emergency computer and need to know the minimum.
Any comments appreciated
posted on May 31, 2001 07:03:29 PM new
I got my sister a "bare minimum" computer for her to use on eBay. It's a Pentium 166MHZ, 32MB RAM, 2.1G hard drive. I paid about $125 for it (got it on eBay, actually).
I stuck a 56K modem and a sound card from an old(er) computer in it, and it works just fine for her. She's been using it for about a year and a half now.
posted on May 31, 2001 07:48:00 PM new
What are you doing on ebay? Are you just keeping track of auctions and bidding, or are you doing pictures, scans, etc. We run on ebay 1n 1998 on a 486dx50 with 20 megs, and used a scanner, but we had to upgrade to use our first camera. (got a sony now, and it's floppy drive so campatablity for our camera isn't an issue anymore.)
What software do you NEED. A pentium 133 will fly you all over the net, but it might not run software you need, like mr. lister, or a database, or whatever.
posted on May 31, 2001 07:51:36 PM new
p 1 will do just fine you don't need a lot of processing power.....the more ram the better 32 will work but i would suggest 64 or 96 you can get it cheap on ebay.
put a decent video card in and you won't know the difference from a p3
posted on May 31, 2001 08:00:33 PM new
Oh, definately! You don't need a huge computer just for the internet. We bought my sister a 133 mhz with 48 megs of ram and a 1.2-gig HD for Christmas year before last. She ran a scanner and even a good digital camera on it. I did my auction stuff for quite a while on a 200mhz with 32 megs of ram. The only drawback to that was that I couldn't be on-line while running my picture editing software (too little ram). Otherwise it worked great (and is now my back-up).
Basically, the thing to know if you're using a scanner or camera is the type of port it takes. The new stuff is all coming out with USB connections in addition to serial or parallel or PS/2, depending on what they are. Win '95 doesn't have USB support, but Win 98 and above does.
posted on May 31, 2001 08:06:08 PM new
you made me check !!!! i couldn't rember what this was.
I do most of ebay and most of net in general on a Thinkpad p166 48 megs of ram
no problems with mr lister or any other programs i have wanted to run so far ,i did have to upgrade to 48 megs of ram to get mr lister to work though.
posted on May 31, 2001 08:32:49 PM new
If you use a cable modem I would inquire at the cable company to find out what the minimum requirement is for that modem. Make sure your back up computer will be compatible with your ethernet card for the cable modem also.
I used to run a cable modem on a 133 MHz with Win95, 32 MB of ram and it was sufficient. Just don't try to work on 10 MB images too often.
posted on June 1, 2001 05:33:40 AM new
Once you've determined the "minimum" you can live with, price out something a bit better. You may find that something twice as fast (which will be useful for longer and a lot faster when you are using it) might be only a few dollars more.
If you do go for "old and slow", do get as much RAM as possible. You may want to check to see how much RAM it supported (some really only supported up to 64Meg), and if you can get more of the type of RAM it needs.
If you need a monitor, that might cost as much as the system unit, so carefully consider your needs there. Its hard to buy good, used, cheap monitors via ebay - there's lots of junk there and the shipping costs can kill ya.
I'd go for a unit with win98 and USB on it.
If you'll be using a modem, a lot of the cheap 56K modems require PCI and 166Mhz (minimum) to work well.
posted on June 1, 2001 12:47:20 PM new
It's very hard to know what is the bare minimum you can have. I have a 667 MHz with 196MB RAM for one PC. My second PC is a 266 MHz with 64MB RAM. Believe it or not, the 266MHz is faster.
I have them networked together so that my wife and I can eBay simultaneously!
posted on June 1, 2001 01:58:13 PM new
The most memory munching will happen when you try to handle images.
Otherwise any connection should be fine.
I started out on a 14.4!!!!!
I used Lview to pixfix and geocities to host my pictures. (Geocities specifically states that you should NOT do this, so I moved on after a while!)
You can build a template in notepad if you know even rudimentary html, so you can copy and paste it into your item description.
Low memory means some pages just take longer. I had a pentium 90 and was still able to accomplish some 1 and 2 second snipes!
Now I have an iMac and it's just a peach! USB and Firewire are my dear pals!
Best o' luck!
and it's just a peach! USB and Firewire are my dear pals!