Still had a few Windows 8.1 keys from our MSDN membership, so installing that to get Windows 10 thru Windows Update. Installation was normal and surprisingly quick. All drivers were found except using basic Microsoft video driver. Time for ReadyBoost, need to milk everything we can to get some performance. I know that stinks too but better than nothing. Installed a Kingston 2gb USB drive for ReadyBoost. USB interface is only 2.0. Replaced the wireless card to a N mode card to milk that performance, but for now still using the wired 10/100 port. Windows update.... wow this famous for stinking with low memory or even medium amounts of memory. Mega memory hog, this will be painful. Yes, it was. a few hours later Windows 8.1 shows me the Windows 10 upgrade icon now. Let's do it.
Windows 10 downloaded and is installing as we speak (blog). "Configuring update for Windows 10. 15% complete" so far. Okay, maybe the processor upgrade should have been done first... Okay maybe this project should not have even started but I am curious. I will come in a few.
Just looked over at the notebook, we are to the black "Updating Windows" and "11% screen". Making progress, slowly but progress.
Well, Windows 10 install finished sometime over night. It does work but I wouldn't call it usable. It is in much need of more horsepower. Will try to determine which kind, CPU, memory or all of the above. My money is on the CPU is just too darn slow, don't see a lot of disk access so probably not paging. Task Manager says mega CPU usage on interrupts, guessing video driver since no 910GML driver for Windows 10. Only XPDM.Don't think it is worth trying another processor without video support.
Just too old guess it's limit will be Windows 7.
Hey there !
ReplyDeleteCurrently rebuilding an aspire 3610 just like you !
I found a Pentium m 780 and I pinmodded it to give it an extra ooompf... I also have ordered an ssd ide... Currently running Windows7 Ultimate with XPDM Video drivers.
Unfortunately I pinmodded it without updating the bios first and now I can't do it.... I'll probably un mod it, upgrade BIOS and then repinmod it.
Do you still play with yours ?
Once all this done I plan on trying Win10 but I know the absence of video drivers will make this painful...
ReplyDeleteOk so the BIOS update is done.... Under Win 7 my video drivers are recognized... I managed to get a playable performance when playing Colin McRae 2005 in medium settings. Navigating on cnn.com is also very fluid. CPU Boss reveals the performance increase is 50% in pure frequency under Pentium M 780.
ReplyDeleteThe defrag of the hdd gives a boot time under 1 minute which is also more than okay.
My adapter ide to ssd has shipped but a cost me a whopping 3$ if it doesn't work I'll try a ide ssd.
All in all as a pure 'science' project the ACER 3610 is really pleasant to play around to boost its original performance. Of course in terms of Money or Time it isn't worth it but that's not the reason why I start experimenting on it.
Ok I super glued the top cover left hinge was slightly cracked (most common on the Acer I have read)... Also I unfortunately got a MAJOR virus infection when I downloaded a patch to run Midtown Madness on it... ARGH ! Spent 3 hours cleaning it... I still have occasional unwanted pop-ups that I'm working to get rid off.
ReplyDeleteThe Virus was the toughest I was ever exposed to : took me 4 programs to get rid of it completely.
ReplyDeleteAnyway once I receive my adapter, I have decided to make this a triple boot XP/7/10... I won't try to make the old games work on 7 if they don't (I learned my lesson !) so XP will be my platform... The performance can only be better under SSD for 7... and 10 I just NEED to test it.
Great job JP! Bringing life back to older hardware is sometimes more fun than the project itself. No, I don't use that system anymore. It was more of a science project. That is really sweet job on the pinmod. I might give that a go. Remember doing pinmods for overclocking old Pentiums, ahhh the good 'ol days. lol. Geek on bro :)
ReplyDeleteHey there, thanks for the comments ! I have a few old beasts I'm playing with... an IBM A31, a Athlon64+ desktop... Love to dust them off, boost them to the max and see what this does...
ReplyDeleteBut that's another story !
Back to the Acer 3610, I have 2 questions :
- Do you have an option to activate the NX feature of the CPU in your BIOS ? I don't and I thought the latest version had it. I'm wondering if it will prevent the Win10 install...
- Did you just pop the Win 10 DVD and install it or did you have to do something first ?
Let me know,
Thanks !
All right a bit of update... I managed to install win7 and Win10 as dual boot with little hassle... When I let the CPU breathe a bit at the start Win10 is not that bad. Of course launching Youtube reveals that you can't play anything smoothly full screen above a resolution of 144 (you read that right !), and that's with using Edge. I bumped it to 360p by letting the file download and not play it full screen. Casual browsing is ok and slight multitasking too.
ReplyDeleteNext step is to finally install an msata hdd to test if there are any benefits; my last 2 attempts with different adapters failed (could not close the hdd cover in both cases... A real shame there is a limitation with the video adapter... At 2.25Ghz it could definitely be snappier thant what it is today... but when it is too sluggish I revert back to 7.
I have yet to install XP but I need the bigger hdd for this to happen...
Until next time !
Hi there just a bit of reporting on the old 3610... A clean reinstall of the creator's update has done wonders on the snappiness (that and lowering effects to the minimum). While definitely not being a monster my 3610 on steroids handles 10 like a champ.... just know this PC is 11 years old.
ReplyDelete7 is of course not a problem... For a while I had XP on it and old games like Motocross Madness were fantastic with full details (not even XP Settings under 7 made it work for example). I unfortunately mangled the Boot Table and could only recover 7 and 10 and cannot re-install XP (argh so close)... so I'll have to rebuild it all... but I'll soon have a triple boot machine to run old games while enjoying 7 and 10 at once.... not bad for a dinosaur...