This is one of those tidbits that have no practical use but may be of academic interest.
When Windows XP came out, most people were running Win 98, ME or 95 on 8-64 MB. 128MB was specified as the minimum required to run XP, but it was quite slow on 128MB, especially if part of that was allocated for display. And a 128MB SDRAM stick cost something like Rs.4000 IIRC.
Not long ago, while trying to pinpoint the defective component in someone else's faulty computer running WinXP, I turned it on with only a single 128MB stick installed after removing the other sticks. It did boot up, but it was so painfully slow that it took a long time to do anything.
I didn't note down the times taken, but it must have been something like 15-20 minutes to boot up and several minutes to open anything. I restarted, went into BIOS and checked to see if I had inadvertently disabled the CPU internal cache memory. But no, everything was normal in BIOS.
When it had finally booted into Windows again, I opened My Computer Properties. (That also took several minutes). Then I saw that it showed only 64MB system RAM, and I woke up. I had completely forgotten that the other 64MB was allocated to the onboard video, leaving only 64MB for the rest of the system.
I restarted and changed the video meory to 8MB, and the computer ran at a much more reasonable speed. Sometimes we find out these things only by accident. I certainly wouldn't knowingly try to boot a WinXP computer with just 64MB.
When Windows XP came out, most people were running Win 98, ME or 95 on 8-64 MB. 128MB was specified as the minimum required to run XP, but it was quite slow on 128MB, especially if part of that was allocated for display. And a 128MB SDRAM stick cost something like Rs.4000 IIRC.
Not long ago, while trying to pinpoint the defective component in someone else's faulty computer running WinXP, I turned it on with only a single 128MB stick installed after removing the other sticks. It did boot up, but it was so painfully slow that it took a long time to do anything.
I didn't note down the times taken, but it must have been something like 15-20 minutes to boot up and several minutes to open anything. I restarted, went into BIOS and checked to see if I had inadvertently disabled the CPU internal cache memory. But no, everything was normal in BIOS.
When it had finally booted into Windows again, I opened My Computer Properties. (That also took several minutes). Then I saw that it showed only 64MB system RAM, and I woke up. I had completely forgotten that the other 64MB was allocated to the onboard video, leaving only 64MB for the rest of the system.
I restarted and changed the video meory to 8MB, and the computer ran at a much more reasonable speed. Sometimes we find out these things only by accident. I certainly wouldn't knowingly try to boot a WinXP computer with just 64MB.
