Windows 10 on Dell M170 XPS laptop (10 years old) - success!

Azrak

Azrak

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Oct 4, 2015
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Bought a few Windows 7 Pro licenses from BST here recently (thanks [Ion]!)and wanted to try installing/running Windows 10 on a really old laptop for fun.
And it works.

Specs
Dell M170 XPS from circa 2005/2006 (purchased from Dell in April 2006 just before the new line of XPS laptops came out)
Pentium M 760 2.0GHz 533MHz FSB single core
2 GB memory (maximum supported)
60 GB hard disk (7200 rpm)
Nvidia Geforce Go 7800 GTX 256 MB
17" screen 1920x1200

Back in the day this was a decent system.

Installation Overview
Laptop originally came with Windows XP Media Center edition.
Dell officially does not support Windows 10 for this laptop.
Deleted all partitions and installed Windows 10 32bit from scratch using bootable DVD installer.
Windows 10 supported the Broadcom NIC, so wired connectivity was immediately available.
Activated Windows, installed Windows Updates. No drama.
Windows 10 does not support the Nvidia Geforce Go 7800 GTX via Windows Update, so I had to search around and found a Windows 8.1 driver that was reported to work. And it did. Driver version 307.68.
Windows 10 does not support the Sigmatel AC97 audio chipset via Windows Update, but the Windows XP driver from the Dell support site worked fine. File name R99254.EXE
Tried to install the Dell QuickSet utility for Windows XP (for playing with LEDs and other XPS-specific functionality) but no dice. Found a webpage with workaround - haven't tried it yet due to complexity. Not sure if it is worth the hassle.
Tried to install the Windows XP Alps Touchpad driver, but it fails to install. Not a big deal since I think it only adds bottom/side scrollbar functionality to the touchpad. The touchpad itself is working fine, just doesn't have the optional scrollbar functionality without the driver. I use a mouse usually anyway.

Device manager has no exclamation marks.
System is working fine. No hiccups or oddness so far.
Speed is OK considering it is a single core CPU at 2.0GHz and only 2 GB RAM.
Intel Speedstep is working, so idle speed of CPU is 800MHz.

I think it's pretty cool that a 10 year old laptop can run Windows 10.
m170-desktop2.png
 
B-b-b-but M$ and it spies and steals and uploads ur data and Windoze store sux a-a-a-nd....M$!!!111
 
I have it running on a Vista era single core system with 2GB of ram. The OS runs fine but the system comes to a crawl while online.
 
The single core definitely gets overwhelmed on busy web pages with lots of ads. For example, cnn.com. So many connections and stuff going on that it pauses the browser for a few seconds.
Maybe it's not really practical, but to have a supported OS with constant updates is kind of nice.
 
Azrak said:
The single core definitely gets overwhelmed on busy web pages with lots of ads. For example, cnn.com. So many connections and stuff going on that it pauses the browser for a few seconds.
Maybe it's not really practical, but to have a supported OS with constant updates is kind of nice.
Click to expand...

Might be a ram limitation too. I can't imagine using a single core machine with 2gb of ram.
 
2GB is the bare minimum I'd ever try to use with Windows 10. MS says 1GB but I'd hate to experience that pain.
 
That's pretty cool. I miss my old M170, it was a beautiful machine. I ended up selling it to a friend a few years ago. I'm surprised your gtx7800 is still working after all these years. Mine died literally right out of warranty and I ended up replacing that with a 6800gtx which also didn't last very long and was replaced with a ATI x600 which is still working but with some dead pixels.
 
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Azrak said:
2GB is the bare minimum I'd ever try to use with Windows 10. MS says 1GB but I'd hate to experience that pain.
Click to expand...

I have a couple of 1 GB Windows 8 tablets that I upgraded to Windows 10. They're more usable than I would have thought especially with Bay Trail Atoms but going to 2 GB makes a big difference. I think the Anniversary Update sets the minimum for Windows 10, both 32 and 64 bit, at 2 GB. At 2 GB basic multitasking with multiple browser tabs and Office documents works pretty well.
 
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^^ Good to know.

Since installing on the M170, I am installing Windows 10 on other old systems as well.

I installed Win10 64bit on a E6850 3.0GHz, Asus P5E with 4GB ram and 640GB SATA drive using a BFG GTX 285 built in late 2007 (GTX 285 was an upgrade sometime later). Works quite well.

Now I'm trying to install Win10 32bit on an AMD FX-57, Asus A8NSLI-Premium with 2GB ram and 500GB SATA drive using a BFG 8800GT with aftermarket ND-1 blower (build is circa March 2006, 8800GT was an upgrade later).
I tried 64bit first, but it just hung very early which I think means the FX-57 doesn't support a required 64bit instruction or feature needed by Win10 64bit.
It's been crashing randomly and seemingly getting worse (PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA and WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR) over time. At first I suspected the hard drive but switching to a different IDE drive made no difference.
I just discovered the A8NSLI-Premium has a few bad capacitors after looking at them all using a flashlight. One is definitely leaking at the top-center of the can in between the bottom PCI slots. Another cap is bulging under the CPU but not yet leaking. The rest look OK, but I'm sure they are dying and have high ESR. Might be a fun project to replace them all and see if it resolves the issues. Kind of pointless due to the age of the system, but as an exercise in cap replacement and soldering it would be a good learning/skill improvement thing to do for not a lot of money. I've been getting back into electronics tinkering/building lately so it holds a lot of interest even if the practicality isn't there.
 
signa said:
That's pretty cool. I miss my old M170, it was a beautiful machine. I ended up selling it to a friend a few years ago. I'm surprised your gtx7800 is still working after all these years. Mine died literally right out of warranty and I ended up replacing that with a 6800gtx which also didn't last very long and was replaced with a ATI x600 which is still working but with some dead pixels.
Click to expand...
I didn't use this machine a whole lot. I think that's why the video card hasn't died yet. I played a few games (Dungeon Siege, WoW, maybe a couple others) on it but it didn't get much of a workout. It still looks pretty much brand new and still has the clear protective plastic sheeting on the outside top cover. I always had a desktop gaming system, so the laptop was really an impulse buy from visiting SlickDeals too much. :)
IMG_3613_crop-1600.jpg

The only thing I don't like about it is the keyboard... it feels small. They could have had a larger keyboard in that chassis.
 
Azrak said:
The single core definitely gets overwhelmed on busy web pages with lots of ads. For example, cnn.com. So many connections and stuff going on that it pauses the browser for a few seconds.
Maybe it's not really practical, but to have a supported OS with constant updates is kind of nice.
Click to expand...
Same experience I am having. I have to use Firefox with script/3rd party tracking blocked because Edge is too laggy on the slow CPU.
 
Azrak said:
The single core definitely gets overwhelmed on busy web pages with lots of ads. For example, cnn.com. So many connections and stuff going on that it
bigdogchris said:
Same experience I am having. I have to use Firefox with script/3rd party tracking blocked because Edge is too laggy on the slow CPU.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

You might try PaleMoon Browser. Based on firefox, but optimized and has the developer stuff removed so It's supposed to be faster. Pair that with uBlock Origin adblocker.
 
pxc said:
Do you notice any difference in speed vs Windows 7?
Click to expand...
I never had Windows 7 on this machine, so I cannot compare. I directly installed Win 10 from DVD, overwriting Windows XP Media Center edition in the process. Sorry.
 
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