I do wish you had a second machine available to download the Drivers and Antivirus to CD for easier transfer to your freshly formated and installed operating system. But you should be fine navigating only to the sites linked below for Drivers and AntiVirus.
In my opinion, the best way to get this particular machine running properly is to
- completely wipe/format the hard drive
- Install XP SP2 from original Microsoft or manufacturer CD
- manually configure your dial-up connection
- Install Drivers from fresh download from manufacturer's site
- ****Audio - Realtek AC'97 Audio Driver Update
- ****Graphics - Via/S3G UniChrome IGP Driver Update
- ****Spring 2004 Original Chipset Driver Collection
- Avira Antivirus
Here's the link for your Drivers:
http://h10025.www1.h...r...539&lang=en
Here's the link for your free Avira Antivirus download:
http://download.cnet...cdlPid=11012914
After accomplishing the above, you will have some use of the machine, but not all of your familiar applications and utilities.
It won't initially seem to be as much fun and versatile, but we are establishing a base machine from which you can build back the applications that you like to use.
You will be able to access the internet and get a general sense of how the machine is functioning.
You will not yet have ability to watch streaming content, nor interact with gaming and such.
But I would not want the machine to be doing so at this time anyway.
Post back here when you have the above accomplished.
I will then give you a link and instructions for a thorough machine and system performance measure.
Best Regards