PC just for internet. question?

[daywane]

I had my largest PC on the internet.
2.6 gig CPU
512 meg PC 2100
80 gig hard drive

well long story ... short.. that PC crashed HARD

I will fix it but I really see no since of my best PC on the internet.
I hated when we were burning DVDs and not being able to get on the web.

SO... I am not PC poor. at this moment I have a
700 mghrtz
256 meg memory
60 gig hard drive
(I am on a slow dial up 28k)
xp pro

do I need that much memory for the web?
64 meg to small?
126? meg maybe? ( I do have the cards.)

also 60 gig HD seems a bit much. next smallest I have is a 10 gig
HD

I wish to use the more power for my Mame cabs.

I do not see a large drop in speed of web pages loading now from the PC I had

[_Iz-]

I wouldn't recommend running XP with anything less than 512 meg ram. You can get away with 256 but you will get quite a bit of HDD thrashing. Completely forget about anything less than 256 unless you're willing to make sacrifices and do some serious optimization.

[SirPoonga]

OR swap harddrives so you can still use your big pc?

[AtomSmasher]

I will fix it but I really see no since of my best PC on the internet.
I hated when we were burning DVDs and not being able to get on the web.

I have no idea what your saying here, but I think I understand the overall question.  If you want the minimal functional computer to get on the web, I'd say install windows 98, I'd recommend 128 megs of ram and 10 gig drive.  If you must have win XP installed then I'd say the absolute minimum ram is 256, but it would run a fair amount slower then if it had 512, as Iz said.

700mhz proc., 256 meg ram, 10 gig harddrive, and windows 98 and you should be good to go.

[mrhowell]

I support hundreds of computers running xp and service pack 2 with 128 mb ram.  It's not real bad.  But  if you have it, you will be much happier with 256 or 512. 

[DrewKaree]

dawayne, from your disjointed post it seems Kentucky is the perfect place for you   You're fine.  Throw that 10 gigger in there, pull that 60 gig, and screw using all your memory - leave it as is, try 128 if you wish.  I seriously doubt you're going to sites that require fistfuls of memory to surf the web.

You prolly don't even need all THAT in there.  My kids have a 450 MHz with 128 Mb RAM and a 4 Gb hard drive.  Surfing the web and checking their e-mail?  Works fine.

NO ONE has addressed that your 28.8 speed while ON the net is the bottleneck in your system.  I'd go so far as to say you wouldn't notice the difference in more memory except that pages wouldn't be drawn in pencil anymore