A Note Re: Old PCs w/Obsolete CPUs

[sheepherder]

In the past month or so I've found I couldn't properly access a site that I've had no problem ordering books from [www.thriftbooks.com]. During a 'chat' session with their tech guy, he told me that they had just upgraded their software. I could access the site but not Search or order books any more. But Tethering my laptop to my S7 phone allowed me to Search and order.

I also found I couldn't access another site [www.automag.com] at all. I got the error message attached below. Members of that site's support forum told me that the site owner was just finished upgrading his site. And of course I could access it with my Tethered laptop.

With a bit of Google Searching I found that my problem was due to my having an obsolete PC with a Pentium III CPU, the Intel Tualatin-S 1.4gHz CPU. This CPU does not support the SSE2 Instruction Set, which many web sites now require. Including the two I couldn't access/order from.

I'm now transferring all my programs to a laptop running an Intel Core 2 CPU which does support SSE2 Instruction Set. Same browsers & O/S's and I now have access again.

I don't know if John D's upgrade here was to SSE2 required software but perhaps that is why some of us with old PCs and CPUs that don't support the instruction set are experiencing strange problems we didn't have before.

The Pentium 4 was the first Intel CPU that supported SSE2, so anything prior to that won't work on some sites and presumably their forums. I don't know the Athlon equivalent but SSE2 affects them as well.

No easy fix if your PC is like mine, which I built around 2000 and have upgraded as needed. But it's a Slot 1 motherboard and even with a SlotKit I can't put anything more current than the Tualatin-S in it. So I'm hooking this laptop up to a port replicator and migrating all my affairs to it.

And now I can access my favorite sites again. But I hate this laptop keyboard.