I am an absolute Nube here with Mach 3 and with CNC's in general, forgive me if ive posted in the wrong place, i did a search for this question and found nothing.

Ive read that the minimum 'ideal' CPU speed to run Mach 3 is 1Ghz, but what are the problems and realities of running Mach 3 on a machine running at only 800Mhz? Even if its running absolute bare services in the background, and dedicated to the job.

I have a reason for the question, the PC i have is perfect size wise for the physical installation i had in mind.

Any comments would be welcome.

Try and see is the only way.
Hood

Thanks for the reply, the problem i have, is the CNC is being custom built for me by a friend, and the PC i hoped to use is here with me. I was hoping to cut down on 'down time' by finding out if this PC will run the software in advance.

Install Mach, run the driver test, assuming you will be using the PP and not an external controller, if that looks good then open Mach and  load up  code and run and see if anything hangs or slows or whatever. If all looks fine then chances are it will be ok. No one will really be able to say it will definitely work or it wont, only way is to try.
If you will be doing a lot of 3D stuff then chances are you will need a faster processor but if its mainly simple 2.5D stuff then you may be fine.
I run two of my machines with Via Pico mobos, 1GHz,CPU with 1Gig RAM and they work very well, I do however use external controllers so a lot of the overhead has been taken away from the computer.
Hood

Hello Hood,
                This PC is the fanless, 12v VIA running at 800Mhz and the controller board is the parallel port TB6560. The job that this CNC will do is to mill printed circuit boards, maybe the odd bit of cutting and rarely simple small part machining.

My friend suggested running these tests, but being an absolute newbie (but i learn fast.. ) i couldnt find anything remotely like a test. Is this a seperate program to Mach 3?

John

Not sure if this info applies to your question but I run a little mill on an old Dell PIII 800 mhz loaded with W2000 Pro.  It's happy as a sand buoy and runs plenty fast for my needs.

From what I've read, I suspect you'll have more trouble with the TB6560 than you will with PC processor speed.

Oh yeah, Driver Test is in the Mach3 program folder.

Not sure if this info applies to your question but I run a little mill on an old Dell PIII 800 mhz loaded with W2000 Pro.  It's happy as a sand buoy and runs plenty fast for my needs.

From what I've read, I suspect you'll have more trouble with the TB6560 than you will with PC processor speed.

This is a little reassuring knowing you can do work on a PIII 800Mhz, ive never run the tests, basically because i didnt know where it was. Being a hardware guy (not software) i did a lot of looking on the TB6560 and i read of some of the problems, major one was timing issues and the solution i understand. My friend who is custom building this CNC is a well experienced guy in this field, and in fact runs 2 mills with this hardware.

An earlier test last week, not a good video though.... http://youtu.be/93vt0VG1dns

The machine he has adapted is the Proxxon MF70 and unless im mistaken, which i often am..i feel confident that this is a simple start to the world of CNC, but feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.