RAM requirements

[ICIT2LOL]

Have finally got an oldish Compaq SR5540AN sorted out - RAM was shot in one stick and I think the onboard graphics is dead however a spare HD 5450 (silent) card has got me back the graphics.

Now I am thinking maybe I can just update the driver for the on board but the Vista on the HDD is trashed and although I have it running in Ubuntu I cannot download the NVidia driver.

So if my mate can afford it I shall stick on 7 now as he is short on cash I have only been able to get 3GB RAM back in will the 64 bit OEM work with that much? I have tried Googling but I know I can get a decent and succinct answer here. Then I can download that driver and maybe save the cost of the HD 5450.

He is only a casual browser (Ebay Facebook etc) and emailer so no heavy gaming and I would prefer to flip in the 64bit if possible.

I think this machine is worth saving as it is running like lightning in Ubuntu

 

[Golden]

With 3GB RAM its probably better off with x86.

Regards,
Golden

 

[TanyaC]

I actually have a PC running W7 x64 Ultimate Sp1 with 3 x 1gb DDR3-1600 sticks and it works perfectly. The Mobo is a EX58-UD3R (Has triple channel RAM support), and an I7-920 CPU.

After booting it uses 24 % of the memory, not that that really means much.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Thanks to you both.

Well I will have a yarn to my mate and see what he wants to do.

Just for info the CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 x2 @2.8Ghz and the motherboard a MCP61-HM (dual slot) which I think supports 64bit - the documentation is very sketchy on this one as it shows it as having four RAM slots when this one is dual slot as mentioned above.

I do have some 4GB sticks but am loathe to use either if that 3GB will run the 64bit. I am just trying to save him some money as the RAM that is in now was recycled from old machines but these are bought sticks.

However once I can get a Windows OS onboard maybe it will mean I can perhaps get the onboard graphics going (update the driver) and save the cost of that card and just charge for the 4GB RAM stick price??.

 

[3D Jed]

Why not download the official iso, 32 + 64 bit from the many legit links on this forum. Install without serial gives you 30 days to test it out - then if ok, buy a copy.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Why not download the official iso, 32 + 64 bit from the many legit links on this forum. Install without serial gives you 30 days to test it out - then if ok, buy a copy.

Hum thats a cracking idea Jed

 

[essenbe]

It will work fine, John. I just installed Windows 7 X64 on a friend's laptop with 2GB DDR2 of ram. Yes, it would do better with more ram, but it runs fine. He says it runs better now than it ever did.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

Windows Ultimate ran fine on an atom n455 (singlecore, hyperthreaded to 2 virtual cores, 1.66 Ghz) with 1 Gb with MSE as antivirus.
Firefox (or chrome) did fill up most of the RAM though (a hundred MB left), so it wasn't exactly the best for multitasking, but could run firefox and open office at the same time with some lag (maybe because of the processor).

My previous rig (the one I posted specs for here, not exactly my own rig, but anyway) was pretty good with 2 GB of Ram and a top-of-the-line Pentium D.

As you can imagine, both were just an experiment to see if there was performance differences between the various editions of Windows 7, taking advantage of the 30 day trial period and the ability to rearm them a few times (I don't have any Ultimate key, and even if I had one I'd not waste it on a netbook or a crappy pentium D on a mobo with only an AGP x8 slot).
The netbook now runs awesome with more than half the ram free with Linux Mint 14 and then 15, the other PC got sold with a 7 Home Premium I think... Don't really know.

 

[whs]

I ran Win7 32bit on a 3GB system for years. Ran fine.

But how about another idea - try Linux Mint Mate. That's for free and my preferred Linux distro. Here are a few tutorials I made which may get you started.

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=475A0A48CA6D4035&id=475A0A48CA6D4035%211856

Right click on the Skydrive icon and download the PDF control sheet. From there you can access the individual tutorials.

 

[Layback Bear]

I still have 3 gigs of DDR-2 on a Windows 7/64. No problems.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok thanks folks I'll dothe64bit one I can always slip one of th 4GB sticks in if necessary and like I said he is a great user of gaming and stuff.



Still I would like to know why this machine suddenly crashed like that as it was one I refurbed about 18 months ago and it just turned on like that one morning. But he is going to be better off with 7 and hey I might just treat him to an early birthday present