Socket A

[Timotheus]

I have an old 'socket A' Asus A7V880 motherboard with an AMD Sempron 2600+ chip that I was contemplating upgrading to W7. However, when I run the W7 upgrade advisor on that particular machine I only get a 32 bit result, no reference anywhere to 64 bit. I presume that means that this set of kit can't run 64 bit windows.

So far I can't discover if it is the processor, the motherboard or something else that is the limiting factor.

Can anyone answer my question, please?

 

[FearisFailure]

Are you running a 64 bit Operating System now? XP? Vista?

 

[bobkn]

I have no personal experience with anything older than Socket 939.

However, it appears that there are no Socket A (aka Socket 462) CPUs that include the 64 bit extensions.

If you had Socket 754, some CPUs for that were 64 bit, and some were not.

Aside from the X64 issue, it appears that Asus doesn't offer 32 bit drivers for the A7V880 for OSes newer than XP. I'm not sure how convenient it will be to switch to Win7 X86 with that 2004 mainboard.

 

[Timotheus]

XP home 32 bit but on every other pc I checked out I got both 32 & 64 bit report pages despite also having 32 bit o/s on those.

 

[Timotheus]

I have no personal experience with anything older than Socket 939.

However, it appears that there are no Socket A (aka Socket 462) CPUs that include the 64 bit extensions.

If you had Socket 754, some CPUs for that were 64 bit, and some were not.

Aside from the X64 issue, it appears that Asus doesn't offer 32 bit drivers for the A7V880 for OSes newer than XP. I'm not sure how convenient it will be to switch to Win7 X86 with that 2004 mainboard.

Thanx bobkn. Decision made: that is 'game over'. I'm not really surprised given the age of the kit.

On the subject of socket 754, I checked out one such set up - an ASRock PCI-Express mobo with a Sempron 3000+ processor & it would support 64 bit W7 albeit needing an increase from the existing 1GB of DDR400.

 

[FearisFailure]

I have no personal experience with anything older than Socket 939.

However, it appears that there are no Socket A (aka Socket 462) CPUs that include the 64 bit extensions.

If you had Socket 754, some CPUs for that were 64 bit, and some were not.

Aside from the X64 issue, it appears that Asus doesn't offer 32 bit drivers for the A7V880 for OSes newer than XP. I'm not sure how convenient it will be to switch to Win7 X86 with that 2004 mainboard.

I just read that myself this particular Asus mother board does not support 64 bit. In my personnel opinion and from the testing I have done more main stream programs run a lot better on Windows 7 32 bit than 64 bit just a little food for thought. I would consider upgrading your board if you are dead set on 64 bit.

 

[pparks1]

Do you have 4GB of RAM or more on this box...leading to a need to actually use 64-bit versus 32-bit?

 

[Timotheus]

Thanks for the information, guys.

It's an old box in an ugly 'computer beige' case, the first I ever built for myself as a complete novice. It has been stood in a corner upstairs gathering dust while I continue to fail to find a use for it. The thought was to get a PCI RAID card (onboard raid on this mobo sucks - i.e. it doesn't work), add some more RAM, update the OS to W7 64bit and turn it into a server.

Clearly that ain't gonna happen, so I'll continue trying to find a use for it...

Meanwhile next to look at is the A-Bit NF8-V socket 754 mobo - again with a Sempron 3000+ processor.

 

[ickymay]

maybe win 2003 server might work well ?

 

[Timotheus]

maybe win 2003 server might work well ?

Aye it possibly would: I hadn't thought of doing that. However a quick look on line suggests that for what I'd have to spend on W2003Server plus the hardware mentioned above I could build a replica of my gaming rig and use that with W7 64bit!

 

[computersplus]

64 Bit

the socket A/462 CPU's were not 64 Bit, the CPU must be of 64 Bit architecture in order to use a 64 Bit OS

 

[zzz2496]

Whew, a Socket A mainboard... I have one of those too, and I don't bother upgrading it to Win7, since it'd be worthless... (I have Abit AT-7 Max 2 iirc, was the best at it's time...).

If you're building a storage server, DO NOT USE Windows (any kind of Windows for that matter) for it. Windows as storage = sucks beyond believe. You'd be better off with *nix family, they're leaner, faster, and by far more manageable. If you're building a storage server, I suggest you try OpenFiler or FreeNas, see which one fits. OpenFiler uses Linux kernel, so it will support much broader hardware than FreeBSD based FreeNAS, but FreeBSD network code is the speed demon of the network world. Both are VERY EASY to setup, deploy, and maintain, far easier than ANY version of Windows, and both are FREE.

One more thing, if you use either FreeNAS or OpenFiler, you can install the OS onto a flash based storage (high speed CF Card with a CF to IDE converter will work just fine), and use your harddisk(s) purely for storage, since the footprint of those OSes are below 2GB...

zzz2496