Taking the plunge.

[ViolentJ]

Possibly a stupid decision but we'll see... I've ordered Vista Home Premium 64bit along with 4GB memory (2x 2GB).

To keep the Mrs sweet I've ordered her a cheap Athlon X2 Dual Core 3600+ (£24 would you believe?) which she can have with the 2x 1GB I'll take out of my machine, my old X2 rated heatsink+fan and my old motherboard. She's currently running an Athlon 2500+ and 1GB which frustrates her at times, so hopefully she won't kill me for spending a few quid lol

I read somewhere about potential problems installing Vista with 4GB and to remove 2GB of that and put it back in after installation. Is there any truth in that?

I should add that this was kind of an accident. I was seeing what things would come to on overclockers with shipping, not realising my card details had been saved from my last order and I accidentally placed the order lol

 

[Gareth]

yes, but its not as easy as that, you need to install Vista with 2GB, install a patch, then insert the full 4GB. I'll see if I can find the patch online for you.

 

[ViolentJ]

Sounds like a bit of a f**k up! Cheers mate.

 

[Gareth]

This is the hotfix from microsoft that fixes issues with Vista 64bit and 4gb of RAM or more.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777

Installing Steps

Download Hotfix from link above
Install hotfix once done downloading
When it is done installing DONT restart, go to Start>Shut Down
Once your computer if powered down, turn off you PSU and unplug it just in case
Place the extra RAM sticks into slots on your motherboard
Close your case, plug in, turn on, boot up...cross fingures.
Hope this helps everyone having problems with Vista 64bit and 4gb of RAM!

Total fcuk up, agreed.

 

[ViolentJ]

Thanks a lot

 

[David]

yeah happens on some systems not all though, i had to do it on mine, was not best impressed. on a differnt note, vista 64 is surpisingly good. not had any driver issues at all. only 1 thing about it, viewing thumbnails of movies using avi files....thats is so far, good luck with your build!

 

[ViolentJ]

The vista upgrade advisor reckons I'll only have issues with my wireless card but I've checked and there is a vista driver available now so hopefully I won't have any problems.

The Mrs hasn't killed me, looks like the thought of an upgrade worked We're one of those geeky couples with a pc each heh

 

[KDF]

Possibly a stupid decision but... I've ordered Vista

Possibly ?

 

[ViolentJ]

Just trying to keep up with the times. No doubt XP users will have to upgrade at some point.

 

[KDF]

Newer != better

 

[ViolentJ]

As it went so well with the Mrs I've sneakily ordered an 8800GT 512MB as well and Crysis so I've got something to do whilst I'm offline (moving house)

 

[Gareth]

Cyrsis is ace.

 

[ViolentJ]

I liked the demo of Crysis but I chose to buy COD4 last time.

 

[Lee]

I went through all that with Vista 64. At the time there was a problem with 4gb machines and USB ports on boards with nforce chipsets!! That really got on my tits.

 

[ViolentJ]

This board uses an ATI chipset and came with a Vista driver CD, so fingers crossed the install will go smoothly.

 

[ViolentJ]

Well I did it.

4GB installed and a 512MB 8800GT along with Vista 64bit Home Premium. I had a January build and as it installed fine with 4GB it looks like they've sorted the memory issue.

Account security is a bit of a c**k up and was switched off within seconds. Had random frustrating boot problems in that after the bar vanished during boot it would sometimes stop there. Monitor would go to sleep and I've have to hard reset. Touch wood the updates (SP1 doesn't seem to be available to me yet) seem to have fixed this issue.

Having problems getting dual monitors working, not sure if that Vista or the 8800GT but currently my 2nd screen is sitting doing nothing

Other than that things seem to be going ok.

 

[seb]

3d mark score? glad it all went well too with the build!

I feel the need to upgrade my pc too lol altohugh i really only use my laptop for surfing...

8800 on release with 2gb ram and a AMD 4600+ with XP....

long time no speak sidog!

 

[ViolentJ]

Can't be arsed with 3D Mark tbh mate. As long as everything is running smoothly I'm happy. Been without net access for weeks (moved house)! This is day 1 back online and it's a little choppy, hopefully it will stabilise soon.

 

[Mike_182]

Possibly a stupid decision but we'll see... I've ordered Vista Home Premium 64bit along with 4GB memory (2x 2GB).

To keep the Mrs sweet I've ordered her a cheap Athlon X2 Dual Core 3600+ (£24 would you believe?) which she can have with the 2x 1GB I'll take out of my machine, my old X2 rated heatsink+fan and my old motherboard. She's currently running an Athlon 2500+ and 1GB which frustrates her at times, so hopefully she won't kill me for spending a few quid lol

I read somewhere about potential problems installing Vista with 4GB and to remove 2GB of that and put it back in after installation. Is there any truth in that?

I should add that this was kind of an accident. I was seeing what things would come to on overclockers with shipping, not realising my card details had been saved from my last order and I accidentally placed the order lol

Send the OS back for 32-bit. Unless you're running >5Gb RAM then the additional overhead of a 64-bit OS is going to detract from the performance of the machine.

 

[ViolentJ]

It seems to be running fine with 4GB...