I finally got my new PC from DELL yesterday. An XPS 720 that I had customised somewhat, like boosting the graphics and upgrading memory.Cost me around £1500 - that's nearly 3K of your americum dollar!
4GB of dual channel memory it has, confirmed by looking in the BIOS, what does Vista report?
Vista tells me it has 3069 MB - I dunno where those last 3 MB went - but that's 3GB in my book.
WTF? I ring DELL support and I'm told (by someone in India that can barely speak English - don't start me on that!) that because it's dual channel it is over the capacity of Windows Vista to use or something.
Does anyone know what that means or whether it was just bullshit from DELL? How can I trust Vista to do 64 Billion calculations per second if it can't count past 3?
I've done a little research and it all talks about how 32-bit systems can only reference 4GB worth of memory addresses and they have to use some of the memory address for virtual memory devices or something, so they are unusable by the real-life actual physical fucking memory sticks that I paid extra fucking money for - Bastards! Or something equally as bollox! Anyone care to shed any light on that?
And if that is right why did DELL sell me a PC with Vista (Don't start me on that either - I WANTED XP!!!!!!!!!!!!!) a 32-bit operating system and 4GB of RAM if the OS can't fucking use it?
5 comments:
For the missing 1GB, see here .
Note that while contractual obligations with Microsoft may limit the choices in terms of what OS is shipped out of the factory, if you purchased Vista Ultimate you actually have the downgrade rights to run XP on it. For the most hassle-free downgrade I suggest you hook up with a friend of yours who bought an XP box from Dell last year and borrow his reinstallation DVD, as the Dell OEM media will install an already activated copy (Caveat to other readers, the Dell OEM disk will look for a Dell BIOS before installing...)
Note that if you purchased other Vista variants than business or ultimate, you're out of luck, premium for instance doesn't come with the downgrade rights.
And if that is right why did DELL sell me a PC with Vista (Don't start me on that either - I WANTED XP!!!!!!!!!!!!!) a 32-bit operating system and 4GB of RAM if the OS can't fucking use it?
Actually it will use 4GB, it's above that number that the RAM becomes useless for a 32-bit O/S. The fact that eg your graphic card monopolizes an important chunk of these 4GB, as explained in the link above, is due neither to Dell nor Microsoft, and you will actually have the same 1GB of RAM vanished under XP.
The solution to use your full 4GB is actually to upgrade your OS to Vista 64bits.
Which also explains why Dell will agree to sell you such a config in the first place - although I'll happily admit that a warning on the web configurator next to either the RAM and / or the graphics card would be nice.
Hello,
I happen to work for Dell and confirm the essence of the above comment.
I will suggest to the online team in charge of the web store to add a warning in regards to configs above 2GB RAM combined with 32-bit OSes.
While your configuration has all the power reserves it could need for a future upgrade to a 64-bit OS, I understand that this situation may still be unsatisfying. I am not in a position to act upon your issue directly, but would like to suggest you contact UK Customer Service within 10 days of receiving your XPS computer if you believe your order doesn't match your requirements.
Because they are tards, the same reason they sent me a 300 watt power supply when the graphics card they sent with it required atleast 450. Like he said, ya gotta upgrade to 64 bit, they should've stated then you ordered the machine... but this is dell.
Thanks guys.
Yep, my research suggested that if I had bought a 64 bit version of Pista (sic) that worst came to worst I could frig with the bios and set certain /PMA (can't remember exactly what stupid acronym it was) switches to swap the virtual memory settings above the 4GB limit and the OS would actually be able to read it. Or something like that!
Also, some motherboards can't even access anything above 3.5GB because then pins don't actually connect to anything - WTF??
I chose DELL because I have dealt with them in the past and they have superb customer service and a superb onsite warranty arrangement. I am pissed off though that they will sell you what you can't use ... grr ... :(
Just upgrade to Vista 64 dude, that'll sort it out. 32 bit apps are not able to address over 2gb's of ram (not sure how vista is reporting 3gb on yours though)
Provided of course that you have a 64bit CPU ;)
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