4GB Gets Cheap: 9 Dual-Channel Kits Compared. DDR2 SDRAM prices began dropping significantly last summer as the world prepared for DDR3-only Core i7 platforms, culminating in today’s ultra-low-priced, four-gigabyte dual-channel kits. For as little as $25, users of this older technology can step up to memory levels that had been reserved for only the upper echelon of last-year’s buyers.
Who needs 4.0 GB RAM? At these prices, does it really matter? Most systems eventually get clogged up with rarely used programs such as second or third instant messengers, redundant spyware blockers, and other once-useful tools that have become parasites while users, still mindful of the program’s former effectiveness, often don’t want to bother removing. The accumulation of junk can affect any operating system.
does it really matter what PC subcategory of memory i get as long as it's DDR2 dual channel or not it would still be compatible with my motherboard right?
My friend & I is having some problems with our ram. We both have 4 gb, he's laptop shows 2.54gb ram availible. (Under System information) And mine shows the same amount, sometimes. What can course this? I'm running Vista Ultimate x64, and he's running Vista Home Premium x86. [A little side question. When a motherboard supports Dual Channel ram, does the ram have to be dual channel for it to run DC? And (if I have 2 ram dimms) do I put 1 in DIMM A1 and one in A2, or A1 and B1 ?]
I own an Alienware Area-51 7500-R5 gaming desktop. I am upgrading to Windows Vista Ultimate x64. I am thinking to upgrade the RAM to 8GB. The only issue is that my system does not support Dual Channel RAM cards. Do they sell single channel RAM cards? I can't seem to find any. Another problem as well, I did a Crucial Memory Scan and it read: Maximum Memory Supported: 4096MB. Does this refer to that I cannot go over 4096MB because of my system or because of the Operating System I am running. I am running Windows XP Pro 32bit. I know 32bit can only process 4GB of RAM or 4096MB of RAM. But does the memory scan refer to the Operating System limit or how much my system can handle overall. When I bought it Alienware said I could do plenty of upgrades on it.
After months of flawless performance my WMC is acting up on one TV channel and I can't figure out why. The only change recently was that I enabled the DVD Library to be displayed with a registry hack as per a seemingly reliable article I read. This is only happening the first time after I boot. I call up WMC and go to the TV Guide. If I select Channel 50 (only) it will not tune in and I get a screen that says "Cannot Play Program" "The channel may not be supported. If you cannot tune to any other channel, restart WMC or restart the computer, then try again"
If I then use the guide to go down or up one channel they play OK and returning to ch50 - it then plays fine. Very odd. The registry tweak was, I realised afterwards, unnecessary as I'm not using this machine as a media center anyway and I'm not sure what the original setting was.
After installing VISTA, all I get for Sound options is 2 channel Stereo Sound. The Settign in the Sound devices only allow me to select a 2 speaker setup. what good is 5.1 if VISTA wont let me use em!?
I just read on another thread that my Phenom may not support triple channel. Does this mean we can't have 3 2GB sticks in the slots and we should get one more to even things up? (we had originally bought a 3 pack and I don't know if we can buy a single stick of that type here). I then read that having 4 sticks of DDR3 in can cause problems too - now I don't know what to believe
My computer is new and it used to into the sleep mode. Now it says that there is something wrong with the ATA Channel 1 and the drivers may need updated. I am not sure what to do and I don't want to turn my computer off each night and I also don't want to download something harmful that I am not even sure what it is.
I have Vista Home Premium. I have two Hauppauge 1600s and a Nvidia 8600GTS. I have been receiving all my local digital OTA channels just fine since getting this machine 6 months ago, and now suddenly the local CBS affiliate, channel 4.1, is gone. Just gone. Dead. I get nothing but the No TV Signal blue screen. When I go to settings and check the digital signal strength, it is totally dead. The dreaded red bar. All other channels come in at six green bars, just like 4.1 did until this past monday.
I have tried re-setting up the guide, I have tried recording one digital channel while trying to view 4.1 to check if it's just tuner 1. Both times I get the blue screen. I then took the cable out of one of the tuner cards and ran it directly into my TV and the signal comes in almost perfectly. Why is the signal suddenly gone on just one channel?
While being satisfied by the cool effects and new interface of Windows Vista Codename Longhorn, many of us testers are what you would call "gamers." The lot of us would like to know if gaming on the default Vista Supplemental drivers would mean loss of graphics quality compared to using up to date drivers on a XP OS. For example, I installed Vista and then installed my trusty game, Battlefield 2. I tried using the new nvidia Vista drivers but the game kept crashing when I start it up. So I reinstalled the Vista Supplemental drivers and it happened to work. Quite interesting. I am able to run the game on default vista drivers and not the nvidia vista drivers. Coming to conclusion, would using the vista drivers result in loss of quality and graphics compared to using up to date drivers on a XP system? Or you can also rephrase it; Would gaming be better on the Vista Beta or XP? Does anyone know if SLI works on Vista?
A friend of mine has been locked out of his Dell laptop and cannot find the password for the single account that it has. The laptop has Vista Ultimate installed on it and I am unable to activate the hidden administrator's account to get into Vista. Other investigations using other software shows only 2 accounts, Administrator and Guest but not the actual user single account that shows up onto the login screen. ( I have managed to blank out the Administrator and Guest passwords ) I have a standard Vista Recovery Disk , but I am unable to either repair or re-install Vista from the Dell hidden partition , and the only alternative is to install a unused retail version of Vista Home Premium that my friend has been given awhile ago. I have 2 questions
1) Is the Vista Ultimate user account passwords located in a different place as compared to other versions of Vista?
2) if I install this retail version of Home Premium on the Dell laptop, will I have problems with the propriety hardware that is on the Dell laptop and would I need to find all the Dell drivers for the laptop?
Sound functions but reciever is only detecting 2 channel output. Apon browsing RealTekHD audio properites I discovered that the only options for Digital Output(RCA) were all 2-Channel under "Default Format" tab. However my front pannel Audio Output Jack(HD Audio 2nd Output) has an extra third tab labeled "Speaker Configuration" and has options for up to 7.1 surround but these settings do not impact my Digital Output(RCA) channel. Now my reciever does have a multi-channel input that could take advantage of the Analog Outputs in the rear but the distance is to great and multiple wires are expensive.
I wanted my computer do dual-boot with XP, so i made a new partition called F, and then i ran the XP CD and installed in F the CD. But now, when booting, it only shows Windows XP Professional. Have i accidentally formatted my VIsta? Because my programs from Vista are still there.
I just purchased a machine with a 64 bit OEM. I have created another partition because I want to install 32 bit on there. However, it is not working so I was wondering if there was something I am not doing right here. I want to use the 32 bit for internet access and itunes and the 64 bit for gaming. I do not have any discs with the 64 bit OS on it either everything I have here is 32 bit.
Can I partition my HD to two partitions, Install my copy of winXP pro on both (its only on one comouter so that shouldnt violate anything) and then upgrade one of them to vista using an upgrade disk? Will both windows work fine?
I have Vista Home Premium on C:. There are a few programs that won't run under Vista, and I've read that dual booting in easy under Vista. I have a spare drive so I'm wondering, can I mount the spare drive and install XP on it and use it to dual boot?
I already have a running vista 64bit on drive C: Earlier tonight I popped in vista 32bit hoping to install it on D: (separate physical drive) which had an Xp pro on it that i want to get rid off. When I chose to install the x86 vista on D: it all went smooth. the pc restarted and I saw the new title on the boot page. after that, as it was finishing up the installation, it asked me to "start" vista after the welcome page so i did, and there it happened.
suddenly the pc restarted and I would continuously from that point get a message on reboot saying "vista loader" and under it "fall back" and finally "boot failed!" I tried reloading the dvd and repairing but that didnt work. as a result the pc wont go in my original 64bit or the 32bit. finally, i had to overwrite the freshly installed 32bit with a fresh installation of the 64bit on drive D: which gave me access to my original 64bit on C: at least.
I have a pc running win xp media centre mp pc is dual core amd 64 bit 5200+ 2gb ram nvidia pcie 256mb graphics my hard disk is partitioned and xp is installed on the first partition I am trying to install Vista ultimate 64 bit on the second partition.
The vista installation will not complete I get an error when it is completing setup, saying that the pc shut down before installation was completed & the installation can not continue. The pc works fine under XP, are there any known installation issues with a Vista XP dual boot system?
I first had Windows Vista installed on my "C:/" disk. After that I immediately installed Windows XP on my "F:/" disk. Remember that "F:/" is an whole other drive then the "C:/" drive! So all this went well without trouble. But then, as soon as I rebooted my PC I couldn't boot into Windows Vista and only Windows XP worked. Guess what; The bootsector of Windows Vista was either damaged or missing, I restored it using the 'restore-bootfiles' function from the Windows Vista DVD.
After doing so, I restarted my PC again, now Windows Vista worked fine but Windows XP didn't. The reason for this is kinda logical, Windows Vista uses another BootLoader than Windows XP does. The BootLoader of Windows Vista recognizes Windows XP but that's not the same the other way around. So basically it should work with the needed configuration. For (*trying to set up*) setting up a Dual Boot I used EasyBCD 1.7, but it simply isn't working. I made the following entries:
There are a total of 5 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader. Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds. Default OS: Microsoft Windows Vista....
I have an HP 7763w PC, which came with Vista. It has that vertical bay in the tower front for a backup (or portable?) drive, that can be popped in and out easily. I really would like to have XP on my machine again, but am a little concerned about changing the main HD, or making a partition on it, fearing unforeseen problems. Can I install it on the BU drive? Or what would be a good way to be able to boot into either OS at my choice?
From what I am told Vista Ultimate's retail packages come with both 32 and 64 bit in the box. Is it possible to have these concurrently installed as a dual boot, or would they conflict with eachother. What if I were do do it on separate physical drives, disconnecting the other one before each install so that they don't detect eachother?
im trying to dual boot windows xp and windows vista when i start up my computer there was a screen that asked which OS i wanted to run and i had 2 options "Earlier Version of Windows" (WIndows XP) and "Microsoft Windows" (Windows Vista) But now my computer boots directly to vista without even asking me which OS i wanted to run. People are saying that Vista overwrote my MBR (master boot record) and now i have to modify the bcdedit.
Application compatibility remains one of the most annoying issues for Windows Vista users. The ability to upgrade the software to a new Vista compatible version is not always an option. The company that developed the application may no longer be around or the cost to upgrade is too high.  In my case, I have a lot of classic PC games that will not run at all under Windows Vista no matter how I configure the compatibility options. In order to play my old games I need to install Windows XP. However, I am not exactly ready to give up all of the advances in Windows Vista just so that I can play my old games once in a while. The answer is to dual boot Windows Vista and XP.
Dual booting Windows XP and Vista on the same computer will allow you to select from a boot menu what operating sytem you want to run. This menu is shown right after you power on your computer. Setting up both Windows XP and Vista on one computer can be a little ticky depending what operating system you have installed first. Â The next two sections will help you configure both versions on your computer, depending on what OS you have installed first:
Windows XP is installed
If you want to dual boot XP and Vista and XP is already installed on your computer you will not have to do much work to dual boot vista. Just boot to your Windows Vista install DVD, select a custom install and install Vista on a separate partition or physical drive than where XP is installed. This will leave your XP install intact and automatically install a boot menu with both XP and Vista listed.
Windows Vista is installed
If you were like me and compley reformatted your hard drive and wiped out XP when you installed Vista, your setup is going to be a little more complicated. Follow these steps:
Boot up your computer with a Windows XP install CD and install Windows XP to a different partition or physical drive than where Vista is installed. When the setup is finished, your computer will automatically boot into Windows XP. Don’t worry, Windows Vista is still on your computer if you correctly installed XP to a different partition or physical drive.  When you installed XP, the Vista Boot Manager was replaced by the Windows XP boot components. The Vista Boot Manager needs to be fixed by using the Windows Vista install DVD. Boot your computer to the Windows Vista install DVD , click Next on the regional settings screen and then click on Repair your computer in the lower left of the window. Select your Windows Vista install and then run the Startup Repair. This will fix the Windows Boot Manager and Vista will once again startup automatically....
I have 2 SATA 200gb hard drives and one is running vista premium and the other has nothing on it. I wanted to try the windows 7 so can I just install the windows 7 on my other HD and when I shut down my PC will it ask what HD operating system do I wnat to run? Is this how it works?
I have recently installed a ATI Radeon HD 4670 into my computer, I downloaded the latest ATI Catalyst driver from the ATI website and it installed the latest driver for both of the video cards, after it restarted I get this error message in the device manager for the ATI Radeon HD 4670:
Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)
I checked in the device manager and it says it has the same wddm driver version for both devices, I have tried installing many times but it continues to presist, is this a Windows Vista or ATI issue? Is there anything I can do to fix it?
