For windows 7 on an xps m1530

Currently, I had to have dell fix/ replace my motherboard/ gfx card and the HDD as both died on me. Since I was unable to recover data from the other harddrive I was thinking about upgrading to windows 7. Though unsure if it was worth it for me to bother with the 64 bit version thus sticking with the 32 bit if upgrading at all.

As when I was reading up on it, I noticed that the reason 32 bit OS reserve that extra .5 gb of 4 gb was for I/O or some other reason. So What I am wondering is if I installed the windows 7 64 bit version, would it allow my processor to touch the reserved/ unaddressable section of the ram ( the .5 gb of 4 gb of ram I have installed windows doesn't recognized. In vista it recognized only 3.5 gb of it.)

Or will that .5 of the 4 gb ram installed still be reserved for the same reason. Normally I use this computer for any pc games I have (mostly source engine things), some photo editing with photoshop cs2, 3d modeling for source engine, and map creation for the source engine. Besides average college use of taking notes, and typing up essays.

Besides wondering which bit version (x86/32 bit vs x64/64 bit) I should install if any, does anyone know any issues the xps m1530 has had with windows 7 as I don't know of any conflicting software I use right now. Though I have only been using 32 bit os on my old systems including the laptop.

Thanks in advance.

 

Most (if not all) software that works in Vista works in W7. That being said, if your processor can run a 64bit OS having would allow you to use all 4GB of RAM and more if you chose to add more.

 

I installed 7 64bit.... put in another gig of ram and I wouldn't turn back..runs like a new machine....drivers were easy to find ....cheers!!!

 

Just go 64bit. Theres really no issues with it, it's not 'new' anymore really. You should be able to get all of your ram, but you may need to flip some bios settings (although I doubt it, it should just work)

 

Nothing to change in the BIOS. Just install the 64 bit version.

My 1530 came with Vista x64 and 4GB RAM. Mine runs great with Win 7 x64.

Download and unzip the x64 network and WiFi 64 bit drivers from Dell before you start and put them on a CD or thumb-drive.

There are pages and pages here about upgrading to Win 7, but I did not read all that. I had the factory "Dell" folder from my Vista x64 on a thumb-drive so I could get the network and WiFi cards up and working. After that I did all the rest online. Stuff like the camera software, Ricoh and Intel drivers, etc. can be pulled down once you are online. I used no factory disks, except for the Roxio software after everything else was done.

Besides the Dell drivers, the only thing that I found that I really needed to do for Win 7 was to install a newer version of UPEK's fingerprint software and also use the latest nVidia drivers for Win 7 from their website.

 

K main issue I had was if it was going to use the extra .5 gb it couldn't really touch before using 32 bit vista but that pretty much solves any issue I had with getting 64 bit.

In relation to gunned's post, thing is from what I checked online the m1530's motherboard can only support 4 gb of ram max. Thus 4 gb would be what I would be using. If I found it could be upgraded I would think about it, though its probably not that necessary to do.

 

The latest bios supports 8 GB of ram instead of the previous maximum of 4..there are some members here that are running 8GB as we speak...


http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=316195

 

Hey Sonic!

I have a 1530, and installed Win 7/64 on it.....with really no probs other than a few drivers I needed to install myself.

This thread may be helpful to you:

M1530 & Windows 7 x64 Thread!

Prior to that I had Vista running..and wow..the change & improvement was simply amazing! I won't go back!!


Hope that helps.

Cin...

 

Still not sure if its worth the money for 8 gb of ram. As I do compile things occasionally for the source engine, though maps are the only thing that take a while. Which I'm not sure if hammer (the program used) is more processor or memory heavy, as my last computer to the m1530 was a large upgrade. As previously was just waiting till I started college (graduated highschool 2 years ago) to get a new computer. Old one was still running an agp radeon 9550 with 2 gb of ram, amd althlon 64 2.4 ghz. So I wasn't able to exactly tell which it drew more heavily on.

Currently have the 4 gb of ram in it, while its reinstalling 32 bit vista home premium back onto the HDD. While it doesn't seem people had that many issues with windows 7 on the m1530 I probably will go for it anyway.

 

I use a couple apps that can use the x64 OS and the extra RAM, so it's worth it to me. Also, I don't use a paging file.

A bigger performance upgrade would be an SSD, but they are not worth the expense to me just yet. I am sure I will be using a new laptop by the time I acquire an SSD.

 

I ended up installing 32 bit for now since it seems people are getting a lot of errors from the x64 version of windows 7. So basically have only a couple of questions left. On windows 7 32 bit I currently have an improved rating for memory, previously a 5.1 now a 5.9 for ram, be it only using 3.5 gb available, is it worth the issues for .5 gb of ram (even if it doesn't increase that score windows vista and 7 give your computer.) As over all everything improved from vistas score for each item.

In the xps m1530 with x64 windows 7 it appeared to have a lot of errors posted, were most of these during the earlier releases of windows 7 or are they still ongoing for most people?

As my friends with the x64 windows 7 had graphical issues it seemed, others have had games lke garry's mod crash upon changing settings.

Would the extra .5 gb of ram 32 bit can't use make much of a difference for gaming or overall computer use even?

As previously games have run perfectly fine in 32 bit for me, and I know steam is a 32 bit app, with it appearing most games being 32 bit also. Since if i do install 64 bit I might go with the 8 gb ram max but would cost me 200 dollars. Money I have but was tempted to save towards building a gaming desktop while at school (since if the laptop dies on me while at school pretty much screws me over a bulk of the time.)

 

I dont wanna opet new thread so....

I have big problems with my win7(32). A day or a two after I installed it it started lagging after a few hours of use.(mostly in web browsing) Lagg is so often that you cant surf normally. :S

I did a little research and found out that its the problem with sound driver and SigmaTel???? And this problem is draged from vista, but I didnt have any problems back on Vista. So someone suggested to uninstall sigmatel drivers and it actually worked... for a half a month. Now the lagging starts sometimes after an hour sometimes after 5 minutes and somethimes doesnt start at all.

Since you all say that win 7 works like a charm on M1530 i really feel the need to solve this.

thx

 

My personal Windows 7 experience it based on my M1530 and my wife's both running the 64 bit version.

They both work great, all the time. The only thing that is unstable is Safari on Lisa's machine. I don't use Safari.

I don't know anyone running x64 who has "lots of errors". There were issues during beta testing and as people figured out how to make the most of Windows 7. Those issues are all resolved, as far as I know.

For the audio drivers, try installing the most recent ones from Dell for Vista. They are the same for 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

How are you sure it's the audio drivers? Are you monitoring the temperatures, looking at the event logs, etc.? Generally, the audio drivers won't have anything to do with web browsing unless you browse pages with embedded audio.

 

temps are cooler than avreage m1530, and its not that. I googled a lot and find out that fact on few places. anyway sigmatel is not doing anything to make new drivers or to fix this problem, and actually they confirmed it. How ever this only starts if I play music in WMP. Any other program wont start lagging. So their solution is install some alternative player which is not acceptable to me.