4GB RAM, forced to have 32-bit Vista? (long wall of text)!

Hi guys, I ordered my Studio 15 last week and it finally went into the production stage today. I've been browsing this site from the shadows for the past week and must say these forums have been extremely useful and a true test of my patience (the more I read, the worse the waiting becomes)! I only found out that it was shipping with a 32 bit OS after sending an enquiry to customer support. I said to myself that surely they wouldn't be stupid or evil enough to charge for 4GB memory and ship the 32-bit vista? I was wrong Rather than explain a long story, I'm just going to go ahead and post an email that I sent to Dell, which should explain everything, including how I feel.
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Dear Sir/Madam,
I sent a customer service query on the 26th of August and I still have had no reply. Not only have I not had a reply, but Dell have sent me two emails stating that they wish me to complete a survey regarding my satisfaction with their customer services!

I will paste my original query below, and expect a reply in the near future. I am already very dissapointed that it was not replied to the first time, and do not wish it to happen again as my patience is wearing thin:


I have purchased a Dell studio 15 laptop with 4GB RAM. To my utter disbelief I found out from a customer service representative that the operating system is Vista 32 bit, which cannot take full advantage of the 4GB RAM. I do not see the logic in advertising a laptop with 4GB RAM as its selling feature, only to load it with an operating system which cannot utilise all of the RAM. Why am I paying more money for more RAM if I cannot even use it?

I only found out this information after enquiring via email. I cannot believe that on the customisation page it does not state clearly that the operating system is the 32 bit version. I honestly got the impression that Dell were almost trying to 'trick' their customers! This is my first ever Dell laptop, having previusly owned a Toshiba and a Sony, and so far first impressions have not been good at all.

I contacted customer services earlier and cancelled my order that I made two days ago. I then spoke to a sales representative and asked if I could have the same laptop with the same specs but with the 64 bit operating system (which I was even willing to pay extra for). I was told over and over again that it could not be done, simply for the fact that it was not an option (when it should be the default option, considering the 4GB of RAM!!)

I was told by the representative that after I have received the laptop, I could purchase Windows Vista home premium 64 bit and load it on myself and it would take full advantage of the 4GB RAM (that I am paying extra for). I fail to see the point in ordering a laptop from Dell, (a company that custom makes laptops to people's specifications) if they cannot even install a 64 bit version of Vista on a laptop. Why should I pay extra for an operating system that should be loaded on the laptop in the first place? At the very least Dell should not mislead people by offering a 4GB RAM laptop, when it is clear that the 32 bit operating system will not fully support it.

I have spent many weeks looking for the perfect laptop for me, and after an hour on your site customised the perfect laptop for myself and for my budget. I therefore gave in and re-ordered my laptop today, with the 32 bit operating system, with no other option but to purchase seperately from another store the 64 bit windows vista home premium addition, an extra expense for myself, a student, who has already spent considerable time working and saving up for this laptop.

After having searched the internet I have found other websites expressing concerns over this very problem, one such example being from cnet, the technogolgy reviewers site; "Both the Studio 15 and 17 ship with Windows Vista 32-bit, meaning you'll never be able to make use of the total 4GB RAM included." There are many other examples that I have found, but I do not wish to waste my time making the same obvious point over and over again. I feel that this situation may warrant a complaint from myself to the Trading Standards Authority ( http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/index.cfm), under deceiving advertising of your product.

I apologise for writing so much, but I feel very strongly about this issue, and wanted to clearly address my point. I would personally like to have a 64 bit operating system installed on my laptop, but if that really really is impossible for Dell to do then I believe that Dell should provide me with a copy of the 64 bit windows vista home premium operating system sent to me seperately from my laptop. After all, why should I spend the extra money that goes to Dell for RAM that will not even be recognised by the one and only default operating system that comes with my laptop?

I understand that this email will probably have to be sent to higher levels of management.I also understand that whoever is reading this is probably a customer services representative and that this situation is in no way your fault. I would also like to point out that Dell's customer service has thus far been extremely good, the best customer service I have come across in any company and that it is a shame that this incident has occured.

At the very least, I believe that it should be stated clearly that the operating system on the configuration page is only a 32 bit system. Off course if this were to happen then no one would purchase the extra RAM, once again strongly suggesting to me that this is done on purpose to con people. I would honestly love for this to be untrue, but from my point of view, what other reason could there be? I would like to be proven wrong, for I did not think that something like this would occur when a highly respected, international company like Dell is involved.

I thank you very much for both your time and understanding, and hope to hear from you soon,

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Sorry if anyone's eyes are bleeding after being battered by that wall of text!

So far I've had no response apart from being told over and over again that they cannot ship me the 64-bit OS, even though I'm willing to pay extra for it!

I've given up now and have decided to install 36 bit vista home premium myself. I just have a few questions about that:

1.) If I go to this site: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx

Can I order a copy of Vista 64 bit (home premium) for a lower fee than buying a new version?

2.) In the unlikely event that I want to keep some of the bloat wear could i some how install it on to the 64 bit OS?

3.) I have copies of word, excel and one note e.t.c. for my current xp OS. Will these work on the 64 bit vista?

Finally, it seems to be tradition on here to post the specs of each person's eagerly anticipated laptop, so here's mine:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 Cache)

4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]

Internal English Qwerty Backlit Keyboard

256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450

320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1- English

Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive including Software

Primary 9-cell 85 WHr Lithium Ion battery

Topo Pattern Design with Red U Trim

15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™

Biometric Fingerprint Reader

I once again apologise for such a heavy introductory first post, and thanks in advance for those of you that somehow managed to read all of that and respond to help me.

Magi

 

Well, I'm pretty sure that the 32-bit key you received also works for 64-bit, as long as you don't have both activated.

 

Thanks for the response. Well at least thats one particular point I can relax about .

 

Don't quote me on this but I'm sure Vista 32 SP1 can see all 4GB.

 

Yeah I read that somewhere too. But as far as I know that was just an update Microsoft included to show the actual RAM hardware amount. I still believe it does not make full use of all 4GB though. You could say it was a way to make people who didn't know any better to stop complaining?

 

Don't think so.

Don't think so.

 

I know so, it does, remembering that particular key will only work on 1 machine.

 

5 Months ago when I was building my own desktop, I was researching that very topic, granted I only researched it for a few days, but all I heard was no, you can't, which led me to buy the 64 bit separately

 

Windows will see all 4gb so you don't think you got jipped on the amount of memory you actually got, however, it will not use all 4gb because the operating system itself is actually the limiting factor.

 

I would call them instead of e-mailing. It may cause you a little more frustration, but you are more likely to get it resolved. The Studio line, at least in the U.S, now allows you to select 64 bit Vista when configuring. Why they did not do this when they first started offering 4 GB, I do not know, but they do now. SP1 will show all your memory, but you won't be able to use it all. The key will work for both bit versions.

 

the key does work on both versions, just don't activate them at the same time. I have the 32-bit because of the faulty drivers, dvd ejection problems, etc. it sees the 4gb in the system properties, but it just uses 3581MB of RAM, vista 32-bit reserves for other stuff...

 

I spoke to a person on the phone at dell and his words were that vista is a very deceptive OS and that even though it may not display 4gb of ram available should the need arise for 4gb of ram to be use it will make use of all of the ram.

I'm not an expert on this subject but personally this sounds like he's just brushing me off by making stuff up?

Really appreciate everyones help, cheers

 

haha, Dell sales reps get paid on commission, of course they say that, even though they no nothing about the facts.

 

Guys...the hardware and software is limiting your ability to use RAM in a 32bit OS. Nothing short of a fully PAE aware system (which is impossible for consumers, don't try) would make 4GB of RAM available to a 32bit OS.

So forget using 4GB of RAM in a 32bit OS.

 

Hilarious. He's making that stuff up... that's complete nonsense.

You'll probably get around 3.4 or 3.5 gb usable RAM on a 32-bit OS.

The reason they sell it that way is, it is still an upgrade over 3 gb, and it avoids the compatibility problems some people will have with 64-bit Vista. Actually most vendors have been selling 4gb machines with 32-bit Vista... although some of them are starting to ship with 64-bit lately.

Anyway, it is the same key for 32-bit vs. 64-bit. I know because I upgraded my Dell to 64-bit yesterday, and I'm using the same key.

So... if you can borrow a 64-bit disc from someone...

If you want, you can try to get Dell to send you the disc using the tips in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=254817

However, results with the Home/Home Premium editions have been mixed. (I have Vista Business so it worked for me.)

 

Thanks for your help so far everyone, much appreciated. I emailed Dell regarding their global policy. Now just waiting for a response....

 

I had good results with tech support chat. I explained to them that I wanted one of the x64 Studio 15 that they had for sale for a couple of weeks, but those were preconfigured and I couldn't get the screen and keyboard upgrades I wanted. After a bit of discussion they agreed to ship me the x64 media package for free. When I got it, included was Vista Home Premium SP1 x64 reinstall disc, the x64 version of the drivers disc, another copy of Media Direct 4.0, and the Roxio stuff.

I had already installed the system using a copy of Vista x64 media I already had and the x64 drivers downloaded from support.dell.com but these are nice to have just in case.

 

This is what I no from actual usage. With a machine that has 4GB of ram on a erase and install of Vista it will usually only read 3- 3.5GB of ram. If you run all the latest updates/patches via Windows updates it will usually recognize all 4GB after wards. I had two laptops do this exact thing.

Option B: You can just get Vista X64 like I did and no your taking full of advantage of all your ram and your processor. Just make sure you have drivers for it . Good luck!

 

Whilst Vista SP1 reports 4gb of RAM in the system properties it is NOT able to use the full 4gb. See the MS Knowledge Base article below explaining it. The reason it has changed from 3.xgb to 4gb is due to MS patching SP1 to show the full amount of memory even though it cannot use it.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946003/


Oh, and just to confirm for the OP one more time... your 32bit licence of Vista will also work when you install x64!

 

There's times when I wish I worked for Dell technical support.

If you move from a 32-bit to a 64-bit OS, you're doubling the width of the memory addresses being used. Where do you think that extra space comes from comes from, thin air? If you take anything physical and make it twice as wide, it's then half as long.

On my 1735, I'm showing 3.5Gb of physical RAM out of the 4Gb I bought. If I were to install Vista 64, then I'd see the full 4Gb but all my data would be taking twice as much space.

Added to this, the vast majority of commercial software (and pretty much all games) are 32-bit code. So you're running all your software effectively under emulation.

It's not exactly 2:1 because there are tricks and concessions, but really, if you've got a 4Gb system and you want the same performance / spare memory under a 64-bit OS you're looking at going to 8Gb. If you think that a 64-bit OS will be faster or otherwise better under 4Gb because you're "taking advantage of" that missing 512Mb, well, you're wrong.

If I were you, I'd either suck it up and accept that a bit of memory is lost because that's how x86 PCs work, or if you're really that bothered about it just get a system with 3Gb. Fair play to Dell for not offering Vista 64, if they did then they'd be innundated with calls from people going "my PC is slower than my mate's and it's got more memory" instead.

Trading standards, well, that's just funny. Good luck with that, let me know how you get on.

 

Maybe you should work for Dell because you don't have a clue. Going from 32 bit to 64 bit is not "double" it's exponential, so it over 4 billion times larger. You are increasing the memory addressing space, I don't even know what the hell the other stuff you said is trying to accomplish.

 

Just to add to that, the price difference between 3Gb and 4Gb is £30 (apologies if you're outside of the UK, there's plenty of currency converters online). So you've got half of that unusable - you're making all this fuss over fifteen quid.

Did you get a discount on the purchase price at all? I got fifty quid knocked off mine by bending the salesman's ear, looks like a standard "deal-clincher" offer from the way it appears on the invoice. Ring 'em back, stop being awkward and angle for the discount. You'll be 35 quid in pocket and have a lovely, fast, perfectly useable and very shiny laptop.

 

My laptop is arriving torrow. Their customer support didn't even respond back to me. I'm just going to order it using my license key from the microsoft site. Incidentally does anyone know how much microsoft will charge for this service?

In answer to the above poster I had a number of discounts. They day I bought it there was £60 off it any way and I used a 5% off voucher code I found online saving ~£120.

 

atbnet > It's exponential in terms of the maximum amount of memory you can address so long as you're talking about theoretical OSes, yes. So all other restrictions aside you can add exponentially more memory into a 64-bit OS than a 32-bit one, correct. But that's nothing to do with this situation unless you're planning to fit a couple of Terabytes of memory into your laptop, so I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make?

In any case, so long as we're talking about Vista Home Premium (shipped by Dell as standard) the maximum supported memory is capped at 16Gb. I'm not sure what the maximum supported memory physically in the Studio is, but I'd like to guess it's less than that.

 

The point I am making is everything you said is wrong. It doesn't 'double' the amount of addressing space things take up. A program running at 500 mb in 32 bit isn't going to take up 1 GB while running in x64.

 

I did say it's not exactly 2:1. But it absolutely will take up more memory. Pointers double in size, as do some data types. If you double the address width, you need more memory. Go look it up if you don't believe me.

 

It is not even near 2:1, you make it seem as 4GB would be as useful as 2GB under x64 which is just wrong. Nothing is being doubled here.

 

My point is that 4Gb under Vista 64 is not inherently "better" than the same spec under Vista 32 because whilst you reclaim the "lost" memory there are other overheads with x64 variants of Vista that mean you're actually worse off.

I deliberately oversimplified as an example because I didn't want to braindump a load of confusing techie waffle to answer a basic question. The actual increase in requirements will vary depending on usage, it's not a fixed ratio and in any case it doesn't really make a difference to the point I was trying to make.

If you're still convinced that you want to go to 64-bit Vista you can get it from MS for a "minimal fee". See here - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx, or you can pay to upgrade to the Ultimate version which comes with both anyway.

 

They may be overheads, but it is a far cry from halving your memory. You may have tried to simplify your examples but it was more or less misleading at best.

Also you cannot use an OEM key to obtain the 64 bit version from MS.

For what it is worth, you can always tell the Dell customer care that they offer 64 bit in the US and it should be the same across Dell throughout the world.

 

With all the Vista haters wanting to install XP on new notebooks made me remember back when XP was first released and all the XP haters that reinstalled Win2K on thier brand-new XP machines.

Think i should roll back to Win95 just to see how much RAM it wouldn't recognize on the Studio?

 

It's probably about a third increase, but as I said it varies depending what you're running. And like I said, it doesn't -really- matter in the grand scheme of things. But I take your point, I didn't intend to mislead.

That I didn't realise, I stand corrected. I was just looking for options.