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    Dell XPS M1330 upgrading to Windows 7

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Tassen2010, Nov 22, 2011.

  1. Tassen2010

    Tassen2010 Newbie

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    I have a Dell M1330 purchased in 2007 with the following specs:

    Intel 2Duo T7500 2.2GHZ 800mHz FSB 4MB Cache
    1GB DDR2 SDRAM 667mHz (Shared)
    200GB HD
    128MB Nividi GeForce 8400M GS
    Intergrated Sound Blaste Audigy HD Software Edition

    My harddrive failed and I am considering doing a clean install of Windows 7 after installing a new HD (500GB).

    Will the 1GGB Shared RAM be a problem? Should I go with the 32Bit version. Any other issues I might run into?

    Appreciate all the help I can get.
     
  2. JOSEA

    JOSEA NONE

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    Tassen202o Welcome to the forum. You machine is speced for up to 4 GIG RAM, I would suggest an upgrade to at least 2 GIG RAM (If you run 1 or 2 applications at one time), but 4 GIG would be ideal for multi tasking.
     
  3. yuyi64

    yuyi64 Notebook Consultant

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    A year ago I installed Windows 7 32-bit on one of my old Dell laptops (a 2006 XPS M140) with only 1GB ram and and a Pentium M740 processor, and it runs just as fast as some of my newer laptops with 2GB or more ram with dual core processors.
     
  4. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I'd be worried about running any OS without at least 2GB of RAM...except for maybe a small Linux distro.
     
  5. kent1146

    kent1146 Notebook Prophet

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    1GB of RAM will not be enough to run Windows 7. A base, clean installation of that OS will take up at least 800MB - 900MB of RAM by itself. That means that anything that you do with the laptop will use the pagefile on disk, and make your laptop unbelievably slow.

    I would really consider 4GB of RAM to be the minimum for running Windows 7. The bad news is that nobody really makes DDR2 SODIMMs anymore. Your best bet for getting that would be to buy used memory modules from eBay. a 4GB DDR2 SODIMM (2x2GB) kit will cost you between $25-$40.

    Once you have that, Windows 7 will run fine. I used to own a Dell XPS M1330 with an SSD and 4GB of RAM, and it ran fine (see the videos in my signature).

    And either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows 7 will work fine. For your purposes, you will not notice any difference. So you might as well just run the 64-bit version.
     
  6. yuyi64

    yuyi64 Notebook Consultant

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    No need to worry; Windows 7 runs just fine with 1GB of RAM if there's little or no bloatware on the system. See my example in post #3.
     
  7. yuyi64

    yuyi64 Notebook Consultant

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    Not true at all. While more RAM would definitely be better, Windows 7 will run on 1GB and the computer will not be "unbelievably slow" if it's properly set up. I'm typing this post from such a computer right now and it's running just fine and it's quite speedy.