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Updating BIOS


Beertaker

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Hey, I entered my BIOS to check if I could hoist 4gb RAM or something, because my Windows sees only 3 of 4gb RAM.

I will read more about that later, because my problem first is that my BIOS just have a few options, can't find anything about memory.

(I remember a lot more options in the BIOS on my other PC)

So, now I want to update my BIOS.

I have a Compal IFL90 (BIOS says version 1.16) and I found a BIOS update on the Compal website.

But I doubt if the file is very new, I don't know if I can use other installation files other than from the Compal website.

If I can't, I don't know how to update. In the download from Compal there are a few files (including a .bat and .exe),

but if I click either of them I get the message "The systemfile is not suitable for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications" (freely translated from Dutch).

Can somebody help? :)

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Well, I can't help you with BIOS update, but I can tell you that Windows XP x86 (32 bit) can't show you 4GB because of 32 bit limitations. You will have to install 64-bit Windows XP or Vista.

Cheers ;)

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the least you'll need to do is reinstall your drivers with 64-bit support. applications can be 32-bit most of the time.

don't let the name of the operating system fool you, they are completely different

windows xp x86 is a different operating system compared to windows xp x86-64

windows vista x86 is a different operating system compared to windows vista x86-64

64 bit vista has better support in terms of 64 bit drivers and applications than xp 64 bit but that mostly applies to hardware/software that came out after vista was released.

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If you move from x86 (32 Bit) to x64 (64 Bit aka. AMD64, EM64T) you have to reinstall any software including windows, you also have to search for 64 Bit drivers for your hardware. a formatting is advised.

Today there are not very much pros for x64 on desktop/workstation. You can use more ram which increases system speed but if you run 32 Bit applications (and you will, * !!) system speeds slows down. all in all, using x64 on desktop / workstation is useless today.

* = Every software you currently use is 32 Bit, perhaps some are still 16 Bit. For some you'll find the 64 Bit releases (IE7, perhaps WMP11, Acrobat Reader and a handful more) for free (not cracked! ;)). Some other like Office, Photoshop and such are also available but not for free, you have to buy them (yes, you might already have a license, but only for the 32 bit version!).

If you use the 32 Bit releases instead, you can run them (like you 16 Bit applications on 32 Bit Windows XP) but then no x64 "feature" is used by this application. No speed boost, more a speed downturn.

The usability of x64 systems rises and falls with the amount of availability and spreading of x64 software. thats all :)

This article is more about the differences between AMD and Intel 64 and explains a bit about x64: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_64

The second one is about 64 bit in general with a comparison (pros and cons) of 32 bit and 64 bit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64_bit#32_vs_64_bit

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Today there are not very much pros for x64 on desktop/workstation. You can use more ram which increases system speed but if you run 32 Bit applications (and you will, * !!) system speeds slows down. all in all, using x64 on desktop / workstation is useless today.

The part in bold is false. And saying that using x64 for desktop/workstations is useless today, is also false. The OP may not need full x64 support, but to claim that it's useless is spreading useless opinions.

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition uses a technology named Windows-on-Windows 64-bit (WOW64), which permits the execution of 32-bit x86 applications. It was first employed in Windows XP 64-bit Edition (for the Itanium), but then reused for the “x64 Editions” of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Since the x86-64 architecture includes hardware-level support for 32-bit instructions, WOW64 switches the process between 32- and 64-bit modes. As a result, X86-64 architecture microprocessors incur no performance loss when executing 32-bit Windows applications. On the Itanium architecture, WOW64 is required to translate 32-bit x86 instructions into their 64-bit Itanium equivalents—which in some cases were implemented in quite different ways—so that the processor could execute them. All 32-bit processes are shown with *32 in the task manager, while 64-bit processes have no extra text present.

Edited by MrCobra
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Hey thanks guys for your reply's!

I was thinking.. Windows 7 is coming next year and I think it will be better than Vista (I don't really like Vista, so I will skip that one :P).

Windows 7 will have 32 and 64-bit versions prolly (?). But will that 32-bit version support 4gb RAM, or is it the same rule for all 32-bit OS?

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