T60 + windows 7

[jayqi]

Hi, I wonder if anyone can give me a steer on installing Windows 7 on a T60 (1952) before I start experimenting. I have 4g of ram on Vista ultimate at the moment with only 3 recognised. Wiill W7 64-bit make a difference or am stuck with 3g ram even on W7 (whether 64-bit or 32-bit)?

I also have an 64gb SSD installed in a caddy that fits in the DVD drive but I am wondering whether I should swap the160 gb HDD for the SSD (I'm going to instal W7 on the SDD) or doesn't it make any difference?

I also have 2x 500 mg SDRAM DDR2 SODIMM PC-5300 667 MHz that I have no use for. If anyone can use it...I only want postage.

Thx, Jay

[billp117]

The T60 is a very nice unit. But if your processor is the usual Core Duo it will only support Windows 7 32 Bit software. In reality you probably will not notice much difference unless you need 64 Bit for some application. However...if your processor is a Core-2-Duo...then 64 Bit should work fine.

With the price of 500 GB hard drives dropping into the basement...I would go with a larger 7200 rpm drive and not look back.

[Terrahawk]

You're going to be stuck with 3GB of RAM in any situation. It is a hardware limitation of the chipset. I just got my second 2GB SODIMM this morning and yep, I'm up to 3GB. Running Windows 7 professional 64-bit.

[jayqi]

Thanks.

The manual is explicit: 'Only 64-bit operating systems support more than 3GB of system memory (RAM). Intel Chipsets 945GM and 945PM do not support more than 3GB system memory (RAM), even when a 64-bit operating system is installed.'

However, manuals are never the last word (praise the Lord and [censored] Microsoft). There must be tweaks in windows7 or the bios that open up the chipset bottleneck (if it is that). I cam across one patch but have lost the post

[dr_st]

Unfortunately, chipset limitations cannot be unlocked so simply.

And even if you can, the most you will achieve is raise the 3GB limit to 3.25GB and maybe 3.5GB in some cases, by reducing the range of reserved addresses.

The memory controller is 32bit, so no matter what you do, you will not be able to get more than 4GB addressable space, of which some has to be used for devices.

If you are interested, run a forum search for "TOLUD".

[jayqi]

Thanks for the steer. I am going to do some more research. Thinking about it, I guess I am wishful thinking as there is so much discussion about this very issue with no fix. Such thinking is typical I suppose of people like me who operate at an ad hoc level with computer architecture and don't bother grasping the theorectical constraints of the different elements.

One thing I would appreciate some advice on is whether I should use W7 64-bit or 32-bit for the T60 (given I can only harness 3.25 gb of my 4gb of ram anyway). At the moment I am also planning on installing W7 on my SSD, which at the moment is in an caddy slotted into the internal DVD unit. After I have finished a clean instal with all my prgrammes (Adobe, Adobe...) will it work faster if I put the SSD into the conventional HDD slot and put the latter in the caddy. I didn't swap them over because I vaguely have the idea that the t60 accesses either at the same speed. But I am probably wrong about that too.

Cheers, Jay