Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Windows 64 bit OS issue...

0 helpful
19 replies

by user223

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

To cut to the chase...
I am trying to get a 64bit OS (ANY of them) to load up on my Compaq Presario S6900nx system. It's equiped w/ AMD Athlon 64 3200+ chip.
When I boot from any of the MS 64 bit versions of OS, I get "no 64 bit System detected" or something along those lines.
Compaq support is every bit as useless as you'd expect regarding this. They parrot the same thing to any question asked...yes, your system will run a 64 bit OS, no Compaq does not support this at this time. Microsoft support points you back to Compaq and vice versa...
Anyone have any ideas on how I can get this to load up?
Thanks!
Want to apologize for the quad post, I didn't get any feedback from the submit button. This is my first post to discussions, so put me in the newb catagory...

19 replies

by cbalness

Can you please include motherboard and chipset stats, and is this a squeaky new install ??

I have a Sempron 64 Bit processor using 64 Bit XP and it works fine, but the tech at the local PC shop had to download the newest BIOS/chipset for it to function correctly.

by siliconwombat

As i understand it with a 64bit os every driver needs to be 64bit based. Whilst the os can run a 32 bit program, as it is so closely linked with the drivers they need to be 64bit. I would agree with setantapc and say that the latest bios and chipset drivers, if they do a 64 bit version. If not you may have to get a new laptop with hardware which has 64bit drivers. According to the mo#icrosoft website more and more 64bit drivers are being produced but many items arent supported yet

by user223

Here are the other specs....

Chipset : nForce3 150
Motherboard : ASUS K8N8X-LA

I'd also like to add that my system is running the latest BIOS provided by Compaq. (3.11)
I suspect that it may be something in the Compaq OEM bios that is preventing me from loading 64 bit OS's, but I'm not sure and ASUS refers me to Compaq..so I'm in a vicious cirle of non-support here. Any help would be great!
Thx for the replies....

by hal 9000

Is with the ASUS nForce 3 150 M'Board this doesn't appear on the MS 64 Bit Supported list.

You could try loading a 64 Bit version of Knoppix and see if that will load but I think you'll find that the M'Board Chip Set doesn't support the 64 Bit OS.

It's one thing to have a 64 Bit CPU and another thing to have a M'Board capable of running a 64 Bit OS.

Col

by user223

I think you hit it dead on; the shame is I was sold on this system for the 64bit angle! Buyer beware, I should have done my homework then but wasn't hip on AMD at the time...i can recycle the chip and now i have an excuse to go w/ two processors..and onboard raid to boot.
Thanks for your help...
P

by vdbergjc

I would suggest staying away from any Windows 64 bit OS. I could successfully load Windows X64 Professional on my PC, but have major issues in getting drivers for most of the peripheral devices that I have connected. I have a HP printer which HP states will have a driver available before the end of the year. Which year, as this message was on their driver download site mid 2005 and they still don?t have the driver available.

by deadly ernest

A few months back I bought a new 64 bit board and processor and got the MS Win xp Pro 64 bit Edition and loaded it. I checked hardware compatibility before hand. Then found out most of my applications wont run and there are damn few 64 bit drivers my video card is basic no speciality driver for it, ditto sound and forget the printer. MS do not have a 64 bit driver for my 5 button USB MS Intellimouse. What a waste of money.

Two days ago I got a copy of Ubuntu 5.10 (Breazey Badger) Linux and loaded it. Loaded in a quarter of the time of the 64 XP. Includes specific drivers for the sound, video, 5 button mouse and the printer works. I did some googling and found that the best support for 64 bit at the moment is Linux systems for an AMD 64 bit chip - damn I got Intel.

The Linux community is writting a lot of 64 bit drivers as are some of the hardware manufacturers but there is little for Windows drivers.

I next want to try Fedora Core 5 as see how it goes on 64 bit.

by justin james

I had the exact same experience with Windows XP 64 Professional. Not only did it actually run slower than Windows XP Professional, drivers were a headache, and even Microsoft Office did not run right; Outlook would crash periodically, especially if a manually Send/Receive overlapped an automatic one. Stay away!

On the other hand, I installed FreeBSD 6.0 64 bit on a server here at work, and it doesn't like the motherboard much at all either... and I have never had a problem with FreeBSD before.

If I knew then what I know now, I would avoid 64 bit CPUs until the OS's are ready for them, complete with enough driver support to make it a minimal headache, if not headache free.

J.Ja

by apotheon

FreeBSD tends to lag behind Linux for new hardware support. There are Linux distros that absolutely kick butt with AMD 64b chips and attendant hardware.

In fact, Debian was the first OS to offer a full/pure 64b release for the AMD 64b processors, if I recall correctly.

Of course, I still haven't gotten a 64b processor for my own use. I'm sure I will eventually.

by hal 9000

The copy that I got was a give away from MS as a trial copy of the 64 Bit Version of XP as well as a 64 Bit version of 2003ES and both came with warnings that there are no where enough drivers for the things to work properly and most of the available software would not work reliably on it either. The 203 ES works quite nicely as a file server or a mail server if you stick to the 64 Bit applications but mostly they are only good for Gateway applications to the Internet at this point in time.

While AMD has had 64 Bit CPU's around for quite some time as well as Intel on their high end Commercial CPU's I've yet to see any real Windows applications available for what I still thought was a development platform.

Linux on the other hand has quite a few 64 Bit versions available and I'm currently running Debian 64 without a problem. Seems that MS is waiting until the Open Source Crowd has things working properly and then they'll steal the code to incorporate into their products.

Isn't that what MS does best? :D

Col ]:)

by user223

I have zero background in Linux...64 bit or otherwise...and while i do drink the Microsoft koolaid, I would like to learn more about Linux. What flavor would you recommend for a newb that would give me a solid foundation for the other versions?

by hal 9000

Two days after crashing the wifes car I brought home a Dual Processor Xeon M'Board 2 3 + GIG CPU's to suit the M'Board a small amount of ECC RAM only 14 GIG but I didn't get any HDD's as they where out of the SCSI ones at the time and no Optical Drives.

[b]She Who Must Be Obeyed[/b] hit the roof particularly when she realized that this was only a test machine to run different 64 BIT OS and Software on and wasn't really going to be used as a replacement to my ageing Dual Processor P3 main computer that's another one to come. :D

I'm currently waiting for her car to come back after being repainted before I buy any more for my play toy. :p

Col ]:)

by ward

I just built an AMD xp2 3800 (nVidia nForce4 mobo), 1GB RAM, 340GB SATA. It just cruises through, not bothering to pause at all. I can now start a deploy to the PocketPC and continue to type code into the editor. With my old pentium the editor would be unresponsive until the deploy had finished. And the best news is: I only spent 600.00 USD on the whole thing. Of course, since then I have added some more stuff....

by karthigan

System BIOS or ROM may need an update. ROM version that is currently in your system may not be enabling 64 bit for the processor/chipset. Please try getting the latest version of the ROM/BIOS from compaq website and then try loading a 64 bit OS.

by apotheon

Make sure that you can get support if a BIOS update doesn't go well. If a BIOS update goes awry and you can't get support afterward, you'll end up with a paperweight for a motherboard. BIOS updates can be scary things sometimes.

by hal 9000

Knoppix has a 64 Bit Live Version that boots from a CD and will not only read your existing NTFS or FAT file systems but has most of what you would need.

If nothing else it's a good testing unit for hardware to see if it supports 64 Bit OS's it just boots off the CD. While you may need to alter your Boot sequence around this isn't a big deal and it's worth while if only to test the hardware particularly if you are looking at buying, there is nothing that shuts up a sales person like proving that what they are telling you is incorrect. :D

Something like Knoppix allows you to keep your Windows Partitions and run Linux on the computer but because it's all on 1 CD it has it's limits as well. However it's a good starting point.

Col

by deadly ernest

Recently I have tried Mandrake 10, Fedora Core 4 and Ubuntu 5.10 - Mandrake is more for the "I am tech and want to play techie" type while FC 4 is more "I am a user and know no tech" type and Ubuntu is a bit more techie than FC 4 - other flavours have different goals as well.

by apotheon

I recommend getting a Knoppix LiveCD and doing a Debian-style install when you're ready to commit a computer to Linux from the Knoppix CD. Debian gives you a very vanilla, standards-compliant Linux operating system environment, along with very slick software management, comprehensive manpage documentation, and the largest and most well-tested (meaning: stable) software archives available for Linux. Knoppix gives the most newbie-friendly introduction to standard Debian systems.

RHEL/Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva, Linspire, Xandros, Ubuntu, and piles of others all have very nonstandard quirks that won't give you as solid a voundation for working with many different distributions. Slackware and Gentoo don't give you the same benefits for a newbie introduction to Linux, and Gentoo also fails to provide as much of a standard basis for Linux use in general.

Plus, y'know, Debian is where the serious Linux admins end up anyway.

by cyber558

This is just a wild guess (since I have never tried loading a 64-bit OS), but have you tried looking around in the computer's BIOS to see if you have to "enable" the 64-bit part of your processor? If you've already tried this, I appologize - if you haven't, I hope you find something and it works!

Good Luck,
-J

This discussion is closed to new replies.