cookie_monster Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 That's the problem, they're not any good. Constant graphics glitches, slowdowns and crashes. It depends on which Intel chipset you have, but on testing we've found quite a few affected. I can only comment on the D945GCCR and D945GCNL mobos and a Samsung NC10 netbook.
srochford Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 4GB may sound like a lot of memory, if you've been in the industry for a while, but considering memory is so cheap I don't see the issue. Agreed! The first time I personally bought RAM was in about 1981; it was 8k (yes, kilobytes!) for a Nascom 2. Can't remember exactly how much it cost but I had to save up to buy it; it was serious money! Just bought 4Gb of RAM for my own laptop (mainly because I want to be able to run multiple VMs on it) and it was cheaper than that 8k!
Messa Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 I've been using Windows 7 for about 2 weeks now with no issues at all, yeah it idles around 800MB ram, but its got to be expected as things advance... Hate to break it to people but, we aint going to be able to run things on 256/512/1GB ram much longer!!
webman Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Surely there can't be any issues with Windows 7 at all? I mean, North Leamington School rolled it out within 2 weeks... Microsoft UK Schools News Blog : Windows 7 in North Leamington School in Warwickshire 1
cookie_monster Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 (edited) I've been using Windows 7 for about 2 weeks now with no issues at all, yeah it idles around 800MB ram, but its got to be expected as things advance... But it doesn't use 800Mb on a 512 Mb system Windows is programed to use available RAM to cache system files to memory so the system operates faster, if other software requires the RAM Windows allocates the RAM to that. Because of this it can look like Windows is more memory hungry that it actually is (though it is a bit of a beast). Hate to break it to people but, we aint going to be able to run things on 256/512/1GB ram much longer!! Only our very latest systems have 2Gb RAM most of our other kit is 1Gb or 512, I guess we'll be running XP for some time yet. Edited October 19, 2009 by cookie_monster
CHR1S Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Only issues I have seen so far with 7 were down to drivers on my GFs 1.3 Atom Dell with 1Gb Ram. Latest drivers and it was fine altho just a noticable bit slower. So I say once driver support is up to 100% it will be great.
tom_newton Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Surely there can't be any issues with Windows 7 at all? I mean, North Leamington School rolled it out within 2 weeks... Microsoft UK Schools News Blog : Windows 7 in North Leamington School in Warwickshire Ah, but have you seen anyone from there on edugeek since?
Ric_ Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 7 is indeed wonderful... personally I've not had a problem on a range of machines. Other lovers of 7 can be found at Microsoft UK Schools News Blog : What is it like to be one of the first schools using Windows 7
tech_guy Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Ah, but have you seen anyone from there on edugeek since? I live just up the road from this place and work for the LA and by all accounts everything is sweet. Hoping to go visit soon as well!
localzuk Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 There's much more to it than that. My machines have 512Mb but they'll need new graphics and network cards before I can run Windows 7. I'm not going to waste school and taxpayers money on buying new PCs so I can do exactly the same as I'm doing now. It isn't quite as simple as that. Kids react to their environment when learning. If they're using old, aged equipment, they simply aren't as enthusiastic about the lessons. If they're using cutting edge equipment then they react a lot better.
Dos_Box Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 It isn't quite as simple as that. Kids react to their environment when learning. If they're using old, aged equipment, they simply aren't as enthusiastic about the lessons. If they're using cutting edge equipment then they react a lot better. In the first school I managed we still had an old RM 3.1 network runnign along side of the new Windows 2000 one I was rolling out. Guess which one was used the most? IMHO, anyone with machines out there with 512MB RAM on a school network is looking for trouble. RAM upgrades were always a priority job for the summer each year, and even back in 2003 I was ensuring that new machines all had 1GB!
cookie_monster Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 IMHO, anyone with machines out there with 512MB RAM on a school network is looking for trouble. We have three rooms of P4s with 512Mb RAM and they seem fine in fact they're quite quick. How much RAM do you need for Office, IE and Paint.net?
oalcock Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 I tried putting windows 7 on a Fujitsu Siemens laptop over the weekend which is a year old, and the wireless card isn't compatible with windows 7. I have also put windows 7 on a 4 year old laptop and it works perfect. Wouldn't you have thought it would have been the other way around?
tmcd35 Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 We have three rooms of P4s with 512Mb RAM and they seem fine in fact they're quite quick. How much RAM do you need for Office, IE and Paint.net? Which OS are you running? Which versions of Office, IE and Paint.NET? How meny Office docs are open at once? How meny pictures does the average users word doc contain? How much cache ram does the CPU have? Is the CPU single-core/HT/multi-core? IMHO there is more to it than just type of processor and amount of RAM. A combination that is 'fast enough' for one user could easily be dog slow for the next. I tend to err on the side of causion. I'm aming for 1Gb min Ram on all machines regardless and my current min spec for new is Dual core Core2/Athlon X2 with 2Gb Ram. Although I'm tempted to move to 4Gb Ram as a min new.
Dos_Box Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 On a positive note, Asus have release the W7 RTM drivers for my Xonar 1.3 Slim HD audio card. Now I can actually install it!! bit-tech.net | Review - Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3 Slim Review Now for some full on DolbyHD and DTS-HD from my media PCs Blu-Ray and HDDVD combo drive!
gshaw Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 I've had it on machines at home since the Beta phase and it's lightning compared to my gaming PC with Vista on that's for sure. Just replaced my work XP SP3 install with 7 Enterprise x64 so we shall see what happens... as it stands it's running like greased lightning atm, 4GB RAM (doubled up from before as my 20 odd Photoshop documents, 40 internet tabs over 2 browsers and 10 Explorer windows really took its toll!) Our minimum spec is 2GB RAM \ Core2Duo, slowest machine is Athlon64 3200 \ 2GB RAM; wouldn't dream of running a machine with 512MB now especially if you're using Office 2007 etc
cookie_monster Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Using the latest version of Paint.net, XP SP3 and Office 2003 SP3 so as I say 512Mb is fine. These machines will never see Vista or Office 2007 they might see Open Office though.
mattx Posted October 19, 2009 Author Posted October 19, 2009 Well I think it's KAK - I'm going back to: http://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/bsgfx/microsoft/win1/windows1-scr-07.png
mattx Posted October 19, 2009 Author Posted October 19, 2009 May even take the plunge and re-install: http://www.sol20.org/screens/msbasic.gif
PiqueABoo Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Have to say that I worry about XP mode though. Ditto. I'm not especially concerned about malware jumping from VM to a host, but having two OSs to support is a potential problem.. I really don't want to have to use XP mode.
gshaw Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 Well I think it's KAK - I'm going back to: http://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/bsgfx/microsoft/win1/windows1-scr-07.png Boots like lightning from CD
synaesthesia Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 does it support SATA and Firewire though?
sted Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 does it support SATA and Firewire though? sata should work as ive never had dos fail to see a sata drive it just dosent care as long as partition size isnt too great
Michael Posted October 19, 2009 Posted October 19, 2009 As with any new OS I would still give it time. Vista with SP2 is actually pretty good, not perfect, but certainly a step in the right direction. Now in theory Windows 7 should be Vista SP2 but even better XP will be support until 2014 so I really don't see the rush! Once Windows 7 goes mainstream and is available to buy retail (either on its own or pre-installed), early next year we should have a good idea how secure, robust, compatible and reliable Windows 7 truly is. At the moment millions are probably using it, but it's when 10s of millions are using it in different ways which is a real test.
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