Upgrading my Dell Precision 390 to Win 7

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Originally Posted By: MONKEYMAN
When looking for keyboard driver that would work on my Optiplex 760 Dell support did show I needed 4 updates after putting in service tag. I am running 7-64 bit.


How much ram do you have? from what I understand the 32 bit will only manage 4GB whereas the 64 bit will handle 8GB> (My 390 will only support 8GB) Is this true? My XP system currently has 4GB of Ram and a 1TB HDD which works very well. But te XP only sees 3.4GB of the ram memory. I am inclined to get the 64bit just for the added capacity. Is there any difference running applications with the 64 vs the 32?
 
Originally Posted By: Doog
UPDATE: I did the DRIVERMAX full scan on my 390 and it found 15 drivers out of date. So I will update the entire system.


Really? I doubt you have drivers out of date. If you did, you'd be safer going and updating drivers from the Device Manager and not from a shotty program:




Unfortunately the list goes on past my patience of copying and pasting urls for you.

I'm afraid you've been duped. Why wouldn't you check Device Manager for outdated drivers in the first place?
 
I have 64 bit and 8 gig of RAM based on recommendations given on this forum. Also Dell support provided a Chipset Update.

The difference is if you have older programs. The user of this computer likes Bicycle Bridge. It runs on her 32 Bit Windows 7 computer, but not on the 64 bit one. There are some workarounds but I am not that computer savvy. So I bought a copy of Bicycle Bridge from Ebay guaranteed to work that uses a virtual machine.

Even if you buy 32 bit you can install 64 bit as I understand it. The main thing is having the Microsoft Product Key. Did that with two computers to install Windows 8 from thumb drive. The instructions are here: Installing Windows 10

It is a similar procedure for installing Windows 7.
 
Originally Posted By: Bottom_Feeder
Keyboard driver? Who needs that? Are you using something fancy with special buttons or changing colors or something?


Yes, Multimedia like volume, mute, etc. Those buttons would not work without a Dell driver.
 
Originally Posted By: JeepWJ19
Originally Posted By: Doog
UPDATE: I did the DRIVERMAX full scan on my 390 and it found 15 drivers out of date. So I will update the entire system.


Really? I doubt you have drivers out of date. If you did, you'd be safer going and updating drivers from the Device Manager and not from a shotty program:




Unfortunately the list goes on past my patience of copying and pasting urls for you.

I'm afraid you've been duped. Why wouldn't you check Device Manager for outdated drivers in the first place?



I checked the driver versions first. The drivermax was able to find 3 drivers that were not on the dell upgrade site. I have a complete Dell support account and always go there first. But I did uninstall drivermax and run Malwarebytes and NAV twice. No problems. Remember I am getting my xp machine ready to upgrade. So I have no MS support anymore. I did run the MS win 7 upgrade tool afterwards and it said I am good to go.
 
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Ok so I found compatible RAM on amazon for $32 so that is all set. I'll get the Win7 Pro 64 bit on amazon as well $65

Now I need a better video card. I currently have a Nvidia 3450 256MB PCIe x16 GDDR3 128 bit graphics card. I would like to upgrade it to at least 512mb or even 1GB. What do I need to know to be certain it is compatible? Nvidia does make a FX4500 which looks nice but how will I know if it will work?
 
Why did you select the FX4500?

What processor does yours have? They shipped with P4, C2D, and C2DE Intel's.

I use a Precision 490. Absolute tank of a machine, but with a cheap SSD and graphics card, it does a wonderful job running elementaryOS.
 
Originally Posted By: Ramblejam
Why did you select the FX4500?

What processor does yours have? They shipped with P4, C2D, and C2DE Intel's.

I use a Precision 490. Absolute tank of a machine, but with a cheap SSD and graphics card, it does a wonderful job running elementaryOS.


Because it is PCIe and has 512MB of ram vs the 256 my current one has and it will definitely run on the 390 power supply. Plus it was $25. I am only "updating" this machine to run for two more years until I move my business and then will simply get a new refurbished system.
 
The FX 4500 is over a decade old now, and it'll be loading-up that 375 watt PSU; G70 GPU's weren't power-sippers by any stretch of the imagination.
 
Yeah the Fx3450 runs 83w and the Fx4500 runs 109w so it is the largest load that PS should take. But Dell says you can use up to 8GB RAM and 150w on the video card in their original specs. So it comes in under that factory specified threshold.
 
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UPDATE: Got the FX4500 in today....very noticeable difference in screen loading speed and graphics quality. Definitely worth the $25.

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Originally Posted By: Ramblejam
I'd certainly hope so; that was a $2,500 card back in the day!



It's a huge card easily 2x the size of the 3450. huge fan and heat sinks. The updated driver from Nvidia was done in 2012 so it works really well. I may not have to update to Win7 as this card really handles the 24" monitor well. I don't do a lot of computing just a lot of internet work and opening multiple documents. This card has easily increased the speed of my desktop by a factor of 2.
 
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Ok got the win7 64bit installed. Everything activated fine. Only problems are the Win7 update doesn't work and my old trusty HP Laserjet 1100 driver is only for 32 bit. The other drivers are on windows update.

So it seems there are patches to fix the update issue with Win7 but I haven't found them yet. Any help would be appreciated.

But the speed of the 8GB RAM system and graphics quality is very good.
 
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