T61p - Question About drivers

I've seen threads of people using vista 64-bit with no problem

Are there 64-bit XP drivers offered for our T61p's?

 

I'm glad you asked this question because I'm having a dilemma on whether to go with 32bit XP or 64bit XP for that partition on my R61. I haven't found much anywhere about XP64 on Lenovo notebooks. I'm not even sure that Lenovo has drivers to support it.

I'm sure we can get GPU drivers for it (for NVS 140m at least), but I don't know that that's enough to make the notebook function correctly on it.

 

If you're going 64bit you're much better of going Vista. XP 64bit driver development has been pretty much in limbo ever since Vista x64 came out and it wasn't even that great to begin with. 64bit XP is pretty much a dead end road...why go with it?
You can always turn off Aero, UAC and whatnot. Then again 32 bit XP /w SP3 isn't a bad option.

 

That's the linchpin right there. If SP3 rocks (as it certainly will) then it will probably be the better choice. On the other hand, I've been using XP64 for a while now on my desktop and I've had no problems whatsoever. Also, Nvidia supports XP64 so if your Lenovo setup is based on Nvidia parts (wireless, video etc.), then there *should be* no problems from that end. The Intel chipset on the other hand, I'm not so sure.

Vista Ultimate 64 is expensive, quite frankly. Whereas you can get XP64 for cheap or for free if you're a student. My school offers Ultimate 32bit, but not 64. That's why I personally am inquiring about XP64.

 

will xp sp3 be able to take advantage of 4 gb of memory? or vista 64 the only way to take advantage of 4gb ?

 

My understanding is that if you have a license for 32bit Vista, it translates to the same package for 64bit Vista. I don't know if the student license bit differs, but if you read Stallen's clean install guide carefully there are links to assist in understanding all of it. If you go clean install, be sure to make a copy of your rescue disks and at least one if not two backups to fall back on if everything goes sideways.

The 4GB question... I'm going to purposely oversimplify because I don't see a need to make it more complicated than this.

It isn't a matter of XP or Vista, it is a matter of addressable bits.

A 32bit OS (Vista or XP) is limited to 3GB. Someone else can quote the exact byte count I'm sure. For those of us inclined to count on our fingers, it's 3GB.

A 36bit OS (Some Windows Server products) can reach 4GB, but not a lot more. See esoteric niche product.

A 64bit OS can address 4GB and way way beyond. I'm not sure what this limit is off hand, but it is more GB than I have fingers and its way way more than you're likely to ever be able to put into any machine you own today.

As far as I can tell, thats it in a over simplified nut shell.

 

It is wrong that A 32bit OS can not reach 4GB. Take a look at the following screen captures from a T61.

32-bit XP SP1 can reach 4GB

32-bit Windows server 2003 can reach 4GB, and it's not a 36-bit OS.

And many many more 32-bit Linux users reach far more than 4GB for years.