Windows 7 with 512 MB Ram Review

Does anyone know any tricks to get sleep mode to work? Is it due to RAM or somthing else?

 

i see people posting that they want to test on 256mb, why not install it with
512mb and then remove one chip making it 256mb?

 

Thanks for the mini-review. ^ is very good to know. Also, the fact that real-world application compatibility is intact is also heartening. Whenever I migrate to Win 7, I want to be able to use the Adobe CS3 web premium suite -primarily Camera Raw, Photoshop and Bridge, as well my existing (and excellent) applications like Diskeeper (2009 here), Opera, VLC etc. Looks like Win 7 will deliver after all even with lower/mid end hardware.

 

I'm installing tomorrow Win7 on my T61 within the same partition as my trusty XP. This is until my 4gigs of RAM came and a new 320GB Scorpio Black. I haven't found any critics on Win7 in the contrary to Vista.

Seems 7 will be the legacy successor of XP, not VISTA.

 

I've installed both W7 32-bit and 64-bit on my old desktop (P4 SFF w/512mb RAM) and my new MSI GT725. All I can say is it is fantastic, better and faster on both. I can't wait till April for the release of W7 RC1!

 

I will certainly give a try for this latest Windows 7.

I would like to share a nice link that got some video review about the latest Microsoft Windows:
http://www.playfuls.com/news_12153_Windows_7_details_emerge_new_boot_screen_less_RAM_usage.html

Scroll down and click on play to view the video.

NO idea how fast the game performance yet, I believed should be fast.

 

Oh yeah. I thought it wouldn't work when I installed it on a P4 2.66GHz/ 512MB/ GeForce4 MX 440 machine, but low and behold, it installed. For the first 20 minutes, it was incredibly slow, and then I shut off indexing, and it was almost as fast as XP (like 80% as fast). I bet if I spent time paring unneeded services such as the wifi wizards, error reporting, and such, I could get it to feel just as fast. The dealbreaker was that my graphics card didn't have a driver, so I was stuck with 1280x1024 max resolution on a 1680x1050 monitor.

I do know that if I tried to install Vista instead of Windows 7 (Vista Second Edition), it wouldn't have been usable.

 

a friend of mine thought the same. now he's using vista on his very old system. just as fast as the xp he had on it, and the win7. most of the speed-impressions are just fud because we've learned it that way. all he had to do (but he had to anyways as he does a lot of graphic work) is to up his ram.

p4 2.4ghz, 2gb ram, radeon9600. vista and win7 work both great on such a system.

in your case, the mx 440 was the main problem, as it made aero unusable.

 

I wasn't expecting Aero to work; it was disappointing I couldn't get the native resolution. I guess you have to have a recent graphics card to get a driver, even if it's just an Intel 950.

Anyway, I need to build a new computer to play Left 4 Dead. I'm waiting until Windows 7 is released or they offer free upgrades.

 

why? just use vista, get all of the features of win7 right now, and be able to play left 4 dead while it's "cool and new". performance difference is negitible, the new taskbars coolness fades away and shows it's uselessness quite fast, and the rest is just a a-bit polished vista. don't wait, there's no use of it.

 

I tried W7 64 bit with 512MiB and didn't have as much luck as you guys. Without a page file it ran but quite a few programs crashed and died while booting to the desktop. Okay, I threw a gig of page file at it and all worked Okay but it was sure digging into that page file and as I suffer from swap file intollerance it wasn't a good experience.

So carrying on with a 1G page file I managed to get down to 238MiB of RAM and a running system but I wouldn't call it usable. At 224MiB BSOD and 208MiB not even enough to get the registry loaded without a BSOD.

 

I just added some memory, now I have a gig. I may give W7 another shot and see what happens. My major gripe was that my computer would not go into sleep mode, and if I put it in manually, it wouldn't wake up again. I had to pull the plug. I really wish someone could give me some idea why this happens. I don't know too much about the whys and where to fors of sleep/standy.

 

Good news!! This is one area where MS has seriously failed with Vista (compared to Linux/OS X). It simply couldn't run on a small amount of RAM. OS X runs on 512 pretty easily. I want Windows 7 to run on my file server box, 1GB of RAM. SO looking forward to it!

One concern I have is that a lot of the security code MS adds can hog resources. That code is not in the beta.

 

What is necessary to have sleep mode work properly?

 

i ran win 7 on a inspiron 6000 lol ftw but it has 1 gig ram but a 1.2ghz centrino processor ...woah there ran 40% idle lol

 

Um ya its crashing with no page file. Apps need more than a few hundred meg to run. There is a reason the page file is on by default. I wouldn't turn mine off unless I had 8GB Ram or more. In fact, with all my apps open now, I'm using 3.6GB Ram, and 4.9GB page file.

 

Ran both Vista SP1 and Win 7 one 512MB, didn't notice a huge difference. Then again, I think the one making things smooth in Vista was the video card I had.

 

Wow, thats a lot of memory, just for reference what are the top three applications that takes up the most memory and how much?

I seem to do fine with 4GiB, even on 32 bit VHP where I lose 1GiB to hardware and another 1GiB to get to the desktop, the 2GiB left is more than enough for me to run without a page file and I'm not concerned with kernel dumps. It's just a personal preference in that if I haven't got enough RAM to run a program I'd rather get more RAM than use a page file or not use that program. For instance running W7 with 512MiB of RAM for me would mean having to use a page file so I would rather get more RAM or not use W7.

 

On a whim last night i installed W7 on my old Inspiron 8200 to what would happen. It's only got 640MB of RAM and a 1.7 P4M so I wasn't too hopeful, but the install ran OK and once I got the video and modem issues sorted, the results started to look very good.

I was feeling pretty smug! And now I stumble across this thread and realise I've got 128MB too much to impress anybody Oh well....

I haven't done much with it yet, but the basics are working well and I'm surprised how well it performs; it's faster than the admittedly clogged up XP installation on the same machine.

I had the same problem, but found a fix. Maybe something similar will work for you? http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=363438

 

Google Earth - 762MB | Photoshop - 715MB | Bridge - 325MB | Firefox - 217MB

Total - 4089 | Cached - 869 | Available - 871 | Free - 19 | Commit - 4054

So even with my page file turned on, I still only have 19MB of unused memory. Windows is still taking advantage of the unused memory. Commit is at 4054. Were my page file off, I'd be very close to crashing now. Just doesn't make sense to turn off your page file unless you have more ram than you'd ever use. These days, 4GB barely cuts it.

 

disabling pagefile is just never useful. it's well documented that way on the microsoft pages. i think they even talk about it in the win7 blog? or was it russinowich stating it. dunno.
it's not about needing. it's about better having it, even when not needing. it always helps, never hurts. the moment a page file starts hurting is the moment you would be in trouble without it.

 

Wow! 512MB ram, eh? That is promising. But what will I do with the other 7.5GB?

 

and when is the full version release?
if the time to short, i think i just gonna wait for full version.

 

Current rumors speculate that Windows 7 will be released in the fall of this year. But Microsoft itself hasn't changed their target time-frame of January 2010. It's a guessing game still, but if you buy a new computer that has Vista on it after June 28th, 2009, you'll be eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7.

 

Most demanding program i use on my PC is Vmware workstation. 3gb of ram and about 10 gigs of page file.

BTW.. windows 7 runs fine on 256MB of ram!!!!!
Spec for the computer I used:
AMD Phenom x4 2.2ghz (overclocked to 2.8ghz)
196/256MB alloted ram out of the 4 gigs I have on this system
HDDs array with read/write throughput of more than 120MB/s avg
ATI HD3200 integrated graphic card
Windows 7 ultimate
2GB 133x SD card and card reader
Surprisingly, the performance isn't that bad. Readyboost makes a huge difference. W7 is still snappy with 256MB of ram. LOL


Be aware that the beta is the windows 7 ultimate version. If you're using a stripped down version (e.g. for netbook "w7 netbook edition") i bet you can run w7 without a problem with 128MB of ram.

 

dude will 7 work with vista drivers??

 

Most likely yes

 

I'd have to disagree with the 128mb ram statement. Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate both run terrible with 1 gig of ram. I'm thinking the only reason you were able to run it decently is because of your quad core processor which is probably doing all the work. Your page file must be massive haha.

 

there is not much difference in memory usage from the lowest to the highest edition (and not much reason to be, too).

and i don't see any reason to have win7 run at 128mb. in the shops here, you don't get anything below 512mb sticks anyways.

 

BTW.. i'm talking about W7 not Vista.

and no, my page file isn't massive. It's around 150MB in size when i set my ram to 128MB. With all non-essential service and program turned off, you can get windows 7 running under 200MB of ram + Page file combined. A fully installed w7 ultimate uses 300MB of ram.

For XP, i got my customized version to run with only 20-40MB of ram with GUI, though the experience is aweful. In safemode on my regular XP, it runs with about 70mB of ram.

 

If you actually use the comp to its full potential it's extremely easy to fill up the ram, here's my example:

Vue 7 xStream - 1,411,632
Photoshop CS4 - 1,263,600
Opera 9.6 - 243,029
Zune 3.1 - 86,960

So a page file is a must or X( to the system.
I really do need to get 2x4GB sticks but they're very hard to get (I know G.Skill makes some, just can't find them >.<)

I think the lowest usable system specs from all of our testing for Windows 7 are 512MB RAM, GeForce FX5200 for Aero (yup.), P4 1.5GHz+ (Ran fine when I disabled the 2nd core of an HT Processor - effectively giving it a single 1.5GHz P4).

That's not bad at all - Aero had some slight lag (notably Flip3D with a video playing in Zune) with 512MB but was smooth under 1GB.

You could get a comp that would run perfectly fine in Windows 7 for $250 or dig up a 5 year old comp

 

I soon try out win7 and vista on pc's from mini-box.com they're reeeally cheap and tiny and can be run completely silent

 

If you need 2x2 sticks, then go buy it. It's dirty cheap. NCIX had a sale yesterday,k probably still there. It was Corsair XMS2 ddr2 800 2x2GB for $15CAD, about $10 USD.

 

I believe he said 2x4GB sticks. Very hard to find, and extremely expensive.

 

yes sleep and hibernate work fine everything works fine ive had no problems at all with it i did update my bios and now i have 256mb of shared vram

 

How well do old Broadcom 43xx Wi-Fi drivers work under Windows 7?

I am planning on installing the RC on an old laptop, and this is the one question I have, as without wi-fi, a laptop is pretty much useless.

 

Wow, thats surprising! But good.

 

W7 installed on one of my iPAQ Desktops pretty easily, even though it maxes at 512MB RAM (and P3 1GHz, USB1.0). The only issue I had was there was no video driver for the Intel 815 integrated graphics (no way to add a VGA card to an iPAQ), so it was stuck at 640x480 for full color (impossible to use as so many buttons were off screen), or 1024x768 for 16 color (impossible to use as so many items used the same colors). But after Googling around a bit for similar Intel815 issues under Vista, I got the latest 6.7 version of the XP driver from the Intel site, installed it under Compatibility Mode, and at next startup, I had 32bit 1280x1024.

It seems a bit slower than XP Pro on the iPAQ, but still faster than Win2K. I haven't tested out Hibernate, Sleep, etc yet, but have installed various apps without issues (except Acrobat Reader 9.1, which absolutely refused to install, even under Compat, until I rebooted the box). Unfortunately I can't ReadyBoost it, as the iPAQ doesn't have USB2.0 ports.

UPDATE: Interesting, I had installed it to an older Maxtor 40Gig HD that had XP Pro on it, and it installed fine. I put the original Seagate 80Gig HD back in that has Win2K/XP Pro on it, partitioned out some space for W7, went to install it, and it blue screens 0x000000A5 (0x00000017, 0x00000018, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) right after copying the initial files, saying there is no ACPI support, update my BIOS. The only difference is the HD, both are set for CableSelect (only 1 IDE plug on the cable on an iPAQ). Throw the 40Gig back in, and boots into W7 just fine.
Turned out to be a memory issue, or a weird interaction with the PS2 module in my Avocent KVM, as I seated the RAM multiple times with no luck, but reseated them one last time, and switched to a USB AVRIQ for the KVM, and it installed fine on the 80Gig. I had originally installed W7 with the machine on a different KVM.

 

I just installed b7227 on an old IBM Netvista X41 all in one (P4 2.8gz, 1 Gb ram, ATA133 hard drive, ATi rage 128 video) and it's running fine.

The 'windows experience' claims a 1.0 for the video performance (not unexpected) but all the other measurements are 3.5 and better.

 

The window minimizing is really bugging me, with it's laggy minimization compared to XP. It was the same in Vista. I sure hope that gaming performance will be faster though in 7 than in Vista, and faster than XP. Vista also lagged when I used my keyboard buttons to change brightness but in Windows 7... it's smooth like XP.

 

Sounds perfect for a netbook, minus the install footprint for the 4GB SSD ones.

 

I just read through this thread (mostly), and it gives me great hope that, for once, I can have all relevant systems in the two home networks I run using the same OS, including the old Celeron M Gateway we bought back in 06 for the in-laws, the wife's 3 y.o. _HP w/ the AMD one-core 64-bit processors, the new _HP, the ersatz server running a [email protected], and, maybe, just maybe, if I feel like resurrecting it (and frankensteining it by putting a "real" cooling solution for the hard drive on it - read, "drill lots of holes"), the 6 y.o. VAIO with the puny little 1.3GHz Centrino.

 

lol, I'm wondering how it would perform on my dad's ancient Gateway that originally had Windows 95 installed on it. He just recently marked it for death and stopped using it. I'll have to ask him if he'll let me play with it to try W7. I think it had 600 MHz Pentium 3, with about 512 MB of memory on it.

 

7 needs some processor speed

Celerons and Pentium M's run it fine

 

I think I read somewhere (probably the propaganda stuff from MS) that the minimum hardware requirement was a CPU with a minimum clock speed of 1GHz, in which case your dad's ancient Gateway may be best put to work as a home server running a nice lite *nix variant with Samba to serve files).

 

That's what I'm considering... but I already put my mom's Gateway to that task . We already have 4 machines in the house, 2 of which are mine . Just don't have the space, or wall plugs even, to plug it into.

 

You might consider donating it to a school (or some other worthy organization) that could use it. I had an old _Dell desktop that I didn't need that I donated to the school my daughter attended last year. I gussied it up, put in a new drive, some more RAM, and did a clean reinstallation of the original OS (WinME, felt a little bad about that one, but I figured that with MS' academic licensing, getting an OS license to use in-house was probably the easiest part of it for them). They were perfectly happy taking it, and from what I've heard, it's being put to good use even now.

 

I used to have a laptop that came pre-loaded with WinME. I dunno what people see is wrong with it. Guess I got lucky with my installation, as I had little to no problems running it. I miss that laptop, a Gateway M320X. I should never have let my brother borrow it for school.

 

msft says it's a gig of processor and a gig of ram and some kind of self-contained accelerated video (for Aero). More or less.

Significantly less than that is probably a waste of time.

 

What is the version of W7 that run fine with the intel 815 6.7 drivers?
I try the w7 buid. 6956, 7000 and 7100 with the intel drivers and it's bad.

Best regards.