what hardware works with Win64?

[Rock]

I did the big buy. Upgraded to 64b, but it took me over 2 weeks to
get semi-working hardware under Windows RC1, now RC2, and pretty soon
I suspect final. I'm probably stoopid, but I had problems with net
drivers, video drivers, sound drivers, and 1394 drivers. I guess
others had similar issues.

It would be nice to get a hardware list of what works, maybe the WHQL
site will be updated someday.

I'm still having trouble with my audio.

It seems that some of the drivers don't come from the manufacturers,
and the ones that don't are pretty buggy.

Is there a hardware list that works? I looked on the systems
manufacturers sites, HP and Dell don't have anything that works with
Win64 announced yet. Looking at 3-Com, only one NIC has an official
64b driver

Wassup?

Rock

 

[f/fgeorge]

I did the big buy. Upgraded to 64b, but it took me over 2 weeks to
get semi-working hardware under Windows RC1, now RC2, and pretty soon
I suspect final. I'm probably stoopid, but I had problems with net
drivers, video drivers, sound drivers, and 1394 drivers. I guess
others had similar issues.

It would be nice to get a hardware list of what works, maybe the WHQL
site will be updated someday.

I'm still having trouble with my audio.

It seems that some of the drivers don't come from the manufacturers,
and the ones that don't are pretty buggy.

Is there a hardware list that works? I looked on the systems
manufacturers sites, HP and Dell don't have anything that works with
Win64 announced yet. Looking at 3-Com, only one NIC has an official
64b driver

Wassup?

Rock

ALL manufacturers will provide drivers once the release is public.
Some sooner than others.

 

[J.Venning]

ALL manufacturers will provide drivers once the release is public.
Some sooner than others.

I should bloody well hope so! I had a taste of the speed and ease of XP
x64, but had to switch back to the 32-bit version, because most of my
hardware will not function properly, if at all.
J.

 

[Michael Paul]

Am Sun, 27 Mar 2005 04:57:58 GMT schrieb f/fgeorge:

[...]

It seems that some of the drivers don't come from the manufacturers,
and the ones that don't are pretty buggy.

Is there a hardware list that works? I looked on the systems
manufacturers sites, HP and Dell don't have anything that works with
Win64 announced yet. Looking at 3-Com, only one NIC has an official
64b driver

ALL manufacturers will provide drivers once the release is public.
Some sooner than others.

Nope. They won't provide drivers for "older" hardware. They will prefer
forcing users to buy new stuff.

For example, Artec will never update drivers for existing hardware. They
don't even support XP SP2 with their scanner drivers.

People who want to use XP64 should be aware that they have to replace
good working hardware by XP64-compatible DRM-compliant crap.
And of course, this is valid for lot of software, too. At least
CD-burning software, antivirus software and similar have to be replaced.

Have fun with XP64,
Michael

 

[Zak]

I understand that the AMD64 has been around since September 2003. I expect
that many people have bought an AMD64 computer, in other words the market is
not small.

Do I understand correctly that you suspect that manufactures will ignore
those people with their "old" hardware and just focus on new consumers? In
that case what would be the purpose of buying an AMD64 machine today?

Does anyone remember what happened when we moved from 16 bit to 32 bit?

Zak

 

[Michael Paul]

Hi,

I understand that the AMD64 has been around since September 2003.
I expect that many people have bought an AMD64 computer, in other
words the market is not small.
Agreed.

Do I understand correctly that you suspect that manufactures will
ignore those people with their "old" hardware and just focus on new
consumers?

Yes. Especially the manufacturers of peripherals and add-on cards. They
don't like writing new drivers for 3 years old hardware.

I think that AMD64 mainboards are fully supported including onboard
peripherals. The core components will even work without installing
drivers from the manufacturer.

I have just installed XP64 on my system (MSI K8T Neo2-FIR, NVidia MX440
VGA) wheter to see, what's happening:
Core components included LAN works with the drivers installed by XP
setup, also my VGA. I did not try, if onboard sound or the additional
promise controller works.
Also my old printers ('97 Laserjet 5 and '99 Deskjet 880) are
supported.

The components not working are:
- Crystal based sound card (generic drivers were provided with W2k and
XP32, but apparently removed with XP64)
- ISDN card based on Cologne Chip Designs - no drivers from
manufacturer
- Hauppauge WinTV USB - no drivers from manufacturer
- Artec DVB-T device, based on DibCom design - no drivers, the
manufacturer concentrates on the successor chips
- Mustek parallelport scanner - no drivers from manufacturer

I admit, that some of these pieces of hardware are rather old. Other
parts are quite new, but their manufacturers are so ignorant as I have
described in my previous posting. Especially Artec.

In that case what would be the purpose of buying an AMD64
machine today?

Even in a Win32 environment, AMD64 is fast. And it is much cooler (I
mean temps) and hass less power consumption than Intel PIV. So you
really can build a powerful, but rather quiet system.
The temperature difference between an up-to-date PIV and a similar
Athlon64 is roughly 15K.


Michael

 

[netx]

People who want to use XP64 should be aware that they have to replace

good working hardware by XP64-compatible DRM-compliant crap.

And what is "depressing": I don't think that Address Bus and Data Bus have
64-bit width in AMD64. Probably only 64-bit registers. Far from "true-64".

Regards,
Mark

 

[Peter Strömberg]

And what is "depressing": I don't think that Address Bus and Data Bus
have 64-bit width in AMD64. Probably only 64-bit registers. Far from
"true-64".

Athlon 64 and Opteron
64-bit integer registers
48-bit virtual addresses
40-bit physical addresses

754 Pin Package Specific Features
64-bit data

939/940 Pin Package Specific Features
128-bit data

 

[Zak]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your detailed explanation! I am toying with the idea of buying
an AMD64 machine some time in the next 6 months, and your posting puts a new
perspective on this matter.

Kind regards,
Zak

 

[Black Shuck]

Michael Paul got up from the bar and shouted: :

Nope. They won't provide drivers for "older" hardware. They will prefer
forcing users to buy new stuff.

And we all know what happens to companies that stitch up their user base
like this, they go to the wall.

I certainly got stitched by a couple of companies, and never bought
their hardware again, I hope hope other people also vote with their
wallets....

 

[Michael Paul]

Hi,

Michael Paul got up from the bar and shouted: :

And we all know what happens to companies that stitch up
their user base like this, they go to the wall.

Lets hope that.

I certainly got stitched by a couple of companies, and never
bought their hardware again,

100% agreed.

I hope other people also vote with their wallets....

That is the problem. Many people don't. And nobody knows, if the other
manufacturer is more friendly to its customers.

In this group and also in web forums you can read postings where people
just want XP64, even if they had to replace their entire peripherals.
They want it, just because it's brand new.

Michael

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I understand that the AMD64 has been around since September 2003. I expect
that many people have bought an AMD64 computer, in other words the market is
not small.

Do I understand correctly that you suspect that manufactures will ignore
those people with their "old" hardware and just focus on new consumers? In
that case what would be the purpose of buying an AMD64 machine today?

The "old" 64-bit chipsets and processors will obviously be fully
supported in x64 for a long long time -- they were the entire purpose
of the upgrade of the OS to 64-bit. What may or may not be supported in
the future are old peripheral cards, like SCSI cards, video cards,
modems, etc.

Does anyone remember what happened when we moved from 16 bit to 32

bit?

Sure, why do you ask?

Yousuf Khan

 

[John Whitworth]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your detailed explanation! I am toying with the idea of buying
an AMD64 machine some time in the next 6 months, and your posting puts a new
perspective on this matter.

Kind regards,
Zak

Zak ... this happened with Win XP [32-bit] too. Most manufacturers
didn't release updated drivers for their 'old' hardware, and those that
did took a fair while to do so.

It really all depends what you consider 'old'.

When Win XP came out, it sat alongside Win 2k and Win 98 on my hard
drive. This was because I really wanted Win XP for it's features etc,
but wanted Win 2k and 98 for hardware that wasn't yet supported.

Within about 6 months, I had either found drivers, or decided that the
remaining bits of hardware might as well be updated anyway.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if you are comfortable with Dual
Booting XP and XP-64, then it is worth upgrading your processor/mobo
etc. I've had XP-64 on my machine since RC-1, and, to be honest, at the
start, I used it for a couple of hours, for novelty value, then quit.

Now RC2 is on my machine, coupled with the fact that my Wifi card is now
supported, I am now beginning to use it more and more. OK ... it's still
experimental, but it's growing on me!!

I think that probably the strongest argument though, is that I can
honestly say, my 32-bit Windows has, in no way, been compromised by my
desire to upgrade to a 64-bit CPU.

JW