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i have this laptop Dell Inspiron 6400 with Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor T5600 (1.83GHz/667MHz FSB/2MB L2 Cache) 2GB RAM.

Can i setup windows 7 64bit on this machine? or it will be too slow?

4 Answers 4

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A tool you can use to find out if your CPU has 64bit capabilities is SecurAble

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  • Any information about looking at the chipset info to determine how much memory the overall system can manage?
    – pcapademic
    Jul 23, 2009 at 18:37
  • awesome app, Steve Gibbs rocks! thx for the link.
    – Jon
    Jan 6, 2011 at 11:34
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The Core 2 Duo Processor can, to my knowledge, suupport 64 bit OS.

Unfortunately, you may still only have access to ~3.2GB of RAM, if the chipset supporting the CPU does not support more memory. I, and many others, were disappointed with Dell for stating that some of its laptops, like my D820, could handle 4 GB of RAM when in fact only ~3.2 GB could be addressed.

In short, it's not so much the specs, such as GHz and L2 Cache, but rather the CPU and the supporting chipset (e.g., North Bridge, South Bridge) architecture that determines if a machine can run 64 bit OS.

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    But it doesn't matter because the OP only has 2GB of RAM anyway. :) Jul 23, 2009 at 4:09
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    Then what's the point of x64 (on such a laptop)?
    – Ivo Flipse
    Jul 23, 2009 at 6:37
  • 64 bit registers. Performance increase processing complex mathematical routines and, potentially, less susceptibility to floating point underflow.
    – mas
    Jul 23, 2009 at 7:59
  • I may not matter right this second, but give it a year, and Amr will be wanting to install more RAM.
    – pcapademic
    Jul 23, 2009 at 18:34
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You should be able to run it fine, I tried running windows 7 on a desktop with half those specs and it worked well.

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  • you tried 64bit version? Jul 23, 2009 at 3:56
  • 64 bit is the version i have installed, just make sure you have at least 1GB ram.
    – demetri
    Jul 23, 2009 at 3:57
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If you only have 2GB of RAM, there is no reason to install a 64-bit OS.

You will not see any performance differences between the two. The only reason to go with a 64-bit OS is if you have 4+ GB of RAM installed. Regarding the other answer posted, a 64-bit OS will always allow you access to all 4GB of RAM. 3.2GB is the limit of a 32-bit OS due to overhead.

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  • A commenter on another answer mentioned needing at least 1GB. How does it work?
    – jtbandes
    Jul 23, 2009 at 4:50
  • Windows 7 needs at least 1GB to run decently. If you have less than 3GB, use x86 version, if you use 4+GB, use x64 version. That's all there is to it. Jul 23, 2009 at 19:36
  • This is incorrect. A 64-bit OS permits you to access 64-bit registers, etc. Also, some 32-bit operating systems permit access to 4.0 GB or more of memory through the use of, for example, PAE hacks. Aug 10, 2009 at 18:51

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