Comments on: Windows XP 64-bit + Shuttle SN26P + Nvidia Nforce4 … it all SUCKS.

By: Redman

Redman — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:50:06 +0000

Installing winxp 64 bit was indeed a big big disappointment. Although I got the clean install running quickly on my nforce 570 system, getting my hardware to function properly has still (1 year now) not fully succeeded. My twain compatible SCSI scanner (HP 5P) and iomega jaz drive will probably never work, although they work perfectly with the 32 bit windows (98 and xp), without any driver at all. But hey, it’s 10 year old hardware.
What I can’t grasp is that Microsoft just decided to do away with IPX. That’s not something nobody uses anymore! Officially IPX is not supported, although it is a setup option. But installing IPX, breaks 32bit TCP/IP beyond repair (not the 64bit, but only 64bit IE uses that (Why are both IE’s installed anyway?) while IPX still won’t work.
And it is still not possible to reliably write a cd/dvd. OK, the Nero enterprise suite (illegal because I can’t afford the minimum 100 licences you have to buy) can burn discs, but with the note that it might crash and that if it does, you’ll need to reinstall Windows. Absurd!
The only working video driver for my 7600GT video card allways complains at startup that the SLI setup (which I don’t have) isn’t working.
I’ve got 7 severe isssues left and Microsoft doesn’t even want to tell if they _can_ be solved before I pay 75 euro per issue. And a discount on the upgrade to Vista is also out of the question, even though everybody buying windows XP now, gets a free coupon with it. My problems won’t be fixed (if at all) for under 400 euro. Microsoft support just laughs at me “hey, it’s not our problem you were stupid enough to buy windows 64 bit”
And to top things off the recent service pack has ‘windows 64bit’ in the title, but in the readme calls it windows 2003 server everywhere. Oh, and it breaks .net and windows update. Thanks Microsoft! I’m now doing a fresh install because the system has become cripled beyond repair even before I’ve been able to get it fully operational..

Luckily I’ve got windows 98 as backup on multiboot, on which everything does work. It’s as if I’ve bought a new mercedes and need to keep my Lada, because the new car breaks down often and can’t get me to certain destinations.

By: sc0r1l0

sc0r1l0 — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 01:23:39 +0000

i have an older shuttle, amd nforce3 with fn85 mobo (sn85g4 v2). i couldn’t find the sata drivers for the floppy. where did you get them from?

By: Ricky Faulstich

Ricky Faulstich — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 08:49:35 +0000

I run an ABIT NF8 (AMD64 3200+, nVidia nForce3/250GB chipset, ATI x800 PCI). RAID turned off, but using the SATA and IDE ports.
I waver between various boots/releases (including pre-RTMs) of 32 and 64 bit XP and Vista installations, with varying degrees of success. (I’m a MS developer; as long as Office and Visual Studio and dev-server products are working I am in business for 90% of my usage scenario.
The only one that consistently works with all of my hardware is XP32. Surprisingly, once I got things up and going with XP64, it was by far the most stable and consistently reliable.
There’s always some amount of hacking with any other flavor, even with clean installs; I have had to make an expedition similar to yours (for hours and hours) for just about every non-XP32 install.
Without going into any details of the various issues (drivers, VS/SDK/Office compatibilities, etc.,)
the one thing that I will confidently say is that I will never buy an nVidia platform chipset ever again. They seem to keep up with their display driver releases, but their platform updates are spotty at best (my year-old nForce3 has pretty much already fallen into the no-longer-supported category).

By: David

David — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 03:50:42 +0000

Installed WinXP 64 to 2nd hdd to test on Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe w/3200+ and 2gb ram. The first thing I noticed was

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 03:35:01 +0000

I agree with SlashChick. I ave customers who run my software on all platforms of windows from NT on up to XP.
I have one customer running x64 and is constantly having problems with lockups and freezes. XP 64 maybe ready for the casual user but would not recommend this experimantal beta o/s for anyone in Business!!!!!

By: David

David — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 15:38:06 +0000

Haha. I love windows xp x64bit. It is so much stable like windows 2000 64. The bad side is the many drivers I can’t install. But that doesn’t matter because the only driver I wish I had install was for my pinnacle 500 pci card. I also have an AMD x2 64 bit. Shuttles kind of suck, they are nice but the way they are design makes heating your worst enemy. Plus for x64 my iTunes,Nero,Avast antivirus n firewall, were all working. The only problem is every hardware you buy you must RESEARCH and see if the company has x64 bit drivers, if not your screwed. I love my x64 because most viruses on the web can’t affect its 64bit. The nvidia chips, well some of them your not suppose to install. Like my nvidia firewall that came with my asus a8n, my friend suggested not to install the chips because they would end up crashing my system. To your original post, Shuttle sucks, nvidia is lovely and so is x64 besides the fact that very little drivers provide for it.

By: justin robbins

justin robbins — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 13:32:00 +0000

hi Slash Chick! I have been using windows x64 bit since feb of 2005 now and have had NO problems. Sure I had to give up my cheezy 50$ intel quickcam, but it was easily replaced by a better logitech. Also, my hp scanjet didn’t work anymore (NOT SUPPORTED and will not be). Well I can’t hold on to old equipment forever. it was a slow piece of doggy doo anyway. So it got replaced too!

Everything else has worked except anything requiring a driver
such as a piece of equipment that isn’t supported.

also as for itunes: works perfectly, both with FIREWIRE 800 and FIREWIRE 400.
I have both.

and the drivers for itunes are 32 bit. HOWEVER,
Microsoft included a driver for 64 bit for ipod’s.
AND - for the 32 bit cdrom burning driver (made by GEAR SOFTWARE) - there is a driver for 64 bit that works 100% with itunes on their homepage gearsoftware.com.

although 64 bit is hard to support, it does offer a full migration path to VISTA. It will have a much better supportbase when vista makes it to market and should be much easier to use then.

good luck.

By: Myra Nelson

Myra Nelson — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 14:14:38 +0000

I also find this interesting since I just built two XP 64 Pro systems with absolutely no problems. The first was a Shuttle SN26P and everything works great including my Lexmark P4350 All in one printer with the 64 bit Lexmark drivers. The second system is an EVGA Nforce4 SLI mobo and EVGA Nvidia 7600 GT SLI ready video card. I was expecting a problem with the SATA drivers but everything went fine. The only software I’ve had a problem with is ITUNES.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:46:58 +0000

I feel your pain.

I went through the exact same experience. In fact, I found this page doing a search for the topic because I’m in the process of re-installing 32bit Windows after a frustrating experience with x64 Windows. I just want my freaking printer to work with my PC again - thanks for nothing Lexmark! Piece of crap…

I’m dumping RAID and putting win32 on one drive and Gentoo on the other.

By: James

James — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 13:00:50 +0000

Funny - I’ve built a pair of amd64 systems over the last few months, with exactly the opposite experience: my little nForce4 system was fine, WinXP x64 and all, unless you count the SATA performance being a bit sluggish.

The dual Opteron, meanwhile, was a nightmare. First, the Gigabyte motherboard had some BIOS issue which stopped it working with dual-core chips (their suggestion? ‘Try a single-core part or a BIOS upgrade’ - great idea, except we’re a pure Intel setup aside from that one system, and couldn’t get it to boot far enough to run an upgrade). RMA it, get a decent Tyan board: fine, except it doesn’t like the PSU. Change the PSU, and it’s fine, apart from the third SATA card playing up for some reason.

Windows’ preference for signed drivers isn’t just an x64 problem, either; I’ve had a couple of PCs “lose” sound cards that way (Windows Update comes up with a signed driver which claims to match another version of that PCI device, which Windows considers ‘better’ than an unsigned exact match…)

Loading NTLDR, by the way, is done by the boot ’sector’ using BIOS calls (int 13h), not a device driver; failure at this stage gives the dreaded “NTLDR is missing” error.