win8 upgrade advisor gives wrong memory count, stops process

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i have a dell E521, with win7, 3 gb ram. the upgrade advisor thinks that i have 1 gb ram and won’t let me continue with upgrade process. i posted about this at the “microsoft answers” (sic) forum and haven’t received a useful reponse. one person reported having the same issue. same computer.

i already have the key code, having purchased win8 through company site (all they give is code and win8 upgrade advisor), but now can’t download win8. i want to save it and install to the xp partition at some point in near future: dual boot win7 and win8.

i tried the upgrade adviore directly from ms, same result.

any suggestions?

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Do you have three RAM sticks? According to http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Dimension E521&Cat=RAM the E521 can have 4 sticks with a maximum of 1 GB per stick.

Is all the RAM visible in BIOS?

Joe

--Joe

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Do you have three RAM sticks? According to http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Dimension E521&Cat=RAM the E521 can have 4 sticks with a maximum of 1 GB per stick.

Is all the RAM visible in BIOS?

Joe

i ran the crucial mem scan. it thinks that i have 1.5 gb. bios says i have 3 gb: 2:1gb sticks, 2: 512mb sticks. i intended to upgrade the 2:512 mb sticks to 2:1gb, but didn’t get around to it. nevertheless, bios, and all software sees 3 gb. only ms and crucial see differently.

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Are you attempting to download the 32 Bit version or the 64 Bit version? With only 3 Gb RAM, the 32 Bit version is more appropriate for you.

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Are you attempting to download the 32 Bit version or the 64 Bit version? With only 3 Gb RAM, the 32 Bit version is more appropriate for you.

at the time that i installed the 64 bit version i planned on upgrading memory. then i realized that 4gb was the max allowed in this computer. i have 6gb with 64 bit win7 on laptop, and would prefer to keep both the same, not have to keep separate version of software, etc. in the end, 64 bit was probably a waste for me, since i don’t do anything so memory intensive. my impression a few years ago was that everything was going to 64 bit, so that is where i went. didn’t happen that way. oh well.

besides, the upgrade advisor doesn’t ask what you want. it just assumes that whatever is on the computer now is what it will be in future. i tried running the upgrade advisor from xp (32 bit ), and got an error message, some sort of error checking system, then fails download, “class not registered”. at least advisor runs in win7, except for memory confusion. i don’t intend to let it install there, but save to disk and install it on xp partition.

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That’s kind of what I did. I chose the Install to media option, downloaded the ISO file to my Data Partition, burned to DVD, then stopped the installation, booted to the DVD, chose Custom Install and formatted as a part of the installation then installed Win 8 Pro. I used the same DVD to install on both our laptops, just using the different keys for the installation.

I do not have any other suggestions on what your problem might be. Strange. Perhaps, as you state, downloading on Win 7, burning to DVD, then using the DVD on the PC you are talking about.

Unless you actually up the amount of Ram, 64 Bit will be wasted on that PC. A 32 Bit installation will work fine. If however you want to burn just one DVD for everything as I did, get the 64 Bit.

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Does Win7 see 3GB?

Have you tried reseating the RAM? Do you have the 1GB sticks in slots 1 & 3 and the 512 MB sticks in slots 2 & 4?

Joe

--Joe

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Does Win7 see 3GB?

Have you tried reseating the RAM? Do you have the 1GB sticks in slots 1 & 3 and the 512 MB sticks in slots 2 & 4?

Joe

yes, win7 sees 3 gb. i can’t say that i remember for sure who is in which slot. i did it according to instructions that i had at the time, and since computer all software other than advisor (and now crucial) sees 3gb, i figured that it was correct. i am currently presuming that there is some defect in the advisor program. certainly wouldn’t be unusual.

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I have to believe if you try to install from the DVD, you should be successful.

I would definitely create an up to date Image prior to starting the installation.

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I have to believe if you try to install from the DVD, you should be successful.

right. that is the problem, i don’t have the dvd. i am curious to see if the advisor finds some other problem than the alleged memory issue, but, i agree, since i am currently running win7, win8 is supposed to be compatible. but if the advisor doesn’t run, i can’t download the program.

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I think that it is unusual that the advisor program and the crucial detection program do not see all the RAM but Windows does. You may have an intermittent RAM problem. I’d power down the PC, open it, and reseat the RAM.

Joe

--Joe

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Sorry, I thought you said you has a different PC with Win 7 and XP. Are you having problems downloading from the Win 7 side or from just the XP side? Perhaps someone you know would let you use their PC for a while just to download the ISO file. Unfortunately there is not a separate download site like there is for Win 7.

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Sorry, I thought you said you has a different PC with Win 7 and XP. Are you having problems downloading from the Win 7 side or from just the XP side? Perhaps someone you know would let you use their PC for a while just to download the ISO file. Unfortunately there is not a separate download site like there is for Win 7.

duh, why didn’t i think of that. i have the desktop with win7 and xp. the plan was to get the 64 bit version by downloading from the win7 partition and install it on the xp partition. then i ran into the memory issue. but i do have the laptop with win7 64 bit on it. i’ll try downloading from there.

i may also get 2 more 1gb sticks for the desktop, which will bring it from 3 to 4 gb (its max), or from 1 to 4gb according to advisor, unless advisor won’t recognize the extra 2 either.

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duh, why didn’t i think of that. i have the desktop with win7 and xp. the plan was to get the 64 bit version by downloading from the win7 partition and install it on the xp partition. then i ran into the memory issue. but i do have the laptop with win7 64 bit on it. i’ll try downloading from there.

That’s why they pay us the big bucks. LOL :rolleyes:

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You should still consider upgrading your RAM to make it more uniform than what you currently have.
If your system can only handle 4 GB of RAM, then 4 GB will do nicely for Windows 8 64 bit.

Along with Joe’s suggestion, I would also run a memory diagnostic as well. Maybe check the fine tune settings/timings in the BIOS.
Set your memory to it’s default in BIOS and try the upgrade advisor again. If you’ve clocked up the memory speed, try down clocking
your memory and try the upgrade advisor again.

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i will install more ram. i’ll start the advisor again after installation an see if it is satisfied.

meanwhile, i ran the upgrade advisor on laptop. it didn’t even give me the satisfaction of hearing how suitable the laptop is for win8, just started downloading . took about 2 hours. it is now burned to dvd.

thanks for the responses. and inspiration to get this out of the way.

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You’ll be given the option of creating a USB install disk along with the ISO.
Take advantage of this and backup your ISO to a secure location.
Also, don’t forget to tuck your product key away in a safe place for future needs.

Keep a copy of the upgrade advisor as you may well be able to re-download Windows 8 by entering your product key.
It may be machine specific, so run it on the machine you intend to install on.

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I used the same DVD on 2 separate PC’s. I just had to insert the different keys during the installation. Many people do not realize the advantage of having this DVD available. In addition to reinstalls (how often do we read threads about reinstalling the OS) this DVD gives access to the Repair Console in the Repair my PC section.

Also be sure to keep the email receipt you received from MS as there are 2 links included, one for starting the download over near the top, and one for buying a backup DVD near the bottom.

@astro46, that’s super that you now have the ISO burned to DVD.

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