Dimension E521 with AMD Athlon 64 5000+ does not support 64 Bit OS

It's unfortunate that there has been all this time for x64 to get anchored into place yet there hasn't been a serious push to get it done.

 

This is apparently becoming an issue only for the technical-types, because Vista being touted as a completely new OS turned into a "new look" instead, so it's more for the average consumer than for people wishing to do a major upgrade.

 

Real pity. Although, there are alternatives such as buying just Vista yourself and installing it and attempting to locate all needed drivers/programs to go with 64-bit. What a fiasco! All this is going to become up to the end users to make the change. Forget about most computers coming complete with Vista x64. Unless something different happens later, maybe, but Vista sure didn't arrive on the scene ready to go.

 

Excuse me a moment. I'm not intending to blame Microsoft. They are, afterall, giving the options-- just too many is what I find to be a fault. It's the fault of the whole computing world to not get this all worked out together. But then what else is new about that, eh?

 

Hi

 not sure if this work because it says 4401 may be worth a try ,

this is were i got my drivers from for win XP pro 64 vista 64

it looks like all the drivers are there.

http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/4401.php

 

Dell 8400

 

Jerry/c3po5

I made the mistake of assuming Dell was shipping our systems with the 64 bit version of Vista since they were shipping our E521s with a 64 bit processors (I ordered 2 of these systems actually- one for me, and my roommate purchased the other one).

Sure enough, we both found out quickely that they shipped with Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

We complained, asking Dell to send us the media and we would wipe our hard drives and install Vista Home Premium 64 ourselves.  They would not.

All Dell would do was credit each of us $120 back towards our purchase - to partially cover the cost of an upgrade to the 64 bit version of Home Premium - which we had to buy on our own and show Dell proof of purchase before they would credit our accounts.

Instead we used the credit to pay for part of the upgrade for our systems to Vista Ulitmate 64 bit.

So now we are running unsupported systems, according to Dell.  I am hearing this during my current run in with Dell, trying to get a BIOS update from them that will run from my OS or from a DOS bootable CD or something.  All they offer is a 32 bit version that will not run on my 64 bit OS.

As for your Broadcom card, I’ve had no problems.  Vista 64 bit picked it up right away on my E521, I think.  Either that or I downloaded and installed Dell’s 32 bit version and that worked ok.

Try it.  It may do it for you too.

As for support from Dell, don't hold your breath.

Joe