The whole 4GB+ ram and Vista x64 issue...

Ok so well I had Vista installed and I needed to temporarily install XP so i formatted the drive. Now my question is, will I need to take out 2GB for the Vista installation this time? I know that if you install Vista through windows then it will check for "Vista updates" before the installation -- is this one of the updates that it checks for?

Thanks for your help, I would prefer not to remove the ram because my motherboard is barely secured on the tray and it needs a lot of pressure to get in.

First off, the need to remove ram so that Vista is installed with 2GB or less is highly dependant on the quality of your hardware components, and who made them. Case in point, on my ASUS-A8N32-Sli-Deluxe motherboard, I have 4GB Hynix DDR400 memory installed, and Vista x64 installs without a problem in that configuration.

Second, you'll get a more stable Vista installation by performing a clean install, as opposed to an "Upgrade" of XP.

Third, you really should se what you can do about properly mounting your motherboard. The abolute last thing you want to have happen is the thing moving when you don't want it to, causing a disastrous short that could just take out more than the board itself.

Why would there be a problem anyway ? I just installed Vista with 8GB of ram in my system and everything wnet fine. I do agree with the fact that you should make certain your motherboard is mounted correctly/safely, that sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

Thank you for the replays gentlemen... However I do want to inform you that there is a known problem with the 64 bit installation of Vista and having 4GB+ of ram. I attempted to install it and after about 75% of the installation I did get a BSOD. So I had to remove 2GB.. Not a big deal I just wish I didn't have to do that.

Anyway, I couldn't have done an "upgrade" because I was running 32 bit XP and you can't upgrade to 64 bit Vista under that OS.

Not sure why you had an issue but I did my install of vista x64 with 4 GB of A-Data Ram and it went VERY smoothly.
RA

Owned is correct: There is a known bug involving certain types of memory controller. This is addressed by KB929777

Absolutely right. The 64-bit/4gig issue was known long before I loaded 64-bit. One of the reasons I went with the MB I did was that there was a BIOS patch that corrected the issue.

Mine went fine as well with 4 Gig of Dominator 1066.

I installed Vista 64 just fine, on my system back in October, on my system using four 1GB Crucial DDR2 800 DIMMS.

I'm kinda thinking about upgrading to four 1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 DIMMS later this year.