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220-801 · Question #908

A technician is building a gaming PC for a user. The user wants to dual boot between Windows XP 32-bit and a 64-bit version of Windows 7 as some of the games require XP. The user requests the…

The correct answer is B. RAM. The key issue here is the 32-bit vs. 64-bit operating system limitation. Windows XP 32-bit can only address a maximum of 4 GB of RAM (and often reports less, typically around 3.2–3.5 GB, due to address space reserved for hardware). However, the system has 16 GB of RAM…

Hardware

Question

A technician is building a gaming PC for a user. The user wants to dual boot between Windows XP 32-bit and a 64-bit version of Windows 7 as some of the games require XP. The user requests the following specifications:

64-bit i7 processor, (consisting of 6 cores @ 3.0GHz) 16 GB of RAM (consisting of two 8 GB modules) One 200 GB SSD RAID 1 (consisting of two 1TB SATA Drives) Two 2 GB SLI Video Cards Which of the following components should the technician warn the user will be reported differently depending on the operating system that is currently booted?

Options

  • ARAID
  • BRAM
  • CProcessor
  • DSSD Drive
  • EVideo Card

How the community answered

(15 responses)
  • B
    73% (11)
  • C
    7% (1)
  • D
    7% (1)
  • E
    13% (2)

Explanation

The key issue here is the 32-bit vs. 64-bit operating system limitation. Windows XP 32-bit can only address a maximum of 4 GB of RAM (and often reports less, typically around 3.2–3.5 GB, due to address space reserved for hardware). However, the system has 16 GB of RAM installed. When booted into Windows 7 64-bit, the full 16 GB will be recognized and reported. All other components - the RAID array (A), the 64-bit i7 processor (C), the SSD (D), and the SLI video cards (E) - are hardware-level components that are detected by the BIOS/firmware regardless of OS bitness, so they will report consistently across both operating systems.

Topics

#RAM addressing#32-bit vs 64-bit#OS memory limits#dual boot

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