A machine equipped with 4 Gig RAM is so lagging running Linux PAE kernel and Windows 7 x64

I have a machine equipped with Intel motherboard DG965RY that has 4G RAM.  The machines work as usual running Windows Vista for years.

I installed Windows 7 x64 on the machine recently and the OS works extremely slow.  The CPU is Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40Ghz.  It should support 64 bits instruction sets as seens in BIOS page showing EM64T.  I first thought it could be CPU or motherboard that doesn’t support x64 OS well.  I then re-install the machine with Windows 7 x86 and it works like a charm.

2 Days later, I try to install AsteriskNOW backed by CentOS 5.5 (kernel 2.6.18-194.3.1.e15PAE) i386 on the same machine.  Again, the machine running the kernel 2.6.18-194.3.1.el5PAE is so lagging.  However, it works as usual if running kernel 2.6.18-194.3.1.el5.

I google for the different between PAE kernel and non PAE kernel.  PAE stand for Physical Address Extension.  A clue sparks on my mind suddenly after knowing from the PAE term that it might be something to do with the memory.  I remember that 32 bits machine have limitation on memory address in Windows Vista x86.  It may only detect 3.5G from 4G RAM installed.

I unplug a 2G RAM from motherboard slot and left 2G RAM to the machine and attempt to run PAE kernel.  It works like a charm.  A good news follow is Windows 7 x64 works extremely smooth with this 3 years old machine too.

I quickly browse the Intel BIOS update page and found there is update regarding addressing issues of 4G RAM.  I download and update the BIOS to the latest version, plug the 2G RAM back to motherboard and boot the machine with 4G RAM.  Both Linux PAE kernel and Windows 7 x64 works smoothly as expected.

Google Chrome is laging running on Windows 7 x64

Google Chrome is a web browser released by Google.  Google claims that the Chrome is the fastest browser in the market.  However, this is not my first experience when running Google Chrome on Windows 7 x64 desktop.

When I use Chrome on my Windows 7 x64 desktop, it will so lag and slow.  I continued using FireFox for quite some time and I am happy with the performance on my new Intel I7 machine equipped with 6G RAM.  I use Chrome when I want to use “Incognito Window” of Chrome to access my bank account.  It always lag for each page I visit.  This is not a pleasant experience with Chrome.

After google for the reason why Chrome is so lag for some time, I finally found a solution.  Uncheck “Automatically detect settings” in Internet Options of Microsoft Internet Explorer will boost the browsing speed of Chrome running on Windows 7 x64 platform.  Reason remain unknown why this helps.  No explanation from Google Chrome team so far.

To access Internet Options, you may use Tools | Options of Internet Explorer or double click the icon of Internet Options in Control Panel:

1. Switch to Connections page
2. Click “LAN Setting…” button to show “Local Area Network (LAN) Settings” dialog
3. Uncheck “Automatically detect settings”
4. Click OK button of LocalArea Network (LAN) Setttings dialog
5. Click OK button of Internet Options dialog

You may then enjoy using Google Chrome to surf Internet in much responsive speed on Windows 7 x64 platform.  A side effect of this is the Internet Explorer 8 also render web pages faster than before.