Planning to change OS into W8.1 64 bit

[Noobetter]

So it has been awhile running my laptop on Windows 8.1 32 bit, looking to get it back to 64 bit.

I have all the necessary drivers as I am preparing the transition soon.

My current BIOS is  Insyde F.11, 3/21/2014 when I installed the 32bit W8.1

Can I install the new BIOS (64 bit) while I am still on my W8.1 32 bit and then do the Hard Drive Reformat

OR

Do the Hard Drive Reformat, install the W8.1 64 bit and then install the 64 bit BIOS?

Also, I upgraded my RAM from 2 GB and added another 8GB total of 10 GB now, but it only shows that usable is 2.41GB out of 10GB. Why is that?

[WAWood]

@Noobetter 

The memory addressing limitation is due to your running a 32-bit OS -- it can only see a little less than 4GB.  This will not be a factory when you switch to 64-bit.

As to the BIOS, from my understanding, the BIOS is bit-agnostic; it is the OS that is 32-bit or 64-bit.  So, the BIOS update you apply when running the 32-bit OS will still be there when you switch over to the 64-bit OS.

Good Luck in this

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Yes, you can update the BIOS when running a 32 bit OS.

Here is the info link to  the latest BIOS on your notebook's W8.1 support page.

You can see the list of supported operating systems you can run the update on.

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp77001-77500/sp77233.html

[Noobetter]

Thanks for the quick response @WAWood

So it is because of my current 32 bit OS that is holding my RAM usage down. Looks like I will be changing from 32 bit to 64 bit as soon as possible then.

In that case I am thinking of updating my BIOS for now to the ones from the support site and then just do the OS bit upgrade later on.

Won't it cause issues though? 

[Noobetter]

@Paul_Tikkanen

I do remember you helping me wayback when I wanted to run this same machine on a 32bit OS. And yeah I am now going to upgrade to 64 bit OS since most Apps and Programs nowadays are designed for 64 bit.

Thanks for that information by the way. I may go ahead and just update the BIOS for now and the OS later.

Will update again once I am successful

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Yes, if you want to install more than 4 GB of memory you need to be running a 64 bit operating system.

But you can update the BIOS now if you want.