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    m5790 with 4 GB ram Installed and reviewed

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by rive0108, Mar 15, 2008.

  1. rive0108

    rive0108 Notebook Consultant

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    I purchased 4 GB of Kingston CL5 ddr2 pc2-5300 ram from Newegg.com for $84.00 and installed it on my 64-bit version of Ultimate. (BIOS V.1.20/1.19)

    The m5790 runs a intel 945PM chipset. This chipset can only address up to 4 GB. the peripherals and x1800/x1900 addresses up to 512 MB with an additional 256 MB for the dedicated memory.
    Because this memory cannot be overwritten, and the chipset can support no more than 4 GB, the BIOS reports 3329 MB (3.25 GB) available and 3325 MB allocated to Vista.

    So in Review, Yes the m5790 supports 4 GB of ram, but only 4 GB. The peripherals/graphics card reserves aprox. 767 MB, and that leaves Vista with 3.25 GB

    Area-51 M5790
    Vista Ultimate x64
    T7600G Core2 Duo 2.33 Ghz (overclocked to 2.67 GHZ)
    ATI Mobility Radeon x1900 256 MB
    1920x1200 WUXGA
    4 GB DDR2 PC5300
    HP digital Tuner express card
    200 GB 7200 RPM HDD RAID 0
     
    rive0108, Mar 15, 2008
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  2. eightd

    eightd Notebook Evangelist

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    Somewhat,
    Actually the system reserves 512MB for PCI and other Devices. And 256MB for the Video card. Either way it sucks that you lose all of that memory, I'm in the same boat with the M9750.
     
    eightd, Mar 15, 2008
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  3. Fade To Black

    Fade To Black The Bad Ass

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    The laptop never really supported 4GB of RAM, same for x86 OS.
     
    Fade To Black, Mar 15, 2008
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  4. rive0108

    rive0108 Notebook Consultant

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    rive0108, Mar 15, 2008
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  5. MiniKissKool

    MiniKissKool Notebook Consultant

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    You have to change your title... It's M9750, not M5790... ;)
     
    MiniKissKool, Mar 15, 2008
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  6. Fade To Black

    Fade To Black The Bad Ass

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    Alienware shouldn't offer 4GB as an option, even with the M15x, without telling people they will not be able to use it unless they change their OS to an x64 one.
     
    Fade To Black, Mar 15, 2008
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  7. Konig

    Konig Notebook Evangelist

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    @MiniKissKool, there was an M5790 ;)
    if im not mistaken ,there was a review for it on NBR itself
     
    Konig, Mar 15, 2008
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  8. rive0108

    rive0108 Notebook Consultant

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    Title is correct-

    I have a m5790
     
    rive0108, Mar 15, 2008
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  9. MiniKissKool

    MiniKissKool Notebook Consultant

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    Ouuuuuups !!!
    Sorry ! :/
    :D
     
    MiniKissKool, Mar 16, 2008
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  10. rive0108

    rive0108 Notebook Consultant

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    Even with a x64 O/S ( which I am running) Its the chipset limitation for addressable RAM that is the problem. 4GB max.
     
    rive0108, Jul 6, 2008
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  11. Mystik

    Mystik Notebook Deity

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    ... well that's wrong.

    the limitation is the 32 bit address register. Limits to a 4 Gibibit maximum. split between on-chip (Cache), lower, upper, video and reserved memories (including the PCI reservations), you only can use 3.12GB of RAM... variable by your video card. (less video memory, = more address space for system memory)

    so you have 3.12GB of USABLE RAM, and 4Gibibits of addressed memory.
     
    Mystik, Jul 6, 2008
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  12. rive0108

    rive0108 Notebook Consultant

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    That is correct.
    Notice I wrote total available memory not total addressable memory on the m5790 :)
     
    rive0108, Jul 6, 2008
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  13. Stone825

    Stone825 Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yea that is the same issue that we are having with our M9750's. However, the only difference is that with the M9750 it affects us much more because we have a whopping gig of memory for the GPU's.
     
    Stone825, Jul 6, 2008
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  14. Mystik

    Mystik Notebook Deity

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    Correct would've been total available RAM.

    tyvm.
     
    Mystik, Jul 6, 2008
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  15. rive0108

    rive0108 Notebook Consultant

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    Hate to split hairs here Mystik-
    But correct me if I am wrong. You use RAM, and I use Memory, RAM is "Random Access Memory" is it not? ;)
    Are we not talking about the same thing here?
     
    rive0108, Jul 6, 2008
    #15