Does W3J Support 2 GB RAM Sticks?

Sorry if this has been asked before... Anybody installed 2 GB RAM stick in W3J?

 

PortableOne lists the W3j with "1GB (1 x 1GB) DDR2 667MHz (4GB Max)"

~ Brett

 

I think I can remember that one of the members here had a single 2GB stick...

 

They'll work fine, no reason why not

 

It will support 2 2 gig sticks of memory. The computer can only address 3 gigs of that memory. Someone chime in, but I believe it is the OS that limits how much memory the computer can address, not the chipset.

 

The processor needs to be 64-bit to address the whole 4-GB memory which is true in Original Poster's case.But he should also have a 64-bit operating system.
But if either of the the Operating System or the CPU are 32-bit, the user can only use 3.2GB of RAM.

 

Yeah have been testing computers to run large photoshop files at work, and going from 2gb to 4gb under XP actually caused more page filing and actually slowed the computer down, this bacame more evident testing the same files on a XP 64, wow what a difference a 300mb fully layered tiff would open on an old dell optiplex 270 in 455 sec, on a new Precision 390 under XP the best time we got was 89 sec, however the same PC with XP 64 installed we just increased the memory setting to 70% and it opened in 35 sec so I though what the hell set it to 100% (which you cannot do under vista) and the same files opened in 9sec! and the great thing is in day to day working you can have a large photoshop file open, and indesign and CAD at the same time. its great on a normal day my taskmanager is sitting on 2.5 - 3gb usage

I havent tested under vista 64bit yet but if you are running under 32 bit windows dont waste your money on more than 2gb RAM it doesnt use it I noticed no difference at all, but if you are running a 64bit OS its great

 

Correct me if I am wrong but you cant run a 64 bit OS with a 32 bit processor, so if you are runing a 64 bit OS it will utilise more RAM because it will be using a 64 bit CPU.

However I know at work I run mostly 32bit apps under XP64 and by just being able to use more than 2gb RAM gives us a huge performance boost if you are a photoshop user working with large files you should run a 64 bit OS with as much Ram as possible if you are running a 32 bit OS dont waste your money.

2GB sticks must be prety damn expensve though? last time I looked for 2gb notebook ram it was quite pricy.

 

You can get a 2gb stick for $150 from newegg (opposed to about $85 for two 1gb sticks).

On a related topic, is it worth it to get a 64bit version of Vista on a new laptop so that you can run more than 3gb of ram? I've heard there are a lot of problems with the 64bit OS. Is it generally worth it to have more than 2gb for gaming?

 

Hi friends, thanks for your replies!

@ Aaron: did you installed the 2 GB sticks in your W3J?

As for rgrant's question... sorry I can't answer yours, I haven't tried that yet.

 

Hi there! at the moment in My W3J I am running1.83 GHZ Duo core, 2gb RAM (2x 1gb sticks) under XP with twin 160gb Seagate 5400.3 drives (one in optical bay).

With this setup getting any more than 2GB ram will not improve my performance.

However..... on my wish list...... my global warantee runs out in about a month and hopefully by then the new Sonoma chips will be out, which means the Dual core 2 chips will drop in price, I would like to get the fastest Duo core2 chip which will also handle a 64bit OS Vista Ultimate, Also Seagate are releasing a new 160GB 7200rpm drive Q1 or Q2 of this year so one of those would be nice! ha ha.

But I have been working with XP Professional 64 Edition at work, it deffinately uses more momory than XP but the shear lack of 64 bit drivers would stop me running Vista as a 64 bit OS on my laptop for a while, but when it does, I would probably plump for 4gb RAM, but untill then any 32bit OS doesnt really use the extra RAM so its not worth it.

But what a great time it was to buy! the fact that duo core and duo core2 CPUs share the same 945 chipset is great, and there is lots of upgrade potential left, considering it is now a year old I can still upgrade with Duocore2 CPU, 7200RPM HDD, Vista, Vista64 & last of all 4GB RAM.
(this is probably the order I would upgrade in)

So I am happy.

 

Ha, it's nice to hear that there's another happy W3J owner. But, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't the new Seagate 160GB 7200 rpm drive SATA only? Or will there be a PATA version also?

 

Just to confirm, is this drive a PATA or SATA one? I believe its more likely to be SATA, and therefore not compatible with our lovey, sexy, oh so good W3J. Thats why I have a 100GB instead of anything else bigger!

 

aghhhhhhh crap...... well I guess I gotta scratch that one off the list then! when I was looking last year I saw it was SATA, I was hoping they would do both, but I guess not. I would only upgrade to a 7200 if it matched 160gb size, hopefully one will come out.

Looks like Hitachi are making 200gb 7200rpm drives, but guess what...... only SATA

http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/menuitem.edf693c2139b099056fb11f0aac4f0a0/

 

You can still get some large, fast (but somewhat pricey) compatible drives.

~ Brett

 

Um, what was the point of posting that link? He is only after something no less than 160GB. The maximum capacity for a PATA 7200 2.5" drive is 100GB.

 

is this the end of PATA drives?

if so, then that sucks bad.

 

Seem like it. I searched everywhere, company websites to see if there was a PATA 7200PRM 2.5" HDD that had a capacity greater than 100GB. Had no luck, so I got myself the 100GB 7200 Seagate HDD. The new 7200RPM 2.5" HDD with capacities greater than 100GB only seem to support SATA.

 

Those are 7200s while the stock is a 5400. I didn't realize he required that big a drive. Oh well...

~ Brett

 

Yeah I would like the performance of a 7200 but my existing 160gb drive which at the moment is relatively empty for me at 115 GB so there is no way I can go down to 100gb and any HDD that is completely full is slows your system down.

I had some looking around too and it does seem that all of the new 7200 drives are only SATA

oh well at least if they are phasing PATA out SATA is faster, so has got to be good for the long term, although I haven't seen any HDD enclosures for SATA notebook drives?

 

I haven't seen any SATA notebook drive enclosures either. One thing I thought about doing (I'm in a similar situations cause I shoot tons of RAW pictures and am stuck with the stock drive) is to buy the HD adapter for the modular bay and throw another 100 gigger in there for a total of 200 gigs. One drive for installed programs, the removable one for documents, etc. Let us know what you wind up doing.

~ Brett

 

Laptop SATA enclosures *do* exist. Vantec makes the Nexstar laptop SATA enclosure for desktop and laptop drives which support USB and eSATA (NST-260SU-BK). I'm actually doing that with my extra 100GB 2.5" SATA HDD that I bought long ago... you still need an eSATA on the laptop, though (either built-in or ExpressCard/PCMCIA). Much faster than USB.

Having the modular bay as an HDD means you lose your optical drive. A laptop HDD enclosure isn't quite as much of a hassle to carry around compared to the hassle of losing an optical drive or damaging it because it got squished in the bag.

 

Yeah I suppose it depends on how you use your laptop, while I was in the states last year Dell sell the seagate 5400 160gb drives quite cheap, so I brought two, I run one as main and the other in the optical bay and to honest I have it running like that 95% of the time, I hardly use the DVD drive at all, but the best thing is I can use my extra drive at work in a USB enclusure, If I make a briefcase, when I plug it into my optical bay in my W3J, I changed it so the drive to appear the same as our network at work , so all the links to xref files in CAD VIS or indesign remain the same

 

Must a notebook have SATA for it to be compatible with eSATA built-in?