4 GB of RAM in a M1710 on 32bit vista?

Anyone know for sure how much of 4GB of RAM will show up on an M1710 with a 32 bit version of Vista Home Prem.? My guess is around 3.25 GB. Anyone know for sure?

 

You are going to be closer to 3.0GB on that system. The GPU alone uses more than 512MB of that memory allocation.

 

My PC (not a notebook - desktop but similar of course...C2D E6750 on a Gigabyte Mobo with 32bit Vista Ultimate) sees 3.5GB of my 4GB. Sucks but it's better than what some people get. I think you'll see around 3.5 at most. 3GB at worst. I will get 3GB in the next notebook I buy. No point going for 4GB with 32bit Vista. Plus there is a game I got Soldner.X.Himmelssturmer (arcade shooter) that simply doesn't work on a machine with 4GB. Bug. Major pain so I have to play it on my old AMD X2 4400+ PC with 2GB.

 

I HATE DELL. Probably only 3 or 3.5

 

1. The GPU does *not* use any of that memory. The GPU memory isn't shared on the the 7950.

2. The system will let you use around 3.25Gb (3.22 IIRC). The rest is shadowed by some of the 32bit PCI hardware, regardless of OS.

3. It's not Dell who's at fault. This is a hardware limitation, and unavoidable on the Napa platform. Blaim Intel, if any. They upgraded to all-64bit hardware on the Santa Rosa platform, so those laptops don't have this issue.

 

Thanks for the help guys. I found out that 4 GB of ram is only $90 with shipping on Newegg.com so I figured I would go for it. I will post my results.

 

I'm not sure that I follow...

I thought 64-bit vs 32-bit was a processor function...all Meroms (Socket-M [Napa] and Socket-P [Santa Rosa]) support 64-bit architecture...

The problem with addressing more memory doesn't lie with the Merom/Napa config...it has to do with a 32-bit OS being incapable of addressing more memory locations than 4 GB even though the hardware can handle it...

If you run 32-bit Vista, you can upgrade to 64-bit Vista for free (I believe) by going to microsoft.com...be very careful with all your drivers though...not recommended for the faint of heart...

The Santa Rosa laptops do have the 4GB limitation if they're running 32-bit Vista and very few laptop vendors are touching 64-bit Vista...or 64-bit XP...

And I'm not sure I understand what you said about the GPU...I thought Greg was correct, but then I'm often wrong (sorry Greg that I can't be more confident in my support)...I know the GPU has its own memory (ie. it doesn't share system RAM to do its job), but I thought the CPU still had to be able to address all the memory locations in the GPU...therefore, after you subtracted 512M worth of independent addresses and some addressing for other devices, you were left with only the ability to address 3.?? GB of RAM under a 32-bit OS...

I guess back to the drawing board for me...

 

The results are in: a stock m1710 running a 32 bit vista will address (surprise) 3325 MB or 3.25 GB. On the positive side, everything runs silky smooth now :>