Does my laptop support 4gb RAM??? @ 667MHZ

ive got 2gb at 667 mhz right now , doesw my laptop support 4gb as the dell site says its a maximum of 2gb... i know about only being 3 gb because of 32 bit os , but i have 64 bit vista installed awell so thatd be sorted...

Thanks anyways

 

prob not without a bios upgrade.. check with the dell downloads section to see if they have a current bios that will support that

 

It will support 4GB, but the 945 chipset can only address 4GB total (including device addresses). So even with Vista64 and 4GB of RAM, you'll still only be able to access about 3-3.25GB of RAM. This is a hardware limitation that cannot be bypassed.

Only the 965 chipsets (the ones that can hold the T7300,T7500,T7700,etc) can actually have all 4GB accessible in a 64bit OS.

If you want to read a little more, I think there is a blurb at the top of the RAM Deals thread about this very issue.

 

i thought the 6400 needed a bios update though or am i wrong??

 

Ive got the a15 bios if that helps , Thanks anyway , ill stick with 32 bit xp then... still im gonna get the 4gb so i can swap it into another notebook if i need to.

 

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins6400/en/om/specs.htm#wp1054574

The link above has confusing/conflicting information.

Memory module connector: two SODIMM connectors
Memory module capacities: 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB
Maximum memory: 2 GB

This tells me either you can have a single 2GB sodimm
or your current 2x1GB modules.

Intel's site has info on the 945 chipset and it says 4GB is possible, so
maybe Dell's listed limits are based on some limitation they know of for
their laptop (or you need a special config).

My limited knowledge says 4gb in Santa Rosa chipsets only, but
I also know anything is possible - but I would go by Dell's limit of
2GB for your laptop.

 

inspiron 6400 can only support up to 2GB of memory

 

With the 945 (old) chipset, you'll probably see 3.25 GB, assuming the motherboard supports up to 4 GB, like, for example, the M90 does.

 

Hmm Has no-one got a inspiron 6400 with 4gb of memory working?? Cas im still under , some people are saying maby whereas others are saying no but have noithing to back it.... Sept for the dell site but i wouldnt rely on that alone...

 

I have not tested this, but information I've seen elsewhere (from an Intel source) suggests that the chipset will actually address up to 3GB of RAM. Not as good as 4GB, perhaps, but still better than 2GB.

Or you could install one 1GB stick and one 2GB stick, again yielding a total of 3GB. You'll be unable to use dual-channel mode, of course, and that may be why Dell doesn't support such configurations.

 

So whats better??? 2gb 667 mhz dual channel
or 2gb + 1gb 667 mhz

will i notice a big speed decrease?

 

There is minimal difference between single-channel and dual-channel modes... perhaps 2% to 4%. Some benchmarks can be found here.

 

I just tested it. With 2 sticks of 2 GB each, it shows up in System Properties as 3 GB with BIOS A03, so I assume A17, the current BIOS, will be at least as good.

 

Replaced the existing Samsung 1GB PC2-4200 533MHz x2 with 2GB Kingston Value 2GB PC2-5300 677MHz x2 on a whim. Got message on boot up on "memory has changed...need to reseat..." but it wasn't responding. Started to hit function keys until it kicked into Diagnostics (think F12 did it).
Did full scale tests and all passed (took almost 2 hours) and after reboot, my Windows XP came up. Had 3.25 GB available in XP but I'm happy so far.

 

Just for your information, the maximum amount of ram usable by a 32-bit operating system is 3GB. Sure you could install 4, but it will only use 3GB. If you would like to be able to use more, than get a 64-bit version of your operating system.