Inspiron 6400 e1505 and 4GBs of Memory (Questions about Dual Channel Mode)

I have a question about 4gb of memory on inspirons. I recently put in 4GB's memory in my inspiron (Corsair brand) and I am running XP(x86) aka 32bit. Windows sees 3.25gb's which is exactly correct.

Awhile back I read that the inspiron motherboard which is an intel, will not run the memory in Dual Channel mode, which will slow the memory down about 3-5%. However I am not sure of how true or not this is. I put the memory and checked my bios and its showing all 4GB's and "Dual Channel" enabled.

My friend also did the same thing and his laptop also shows the exact same thing. He is running Vista 32-bit.

So the question is how real is this dual channel concern if the bios is saying its in dual channel mode? PS we are both running the latest bios A17.

 

If you are running a pair of 2GB sticks of RAM, I do not see why the Inspiron would not use Dual Channel.

But I wouldn't worry too much about this, as even in benchmarking, there is pretty much no difference whether or nor Dual Channel is used.

 

Sounds like that information was incorrect.

Before I had 2x512 in dual channel, and then I removed one 512 stick and replaced it with a 2gb stick. It ran slower then, so now I have a single 2gb stick which runs slightly slower than 2x512 in dual channel but a fair bit faster then 1x512 +1x2gb.

 

Well that is what I want to confirm, whether or not the inspiron's motherboard will or won't run the memory in dual channel mode. I wonder if there is an application that tells you that information?

 

CPUZ will tell you if your memory is in dual-channel mode. It's under the Memory tab.

(Then again, CPUZ might just read from the BIOS... but I doubt it)

 

Yup, CPUZ shows the same info that its in dual. Made me think the same thing that it just might reading the bios info

 

I've never been able to tell the difference between dual channel and not.