Max RAM on Inspiron9400/E1705?

OK, I already googled this, but I'm getting conflicting answers of 2GB and 4Gb.

I know the slot limit is 2Gb, but I read somewhere that the chipset can't handle 4Gb.
Is this true?

Although it's overkill, I'm after getting a sweet deal on 2*2Gb of PC5300.

 

As far as I am aware the E1705 can only handle 2gbs. Even though the xps 1710 can handle 4gbs I think it has a different chipset. Also I heard from a few sources that 4gb of ram actually performs slower than 2gbs, might also want to check into that before droping the cash.

 

Already dropped! Looks like I'll soon be either selling a 2Gb stick of PC5300,
or figuring out a way of getting a M1710.

 

4 gigs. The m1710 and the e1705 use the same chipset.

32 bit processors can address up to 4 gigs of memory.

don't know why the HECK you'd need it, though.

 

Just too good a deal to pass up!

M1710 and 9400/E1705 have different chipsets - Intel 945PM versus Intel 945GM

 

what was the deal? and i thought 32bit processors only used like 3.5gb, while 64bit could use all 4gb... am i wrong?

 

4Gb for €500

 

I have some firsthand experience with this, as I just put 4GB in my E1705 that I just pulled from a D620 I got at the Dell Outlet (for a giveaway price!!!)

As it turns out 4GB of RAM in an E1705 only yields you 3GB of available RAM. In the E1705 BIOS, it reports 4GB installed, but 3GB available. Booting into XP, only shows 3GB.

Over at notebookforums.com, someone who had an M90 and a M1710 also said that limitation existed, and only 3GB is available. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with XP, since the BIOS says only 3GB will be available.

I think I may sell off my 2 x 2GB sticks...it'll pay for the D620!!!

 

I have two 1 gig sticks in mine, since you say it will only recognize 3 gigs, would i just be more wise to get a 2 gig stick instead of getting two 2 gig sticks?

 

The 3GB limitation isn't the laptop, it's the x86 architecture. If you want to use 4GB or more you'll need to install x64

 

Most consumer editions of Windows XP 32bit (and maybe even even Vista 32bit) uses a flat memory model, meaning that it uses a linear address space to directly address all the addressable memory locations of the computer. In which case it has a maximum of 2^32 = 4GB address space. However, RAM is not the only addressable memory inside a PC, all memory including that of the graphics card and any other registers other devices might have (which are used or can be addressed by the OS) are also included. This means that if you have a 512MB graphics card, Windows is only left with LESS than 3.5GB to address the RAM. That is the main reason why you don’t see all 4GB under Windows 32 bit.

However there is a technique called Physical Address Extension (PAE), which is used to extend the address space of 32 bit systems up to 64GB (with an added performance overhead). But from what I read this is only used in few server and enterprise editions of Windows and Linux.

Getting back to your original question, I don’t think you’d notice any significant improvements by upgrading from 2GB to 4GB. Certainly not for general computing. Unless you are planing to run some memory intensive applications like data base servers or plan to do some serious image and video editing, there is no point in upgrading.