XPS M1210- Memory question

Which is better:

1) 1x 2 gb ram + 1x 1 gb ram

or

2) 2 x 2 gb ram



I'm asking because this notebook will only accept 3.3 gb MAX and i was wondering if the first configuration was better than the 2nd one.

 

The 1210 accepts up to 4GB. Not sure where you heard 3.3

But to answer your question... Answer # 2 because 2+2=4 where as #1: 2 + 1=3

 

no he means the 32bit vista wont recognize it...I dont know the answer though, sry

 

If you use Vista or Xp64, I'm sure the notebook would accept 4GB of RAM.

 

NONONO...everybody listen CAREFULLY

the vista installed on the notebook he is getting is 32 bit...therefore it wont recognize the full 4gb of Ram (although it can be put in). He wants to know which is better performance wise, 3gb or 4gb in 32 bit vista.

Wow I really wish I knew the answer.

 

2x2GB will enable dual-channel operation ("up to" double the memory bandwidth of single-channel), the other option will only allow for single-channel.

 

Sorry guys, the m1210 only recognizes 3.25 megs of ram. It does not accept 4 gigs because the MOTHERBOARD will not address it, nothing to do with vista. Vista 32 will recognize 4gigs.

 

Where are you getting this information????

This is what I found:
Vista 32 bit goes up to 4GB
32-bit versions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate: 4GB
32-bit Windows Vista Starter: 1GB
64-bit versions of Windows Vista Home Basic: 8GB
64-bit versions of Windows Vista Home Premium: 16GB
64-bit versions of Windows Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate: 128GB

As for the XPS M1210:

Memory


Up to 4GB1 of Dual Channel DDR2 memory2 provides blazing performance. provides blazing performance.

DDR2 dual channel3 memory offers excellent performance and bandwidth. This memory architecture is designed to help improve overall system performance and reduce power consumption. As demands from processors, graphics and networking increase, DDR2 is the new standard in notebook memory.

 

So I search around a little to find some real-world experiences for people with 4GB installed:



This guy had 3.2GB available.
People here had 2GB, 3.58GB, and 3GB available.
This guy had 2.5 GB.
And this guy had 2.8GB available.
This paper from HP helps explain it–the platform can theoretically support the full 4GB, but your hardware is going to allocate some of the address space (not the physical RAM) to the PCI bus, the video adapter memory address space, and other resources. 32-bit OSs need to use part of the full 4GB address space to address these resources, subtracting from the maximum memory you have available to the OS and applications:

The PCI memory addresses starting down from 4 GB are used for things like the BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and video/graphics cards. The BIOS takes up about 512 KB starting from the very top address. Then each of the other items mentioned are allocated address ranges below the BIOS range. The largest block of addresses is allocated for today’s high performance graphics cards which need addresses for at least the amount of memory on the graphics card. The net result is that a high performance x86-based computer may allocate 512 MB to more than 1 GB for the PCI memory address range before any RAM (physical user memory) addresses are allocated.

So, if your video adapter has 512MB of RAM (like mine does), your maximum memory is going to at most be 3.5GB, because Vista has to use 512MB of that address space to address your video memory. It’ll actually be lower than the 3.5GB because there are other hardware resources that need address space, too. So, it never hurts to fill your computer with 4GB of RAM–you’ll definitely get the max, but you won’t be able to address it all. You probably won’t be able to address much more than 3GB, and you might not be able to address more than 2GB.
The paper also mentions something interesting about 64-bit computers. Basically, depending on the hardware, you might be limited to 4GB of RAM even if you install 64-bit Windows Vista:

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition uses 64-bit addressing enabling virtually the entire amount of installed RAM to be made available on computers that have large address infrastructures (where the entire system has more than 4 GB addressing capabilities via the processor, chipset, physical memory capacity, etc). The HP xw4300, xw6200, xw8200 and xw9300 Workstations have the required infrastructures and even the PCI memory address range is recovered by re-mapping it above the top of physical memory.

Thanks for the great question. If you’re using 4GB of RAM with 32-bit Vista, add a comment and let us know about your experiences.

 

Im "getting this" from many other ppl who have complained that vista32 cant recognize 4gb of ram.
ppl like these: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=118669
http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php?t27818.html
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/...-maximum-supported-ram-physical-memory-limit/

the last link is to an article that explains it all...sry guys should have linked it earlier

Edit: sry, as cpuguy showed, it still recognizes it but just utilizes it in a unique way.

 

What's the difference between a memory module with a heatspreader than one without?

 

Ones with heatspreader are for people who wishes to overclock the RAM. Since the M1210 has limited BIOS function to perform that, you are not benefitting from more expensive RAM.

 

so what the heatspreader does is it basically allows the ram to run cooler? is that what your'e saying?

 

Just saw this post because it's a top result for m1210 video allocation and, though it doesn't answer that question, I felt it important to clear muddy waters. ( megs of ram?)

The m1210 WILL RECOGNIZE and USE 4gb of ram.
A 32 bit OS WILL NOT display or utilize 4 gb. *(see note below)
A 64 bit OS (vista64, xp64, etc) WILL recognize and use the entire 4gb **(see note below)

My quick interpretation:
Say your 4 gigs of ram are 4 kegs of beer, and that's the max that fits in your kitchen (eg. the max the motherboard supports).
Well, you need plastic cups for that beer right? So these plastic cups represent the addresses available to your OS.

A 32 bit OS has exactly 4gb of cups available.

The problem is, your orange juice needs some cups (pci bus), and your soda needs some cups (64 megs of dedicated video), and a handfull of other things. It's important to understand that the memory in your video card has to be addressed, ie. assigned to a cup, before it can be used.

So now you've only got about 3.45 gb worth of cups left to pour beer in!
Of course, lets not forget that the other 192 mb of video ram is shared. So pour beer into those cups and go set them aside with the soda.

Now you've got approximately 3.25 gb worth of cups left to pour beer in. You pour as much beer into those cups as possible and build a beer pyramid out of them for the party (ie. allowing the system to utilize that much ram) the only problem is, you've got about 558 megabytes of beer left in your kegs, and no cups left to put it in.

If you were a 64 Bit OS, you would have brought 17.2 billion gigabytes worth of cups to the party. Problem solved. (now you just need to build a bigger kitchen )



*Windows vista 32 recently added a patch that displays the amount of ram actually in your computer, but don't be fooled into thinking it's all being used. You still only have so many cups with a 32 bit OS.

**While a 64 bit system has plenty of cups (addresses), 192 mb of your ram is shared and must be addressed to the video bus. Combining this fact with the 4gb bios/hardware limitation of the m1210 means that even a 64Bit OS will only ever use 3.8 GB on this specific laptop. Although if you turned off shared memory and just used the built in 64mb, then your OS would use the full 4gb.



To answer the OP's question, (which I'm sure he's moved on by now, but this will help others) 2x2gb is indeed better as dc74 has already stated b'c it will run in dual channel mode. Be sure to buy a blister pack from a reputable company to maximize the chances that the ram is from the same batch and identical. There is nothing special that you need to do except pop in two identical pieces of ddr2. The board will take care of the rest. (although I'd memtest it first)