Upgrading RAM beyond 3Gb

Hi I just bought the following laptop. Asus X58L AP004E. It came with 2 GB of DDR2 800Mhz Ram and I want to upgrade it to 4 GB.. However when I went to open the ram cover it has on the Ram socket a little yellow sticker saying "Maximum 1Gb!"..
Does anyone know why this would be there??
Iv never heard of a notebook only supporting 3Gb... The motherboard is an intel GL960 with X3100 gpu.
I was thinking that the only reason that ASUS put that there is coz it came with 32bit Vista and were afraid that people upgrading to 4gb would be wondering why only 3Gb was showing up in system info..

I know I could just put in 1Gb to bring it up to 3gb... and yes I am only running 32bit Vista.. BUT for your computer to run in dual channel mode properly.. shouldnt you have identical memory sizes/types in each slot???

 

Google tells me your notebook has an Nvidia chipset?

http://www.ginger6.com/laptops-asus-asus-x58lap004e-t3200-vista-business-office-ready-p-32012.html

At any rate, the official limit is 2GB nonetheless. Even the GL960 only officially supports 2GB. Most of the time you can go above that limit, but there's a small chance you won't be able to. There's honestly no harm in just trying out a second 1GB or 2GB DIMM; the performance loss from running asymmetric dual-channel should be next to nothing.

 

Interesting article on how much memory Vista needs!

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2163

 

^Nice article but misleading. The test shows that 2GB=4GB. If I were a dumbass I would not know that the test is focused only on a 32 bit OS.

If you change the platform, 2GB does not equal 4GB on 64bit.

 

Yeah I thought it would come with the Gefore 8200 as well!. But it didnt.. Its a big mistake on the specs of the notebook. If the notebook only supported 2GB.. then why would they have put a single 2gb piece of Ram in one slot and left the other one empty..?? Are you sure it only support 2gb?

 

If you put in a 1GB stick, your computer will run async dual channel, which will line up 1GB of the 2GB stick with the second 1GB stick. The other 1GB on the 2GB stick will run single channel.

The chipset will support the 4GB of RAM, but the BIOS may not.

 

Cost cutting. It's probably now cheaper to use a single 2GB DIMM instead of two 1GB DIMMs. Besides, most end users won't notice a difference between single and dual channel memory. Most end users won't know or care about it, either. Depending on what you're doing, you may not notice a significant difference either.

 

There are GL960 notebooks that run fine with 3GB RAM installed (DDR2-667 max though). You'll need to install 2+1GB in a specific slot pattern. Never heard of 4GiG running fine on a GL960 notebook :/

 

Isnt it official the max ram on a 945pm/gm is 2gb also? I have ran 4gb in them before just fine.

 

945GM and 945PM both officially support up to 4GB... but how is that relevant?

 

I saw somewhere that the GL960 only supports the 2gb at 533Mhz.. and showed only Celeron cpu support..? But I checked and the RAM in my notebook is 800Mhz PC6400 running at 667Mhz and my CPU is a 65nm T3200. When I put in a 1gb chip of Pc5400 667Mhz Ram (Corsair Value Ram) the bios picked it up (3GB total) but Vista blue screened and wouldnt launch.. However this may be due to the Corsair Ram not being compatible...

 

That is correct. Officially, the GL960 still only supports Celerons and 2GB at 533MHz. Nonetheless, manufacturers have been using Pentium Dual-Cores for a long time now, so Pentium Dual-Core compatibility is generally guaranteed. Memory seems to be a bit more of a crapshot. As Andy said, some people have reported success running 3GB, and others have reported 4GB recognition in BIOS but a BSoD on boot. Since you are getting 3GB recognition in BIOS, but a BSoD on boot, I'd say that your GL960 is indeed capped at 2GB, not that that the memory is incompatible.

EDIT: See look, Andy has come to a similar conclusion.

 

Try the 2GiG in both slots. The Aspire 5315 picks up 3GB, and it has a GL960. (There is a 5315 upgrade thread in the Acer Forum)

A Toshiba Satellite with a GL960 also picked up 3GB, but both the Aspire and Toshiba had confirmed BIOS Support for 4GiG. Probably your ASUS's BIOS is capped at 2GB.

 

Hehe I finally got it!.. I managed to get a 2Gb+1Gb (3Gb Total) configuration. The sticker saying "Maximum 1Gb!" was on one of the Ram slots-(the lower one).. So I made sure I put the 2Gb stick on the one WITHOUT the sticker and left a 1gb chip on the one WITH the sticker.. It booted into windows perfectly.. So it looks like ASUS was very aware of the design potential of this motherboard and exactly how to tell a customer to set it up..
Im kind of disappointed that my notebook wont take 4gb however. But 3Gb is better than 2 for Vista! I also got an XP Pro downgrade CD with this notebook (Vista Business was standard) so I may put on XP.. Any comments guys??

Oh and one amazing thing about the design of the notebook is the easy access to the CPU. I can easily replace it in like 2mins.. Doing so will void the warranty as there is a sticker in the way.. But does anyone know what would be the max CPU I could put in this notebook?? The T3200 is essentially a cut down Core2Duo T5750 with 1mb instead of 2mb cache.. and it has a 667Mhz FSB......

Any ideas..??

 

Don't put XP . 3GB in Xp does not equal 3 GB in Vista. XP cannot handle so much RAM properly .

 

Anything faster than a Pentium Dual-Core is a crapshot. There is a good chance you can use 800MHz FSB Socket P processors and an even better chance that you can use 667MHz FSB Socket P processors, but due to the lack of official support, there is also a chance they may not work. Honestly the only way to know for sure is to find out what others have successfully put into your notebook or to try it for yourself.

Eh... I don't think that's quite right. 3GB is 3GB is 3GB. Yes Vista handles your memory differently, but that doesn't mean XP can't make use of all of it. If you load up an application that needs 3GB, XP and Vista will let it use 3GB...

 

You'll definitely void your warranty if you upgrade the CPU.
Anything (Socket P) upto the T9500 should work, FSB can be 800MHz max. It will only improve the performance of CPU intensive tasks and won't affect the general performance of the system much. Upgrading to a faster HDD or a SSD will be better.

And 3GB in Vista or XP, doesn't really make a difference. Use whichever OS you want to -.-