upgrade to 4gm of ram or not

Hi everyone I've recently bought an HP 8710p 2.2 2gb 160gb quadro NS320 with Vista Bussiness but I installed XP PRO SP2.
Because I work a lot with vistual machines (sometimes I run 3 or more at the same time) I need to upgrade to 4gb. But I'm not sure that eihter the laptop or the OS supports it. Can anyone help.

Thanks in Advance.

 

Are you running XP Pro 64bit, otherwise your 4gb ram will not be fully recognized due to address space issues.

Also, check how much ram you're currently using on average in the task manager and decided whether you actually need more or not.

 

if you have XP 64-bit then you can use 4 gigs, if you have 32-bit then 3 gigs is your limit.

 

How do you know if you have 64 bit, is that XP Pro?

 

nope.

xp professional is not 64 bit.

there is a win xp 64 bit os that is built upon windows server 2003. and you will know if you have xp 64 bit installed every time you start your laptop. ;-)

 

You can insert 2x2gb RAM but on a 32bit OS it will only utilize approx 3gb.

 

consider upgrading to 3gb of ram for now, if you don't have access to a 64bit operating system. Its still a good amount for running programs, and you won't be missing part of it if you buy 4 gigs.

 

Incorrect, Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition released on April 25, 2005 by Microsoft is a variation of the Windows XP operating system for x86-64 personal computers. It should be noted as of July 2005, Windows XP 64-bit Edition is no longer supported.

So XP Professional 64bit does exist. And is still supported.

 

you have 32bit vista recongize it all with PAE
using it is another thing.

 

Inncorrect. And as Greg says "quit saying it" it is causing a virtual headache.

 

http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=989

 

I am very aware of what you speak, it is not what you seem to imply, yes you did say it is not perfect but you should of said more. One thing PAE does is allow applications to use more than the 2GB's available I believe 3GB's so instead of 2GB for Kernel and hardware and 2GB for applications RAM you get 1GB Kernel and I assume hardware and 3GB for applications. Now remember the application needs to be coded to take advantage of this "improvement" and as your link very clearly states it slows things down, goes from 2 clock cycles to 3. And as said the maximum addressable memory on a 32bit OS is 2^32=4GB some used for hardware. A software workaround does not change this. Windows Virtual memory already gets around the limits of physical RAM, it is not perfect. This is just one of those and may not even work as well. Unless you run very specific applications and are facing very specific issues this actually degrades performance so why recommend it? Also back on point by definition a 32bit OS can only address 2^32=4GB no matter what little OS work around so please do not state that it does because it does not and even your link says such. And I do have a virtual headache. Thanks.

 

maybe we should call it a rather a mixture of both -xp and server2003 , since xp64 is built on the kernel of server 2003.

hmm i guess it´s rather the /3GB switch for the kernel you are talking about.
you can edit the boot.ini and add this switch to have the desired effect. windows memory management usually allows a max of 2 GB per task. and as you states it will allow apps to take up to 3 GB per task. i am using this switch to get around the out of memory errors during huge renderings and scripting geometry. have not had any problems yet using it, but i have heard some software and drivers are having trouble with this 3 GB switch. whether this is due to bad programming of the drivers / software or it´s more a problem of the os i can´t say. i have not run into any problems yet and i have completed 2 architecture projects with my config now.

PAE enhances the available adress range.You can make use of more than 4 GB by using PAE. but it´s is making more trouble, than it actually helps. enhancing the PAE has been tried by a lot of people, and all have made the same experience. instead of making the system faster , it got slower and more unstable. i cannot recommend using this little trick. And most people that have tried it will tell you the same. this solution from microsoft does sound better in theory than it actually is. Save yourself some headaches and better not use it.

 

Slightly off topic, my new laptop is arriving today and it has 32bit Vista Home Premium. What's the maximum ram it can support? I think it is 4gb, although pre-SP1 some machines would not report 4gb due to other devices having dibs on the memory (GPU, sound card etc)

Also, I'm getting a Turion 64x2 powered machine, is it worth sticking to matched pairs when upgrading memory (ie, 2x2gb sticks) or could I just chuck in an extra 2gb stick for 3gb total memory? Does more memory > dual-channel?

Cheeeeeeers!

 

1. yes, you are right 4 Gb is the maximum a 32 bit os can handle. But the 4 GB of physical adresses contain the memory of the graphics card and network adapters...... also. Btw. Vista SP1 will not chnage a thing concerning memeory management, it will report the same amount of available memory as vista ( without SP1 ) does. it´s the limitation of 32 bit.

2.
since memory is really cheap right now, both solutions would be ok. intel does offer someting called flex mode for their mobos. it actually allows you to use an asyncronos ram-config like 2 GB and 1GB in some kind of dual channel. but there will of course only be one GB of every stick be used in dual channel, and the extra 1 GB from the 2GB stick will not run in dual channel. i don´t know if amd does offer something like this, but even if they don´t you will not experience a big difference. Dual channel just gives you some few percent in ram performance ( like 5-8%), and it´s not worth the hassle. it´s fine if it does work, but it´s no downside if it does not.

basicly you are fine with both options 2x2 GB or 2GB+1GB. i´d recommend you to do what ever makes you feel better with your machine.

if you plan to upgrade to a 64 bit OS in the next years i´d recommend buying the 2x 2GB sticks. Ram is really cheap right now, and it would be an investment in the future, since 64 bit computing is the future.

this has been discussed here quite a few times, and the common sense on this topic is that 2x2 GB will run in dual channel, since this is a hardware feature (meaning, not OS dependend), no matter if you are running a 32 bit Os with your ram beeing limited to ~3.2 GB.

 

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately the laptop I received this morning was broken (AC Adaptor busted) so it looks like I won't be playing with Vista memory management anytime soon.

Nuts.

 

I have found no documentation AMD chipsets support a "flex memory" type function. I have read some have gotten it with AMD and NVidia chipset. With my AMD and 480 chipset the difference between single and dual is 30% kind of substantial. I would start with 1 2GB stick and what it came with. Bench it to find out if "flex type" is supported.

 

According to microsoft there is no such problem with the 4gb ram.
If you go to http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx
then you will see that win XP PRO 32bit can support up to 4gb ram. Thats why I confused.

 

the 4gb is physical RAM limits not virtual address space.

 

Thats what it says :

Physical Memory Limits: Windows XP

The following table specifies the limits on physical memory for Windows XP.

Version Limit in 32-bit Windows Limit in 64-bit Windows
Windows XP 4 GB 128 GB
Windows XP Starter Edition 512 MB Not applicable

 

Again Physical, the actual ram you can put in.

Address space it can utilize from the physical RAM is still 3gb max.

 

it must be very stressful dealing with people like this everyday...

it always seems like people read between the lines and only take in what they want to

 

Ok flipfire I think I got it.

Thanks for your time.

I hope I was not that stressful as Lazy says.
either way thanks.

P.S. Lazy I want to be around next time you have a question and don't understand the answer.