HP nc8430 memory size limit ?

I have an nc8430 with 2gb RAM. It came with Windows XP Pro 32-bit and I have added the Windows 7 64-bit OS with a dual-boot setup.

I would now like to take advantage of the Windows 7 64-bit system by enlarging the memory. The HP website says that the nc8430 can take a maximum of 4gb memory but nowhere have I been able to find out what the limiting factor is. I wondered whether that HP statement is a relic from the days when the nc8430 was sold with the XP 32-bit system which, as we know, cannot address more that 4gb.

I have 2 questions.

(a) Can the nc8430 memory be increased to 8gb, i.e. with two 4gb sticks, in such a way that the 64-bit Windows 7 system can use the extra memory and, if so,

(b) what happens when I fire up the old 32-bit XP system using the dual-boot facility and it encounters 8gb of memory. Does it simply ignore 4gb of that memory and work happily as it did before ?

Paddy

 

The chipset in that unit is Intel 945 (ICH7). It's stated max is 2GB RAM and not 4GB. It won't be able to see all 4GB though. Only around 3.2GB. That's a limitation of the chipset.

8GB certainly is not possible.

Win7 will be able to see and use what the chipset can. In this case about 3.2GB. Win XP 32bit will also.

 

Thanks for this.

Is the chipset something that is welded into the machine or is it something I can change ?

Paddy

 

Soldered and can't be changed.

 

Aaargh ! Thanks (for the answer, I mean). I wish I'd known this before buying the laptop.

Before I go ahead and buy the 4gb memory (I have 2 sticks of 1gb each so I'll have to exchange both) can you tell me whether the resulting extra 1.2gb memory is likely to produce a noticeable change in performance or does one have to go in major jumps like 2->8gb* to see anything useful ? I'm using GIMP for image processing and would like to speed up the machine.

Paddy

* i.e. buy a new machine in my case

 

The general answer is yes it would benefit. But that is also dependent on how much RAM you are using now. XP won't see much of a benefit but Win7 would.

 

I'm currently using 1+2GB sticks because of the chipset limitation. I tested with 2x2GB sticks and if I remember right I got about 3.5-3.6GB usable memory. Can't retest that right now as I loaned the laptop to my mother for couple weeks.

 

3.5GB is probably about right for this particular unit. Others are a little less because of shadowed RAM for the video card.

 

Thanks for taking time to provide this feedback. Helps me a lot.

Re. using two different sticks (1+2gb), I read somewhere that using two different sticks hog-ties some dual-something processing feature and thereby reduces performance. Because I can't remember exactly what the dual-something (i.e. the keyword) was I can't search for it to provide a reference.

Is this an important issue or is any castration of the dual-something feature outweighed by the performance increase brought about by the increase in memory ?

Paddy

 

That's Dual-channel. How much you gain from that, depends how you measure it. Artificial benchmarks give better results, real life boost is something around 2-3%. I decided difference between single-channel and dual-channel isn't big enough to justify having less memory.

If you want to use dual-channel, just install 2x2GB.

 

I'd like to see whether the memory increase produces a significant performance gain and - if anyone here is interested - give feedback.

Can anyone recommend a good benchmarking program for Windows 7 64-bit which I can download, preferably one that doesn't have to be installed ?

Paddy

 

Memtest86+ shows you memory bandwidth while it tests ram for errors. That is also the exact thing that should be doubled on paper with dualchannel.

Real life benchmarks, do I type in reply faster with dualchannel or singlechannel memory installed?

 

The max is 4GB (2GBx2GB) with the nc8430/nw8440. Don't try putting more than that in there, because who knows what'll happen (I have no idea, to be honest)

At least you have a Core 2 Duo CPU, though. My nw8440 (workstation version of the nc8430) just has a Core Duo, which means I'm stuck with a 32-bit OS and a ~3GB RAM ceiling. Oh well.

For benchmarking purposes, use Memtest86+.

 

Got my laptop back this weekend, did some fast testing:

2x2GB shows as 4096MB in BIOS.

When I replaced 1GB stick with 2GB, I got message that new installed memory amount is ~3.53GB. Changing back to 2+1GB it's shown as 3.14GB.

Booting to 32bit XP, Taskmanager shows available physical memory 3538MB. (I remembered pretty well how much it was)

Running dual channel 2x2GB Memtest86+ shows 2792MB/s
Running single channel 1+2GB Memtest86+ shows 2627MB/s
Running single channel 2GB only Memtest86+ shows also 2627MB/s.

As a conclusion: Having dual channel memory is not significantly faster. Either get 2+1GB as cheap option or full 2+2GB and lose about 500MB due chipset limitation. That 256MB ATI x1600 and other components stay in the same 500MB area not anyways usable in this laptop, so there should be no significant difference between 32 and 64bit systems. If I ever get around, I'll install 64bit system to see if theres any difference.

As a sidenote: I also booted my 8510w with usb-XP and it showed 3.1GB available memory out of 4GB usable. That much more the 512MB Quadro and other components eat available ram in 32bit OS. In 64bit Win7, full 4GB is available.

Actual available memory is totally case dependent, it has to be tested. There is no magical 3.2GB hard limit as many people think.