Upgrade Memory Suggestions and Reviews

Hello,

I have a T61 with 2GB ram and yes sadly vista...

I am thinking of upping the ram. I spoke to a tech at Lenovo who said that 2 GB should be fine, however upping the Ram, with CS3 and some of the mortgage software I run, may not be a bad idea.

I was told that even though I am running Vista 32, it would only recognize 3.2, with the graphics card, going to 4 may not be all that bad of an idea as the amount over the 3.2 would be used for graphics.

So 2 questions:

1. What are people's feelings on jumping to 4 GB ram?
2. Should I be careful of brands of Ram? Kingston etc. or doesn't that really matter? and if so what are the brands people like?

Ok so more than 2 questions...

Thanks to all of you out there with more experience in this area.

 

Are you sure of that ? Because I don't think it happens that way.

Corsair and OCZ are good brands, make sure to take a look at the RAM deals thread.

 

No I'm not, I am an advanced novice (best description) that's why I am asking here....

I appreciate all you guys...

 

MY T61 (2.2ghz w/Turbo mem, 7200 rpm HDD) arrived w/1GB ram and Vista Pre.
The system was super slow with around 50-100MB free.

I added OCZ 2GB (total of 3GB) and it is VERY fast now !
before I added gadgets to my sidebar and eight programs to my startup, the boot loading time was amazingly fast, but after adding (MSN, Babylon, NDAS, ActiveSync, AnaPod, Acronis[service]) to my startup it takes maybe 2 minutes after i enter my password to fully log-in.

Now I have 1.6GB+ free and the system is VERY VERY FAST.

Outlook 2007 with 1GB PST file loads in less than 2 seconds!
Adobe PS CS3 - 4 seconds !

 

Here's what happens with 32-bit OSes and 4GB of RAM: 4GB is the maximum you could possibly use on a 32-bit OS, however, due to the architecture of the system, the processor addresses devices using memory space, starting from 4GB and going down. So if your graphics card is using 128 MB of RAM, it's going to need 128 MB + more to be able to address it. Same for each device attached to your computer, such as all the controllers, the sound card, the PC card slots, the keyboard, touchpad, etc. So while you can install 4 GBs of RAM, you may only see 3.2-3.5 on a 32-bit OS.

 

Thanks Guys.... you are all the best. When I went to loan Outlook or and god forbid CS3... I used to get a cup of coffee. I'll go with three, if a nice commission check comes in I'll go for the 4...

I appreciate all you guys sharing the info....