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Anyone Using 4GB RAm on a E1705/9400

post #1 of 28
9/23/07 at 2:57am
Thread Starter 
I am thinking of upgrading to 4GB or RAM

But seem to see conflicting info about the E1705 having a limit of 2 GB of RAM

So can anyone confirm that I indeed use 2x 2GB SODIMMS in my laptop
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post #2 of 28
9/23/07 at 6:06am
it can only handle 3.25gb of ram.

you can put in 4. but the bios will limit the total memory.

I am getting a 2 gig stick and a 1 gig stick for a total of 3 gigs. it is better that way imo.
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post #3 of 28
9/23/07 at 11:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by diefool View Post
it can only handle 3.25gb of ram.

you can put in 4. but the bios will limit the total memory.

I am getting a 2 gig stick and a 1 gig stick for a total of 3 gigs. it is better that way imo.

Agreed.....
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post #4 of 28
9/23/07 at 11:40am
I just bought 3GB of OCZ PC5400. It recognizes and uses all of it. The 4th gig is overkill in my opinion since it only recognizes 250MB of it.
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post #5 of 28
9/23/07 at 11:41am
Indeed. The computer will recognize 3.25gb and it will handle having 4gb of ram in the slots
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post #6 of 28
9/23/07 at 1:06pm
Thread Starter 
it's funny Several of the sites and even Dell all indicated 2 GB was the limit.

But one of the Dell manuals indicated 4 GB.

Just wanted to make sure
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post #7 of 28
9/23/07 at 1:08pm
Yeah, it only recognizes about 3.25GB of my 4 GB of ram. How lame..... =.= They needa develop 64 bit a lot faster than they're doing now!
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post #8 of 28
9/23/07 at 3:15pm
Enough has been said about this limit for memory usage (try googling) by 32 bit motherboards and CPUs. One thing which you'll notice though is that rest of the memory (4 - 3.25) is used through PCI memory address range. That said, your graphics card will use the spare memory which is kinda worth it. And if you buy 4 gig now, it can be used in the machines which will support 4 gig eventually.

Note that I have 4gig main ram and 512mb for grapfics card. But the dxdiag shows me 1912mb (= 512 + 625 + 725 again grabbed from main memory ) for graphics card.
LL
LL
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post #9 of 28
9/24/07 at 12:10pm
Wait, so your video card is almost getting 2GBs to use?
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post #10 of 28
9/24/07 at 12:13pm
Thread Starter 
I am going to have to test that theory when I get my 4 Gigs of RAm and compare it to the 2 Gigs I have now
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post #11 of 28
9/24/07 at 12:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by diefool View Post
it can only handle 3.25gb of ram. you can put in 4. but the bios will limit the total memory. I am getting a 2 gig stick and a 1 gig stick for a total of 3 gigs. it is better that way imo.
I dont believe youll be running in dual channel mode though with two different sizes. Probably a pretty significant performance hit there. Some chipsets can do it, but if your using 2+1, then your only going to get 1+1 in dual channel, and the third gig in single channel, but not sure of the chipset in the e1705. Anyone confirm if it can or cant? EDIT: Havent found anything saying the i945GM/PM chipset supports flex mode, nothing on Intels spec page either.
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post #12 of 28
9/24/07 at 12:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghost_recon88 View Post
Wait, so your video card is almost getting 2GBs to use?
The system memory is used when the onboard GPU memory is used up. The onboard GPU memory is way faster than the system memory, so typically when you exceed that, and have to use system memory, your getting pretty bad slow downs in games. The extra 750 is worthless as far as the GPU is concerned. 4 gig of memory is pretty excessive at this point unless your doing lots of editing or design.
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post #13 of 28
9/24/07 at 12:44pm
It is my understanding that in order for the GPU to use system memory it must have turbocache (nVIDIA) enabled and the 7800/7900 series cards do not have this feature.

In regards to dual channel mode, you must have two DIMMS of the same size on these systems to enable dual channel. With that said in all the bench marks I have seen and run the difference between single vs dual is very minimal at best. Based on my testing I would also recommend using 3gb (2gb +1gb).
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post #14 of 28
9/24/07 at 12:46pm
Thread Starter 
well I am going to have 2 x 1GB sticks and 2 x 2 GB sticks shortly

I will bench test several combinations and see how it all comes out and post it here.
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post #15 of 28
9/24/07 at 4:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nissanztt90 View Post
I dont believe youll be running in dual channel mode though with two different sizes. Probably a pretty significant performance hit there. Some chipsets can do it, but if your using 2+1, then your only going to get 1+1 in dual channel, and the third gig in single channel, but not sure of the chipset in the e1705. Anyone confirm if it can or cant?

EDIT: Havent found anything saying the i945GM/PM chipset supports flex mode, nothing on Intels spec page either.

Yeah that dual channel is overrated when it comes to this. The tests even benchmarks which would be the most significant indicator only show a 2-3% performance hit.
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post #16 of 28
9/24/07 at 5:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pdonket View Post
Yeah that dual channel is overrated when it comes to this. The tests even benchmarks which would be the most significant indicator only show a 2-3% performance hit.
What tests? I would think it would be a pretty good performance boost for someone editing and dealing with large files. But then again thats the only time you need more than 2 gig right now anyway. I wouldnt expect gaming performance to be effected nearly at all with dual channel.
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post #17 of 28
9/24/07 at 5:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nissanztt90 View Post
What tests? I would think it would be a pretty good performance boost for someone editing and dealing with large files. But then again thats the only time you need more than 2 gig right now anyway.

I wouldnt expect gaming performance to be effected nearly at all with dual channel.

Not sure, I don't have first hand experience it's just that in another thread we were going over it (a long time ago)

And I personally just being a gamer, don't notice a difference at all. I run 1gb and a 512mb stick in my laptop and it runs very nicely for most apps that don't whore *all* of the memory
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post #18 of 28
10/6/07 at 3:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dave-p View Post
well I am going to have 2 x 1GB sticks and 2 x 2 GB sticks shortly I will bench test several combinations and see how it all comes out and post it here.
have you rcvd the sticks yet? if so, how'd it go? are you running a 32bit or 64bit OS?
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post #19 of 28
10/6/07 at 4:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by anandpnagar View Post
Note that I have 4gig main ram and 512mb for grapfics card. But the dxdiag shows me 1912mb (= 512 + 625 + 725 again grabbed from main memory ) for graphics card.
not sure bout that one. Even though it might display it, question is, do YOU the difference?
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post #20 of 28
10/6/07 at 5:35pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by strmch8ser View Post
have you rcvd the sticks yet? if so, how'd it go? are you running a 32bit or 64bit OS?

No they did not arrive yet, Expect it next week, Canada Customs delay lol
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