WinXP 32 Bit SP3 and 4 GByte RAM? Yeah!

[Carlo Trentoni]

Hi,

I tried expanding 2 of my notebooks and 1 desktop pc up to 4 GByte RAM
with Windows XP 32 Bit SP3. The two Notebooks just ignore the whole 4th
Gigabyte but work fine even in dual channel mode.

The desktop pc gives me 3,25 GByte with dual channel. But why uses the
desktop more RAM than the notebooks?

And will I have any incompatibilities because of the unusable RAM in the
"shadow" address range?

Many thanks for your help!

Carlo

 

[smlunatick]

Hi,

I tried expanding 2 of my notebooks and 1 desktop pc up to 4 GByte RAM
with Windows XP 32 Bit SP3. The two Notebooks just ignore the whole 4th
Gigabyte but work fine even in dual channel mode.

The desktop pc gives me 3,25 GByte with dual channel. But why uses the
desktop more RAM than the notebooks?

And will I have any incompatibilities because of the unusable RAM in the
"shadow" address range?

Many thanks for your help!

Carlo

You need to know that Windows 32Bit will not use the full 4GB. The
size of 3.25 GB would probably be the best size the desktop will get,
when using 32Bit Windows.

As for the laptops, you need to:

Make sure the RAM is "compatible" with the laptop.

Made by "reputable" companies like Cosair, Kingston or Cruical. Other
manufacturers may not have good quality controls

Check with the laptop makers. They can place a max RAM size limit,
even though there are enough RAM slots for 4GB.

Check the laptop's BIOS settings and make sure there is not a setting
to limit RAM.

Check the laptops BIOS and configure the video card RAM correctly.
Most laptops have video card based of the motherboard, This type of
video card would "share" system RAM for video RAM and video RAM may
automatically increase when system RAM does.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hi,

I tried expanding 2 of my notebooks and 1 desktop pc up to 4 GByte RAM
with Windows XP 32 Bit SP3. The two Notebooks just ignore the whole 4th
Gigabyte but work fine even in dual channel mode.

The desktop pc gives me 3,25 GByte with dual channel. But why uses the
desktop more RAM than the notebooks?

Quite possibly the board design.

What does the laptop manufacturer say about the memory handling specs?