Which RAM?

[Junkie_ball]

I need to replace the ram in my system as a stick blew a few months back (been to lazy to replace so just removed for now) I currently have/had 2 x 1gb 667mhz cl5 ddr2 sdram installed my question is can i increase the the Mhz from 667?

Would like to upgrade the ram but not sure what the safe limits would be. Believe my MB can take upto 4GB which i plan to install using 4 x 1gb sticks any suggestions please?

[Chewy]

Ask Crucial, they know ram

http://www.crucial.com/

[Junkie_ball]

Yeah i did ask crucial before posting unfortunately their scan wasn't successful and could only tell me i could have a total of 4gb. I know from tinkering with my system i have 4 banks hence the thought for using 4 x 1gb stick.

[Chewy]

You need to specify make and moodel of yuour computer

[Junkie_ball]

Right finally dug out which motherboard i have and from the crucial was a great help in identifying which ram i required. I've 8 lovely Gbs!

Cheers for the help!

[Junkie_ball]

Ok so i have finally installed 8gb (4x2Gb Sticks) DDR2 PC6300 into my system. Not sure if the system is recognising all the install ram???

On the post screen at start up the system locates all 8Gb and says its running on dual channel no problem. When i come to look at the amount of installed ram in windows XP its telling me i only have 3.25Gb installed. I can understand windows showing alittle less than the actual amount installed but 4gb?. Its almost like its not picking up banks 2 & 4 on the motherboard any ideas?

[Abuilder]

Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 Memory Support. The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB. However, Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition supports 32 GB of physical RAM and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition supports 64 GB of physical RAM

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

[admin]

RAM in 32-bit XP is 4 GB max (32-bit limitation) minus a lot of other allocations and addressing (eg. PCI), including video RAM. If your video card has larger memory, then it will show even less. Vista 32-bit also suffers from the same problem.

The only way to see 4 GB or more is to get 64-bit Vista, or the Windows Server editions Abuilder listed above. Or wait until Windows 7 is released if you can't stand Vista and don't want to be a M$ beta tester.

[Chewy]

The Technology Advancement Program for a free exchange upgrade from

Windows XP Professional to Windows XP Professional x64 expired July 31, 2005

This would really kill vista sales

[Junkie_ball]

Thanks for the replies tht explains the problem why i'm not seeing the additional ram. I think it will be a case of waiting for Windows 7 then as i can't stand Vista. Have downloaded Windows 7 as a beta tester just not got around to looking at it guess its time to see whats what!

[PurpleDemon]

Which version of Windows 7 did you get? If it was 32 bit, it will be the same ram issue.

Unfortunately they closed off downloads right now. I will be surprised if something doesn't come back for more testing before August

Good Luck

[Junkie_ball]

Was just thinking ahead on this one as burrell84601 rightly guessed i've only downloaded the 32 bit version of windows 7. I'm not up on 64 bit os and have been doing some digging on google. I use alot of mempry intensive graphic design programs and was wondering if my processor could handle a 64 bit os as that extra ram would come in very handy. Would think about a dual boot if the system can handle it so i could still use my programs that are not compatible with the 64 bit os! A spec of my processor is below i'm assuming from that it should be ok am i right?

Field Value
CPU Properties
CPU Type Unknown, 2133 MHz (16 x 133)
Instruction Set x86, x86-64, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3
Original Clock 2133 MHz
L1 Code Cache 32 KB
L1 Data Cache 32 KB
L2 Cache 2 MB (On-Die, ATC, Full-Speed)

Multi CPU
Motherboard ID OEM00000 PROD00000000
CPU #0 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz, 2129 MHz
CPU #1 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz, 2129 MHz

CPU Utilization
CPU #1 / Core #1 / HTT Unit #1 0 %
CPU #1 / Core #1 / HTT Unit #2 3 %

[admin]

All Core 2 Duos are 64-bit compatible, as are most Intel processors since the Pentium D. The bit where it says "x86-64" also confirms your processor supports 64-bit.

I'm dual booting between XP 32 and Vista 64, works like a charm and you can always switch back to XP 32 if there's some app that doesn't work (I haven't used Vista since the day I installed it though). Just substitute Vista 64 with Windows 7 64 if needed.

[Junkie_ball]

All Core 2 Duos are 64-bit compatible, as are most Intel processors since the Pentium D. The bit where it says "x86-64" also confirms your processor supports 64-bit.

I'm dual booting between XP 32 and Vista 64, works like a charm and you can always switch back to XP 32 if there's some app that doesn't work (I haven't used Vista since the day I installed it though). Just substitute Vista 64 with Windows 7 64 if needed.

Thanks for that. That what i assumed the X86-64 stood for (64bit architecture or 86 bat architecture)