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Hi! I really found this article informative and thank you for the advise. I used Crucial System Scanner and finally found out my RAM type. The info. says that I can max. it to 4GB, but after that i writes exactly:

"Not to exceed manufacturer supported memory."

What is this? What if I exceed it? Should I take 2 RAM of the same type or it's ok if I take one 1GB and the other 2GB?

I hope my English is understandable! Thank you!

lagoon, on 06 October 2011 - 07:38 AM, said:

Need to explain better. The test is stating your can only install 4GB of RAM in your laptop. That means 2GB each stick.

One thing this article neglects to mention for Windows users is that for more than 4gb (3.5gb) of RAM to be useful at all, the OS needs to be 64 bit. 32 bit Windows cannot support more than 3.5gb, nor will it use it without a potentially dangerous switch in the boot.ini file.

TonyGreenl3tc, on 06 October 2011 - 10:04 AM, said:

Good catch didn't see that!

I had a huge perfomance bump when I went from 4 to 8 on Windows 7/64bit. The more RAM you have, the system is better able to cache applications and the supporting files they may need. So for example, open Firefox, then open Photoshop. on a 4 gig system, opening photoshop my force most of Firefox to get unloaded from RAM to make room for Photoshop. Close firefox down, and starting it up again can take a few seconds while it loads from the drive. On an 8 gig system, these files are still in RAM and will load much much quicker.

Quick example but it's the simplest to explain.

You will also notice Windows boots and becomes "active" much more quickly (for many of the same reasons as the FF/PS example) because less of the system has to be loaded THEN dumped out of RAM to make room for more stuff loading.

TonyGreenl3tc, on 06 October 2011 - 10:04 AM, said:

This is important to note if you are considering an upgrade to your memory/RAM. If you do not have a 64 bit Windows OS, you will be wasting money buying more than 4 gigs of RAM.

However, if you do not have win7 64, it would be worth looking into an upgrade so you can use the extended memory. That is if your hardware can support more than 4 gigs of ram.

Win7 reminds me of when XP first came out. Sure, XP can run on 128mb ram, but you were better off having at least 512.

This post has been edited by annontechsupport: 11 October 2011 - 09:03 AM

You go from 4 to 8 not for increased speed per se, but increased multitasking ability. For example, it is easy to eat up 4gb of Ram with mutliple pages open in ANY browser, along with say Outlook and some other autostart aps running in your system tray. To see this, just add "All CPU Meter" from the Win 7 gadget catalog and you'll see how quickly 4gb can become inadequate. Today, it's so cheap to go from 4gb to 8gb that you're crazy not to do it if you typically eat up 4gb quickly just browsing and doing email like me.

I have a HP Pavillion HDX 9300T CTO Notebook (Yes, the one with the dual hinged 20.1" screen) which states that the max amount of memory is 4GB, but that was in early 2008 when 4GB laptop memory sticks barely existed, if at all. But after learning from other owners with the same system that had indeed upgraded to 8GB, I thought I'd give it a try, and sure enough, my HDX fired up with no problems, and no adjustments needed, and all 8GB showing. So not always does the motherboard only support what is stated, but make sure you research and check with other users of the exact same system before giving it a try.

TonyGreenl3tc, on 06 October 2011 - 10:04 AM, said:

Yes. Which is important for pc users to know and understand. I hope PCWorld will make a follow up article about RAMs on pc.

lagoon, on 06 October 2011 - 07:38 AM, said:

You should have two 2GB memory modules. The warning means you can't add 6GB to a machine that is limited to 4GB.