[Ivanchg]

Hi all, I just bought a new laptop with preinstalled
2G RAM. But I would like to add RAM. Is a must I change both to 4G RAM become 8G or I just add another 4G RAM become 6G also can. Please help to advise. Thanks.

[Evildave]

Need brand, model, etc. of laptop. They're all different.

[coastie65]

Ivanchg, on 18 May 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

Hi all, I just bought a new laptop with preinstalled
2G RAM. But I would like to add RAM. Is a must I change both to 4G RAM become 8G or I just add another 4G RAM become 6G also can. Please help to advise. Thanks.

Hi. You only have two slots so you would need a matched set of 4Gb sticks. The make and model of your laptop would be helpful.

[Ivanchg]

Evildave, on 18 May 2012 - 04:44 PM, said:

Need brand, model, etc. of laptop. They're all different.

Hi, I'm using Acer V3-471G.

[LiveBrianD]

You can have mismatched sticks (capacity that is) and it will work fine, but you give up dual-channel functionality. That said, it's only noticeable in benchmarks and isn't a big deal realistically. What model of laptop do you have?

[waldojim]

LiveBrianD, on 18 May 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

You can have mismatched sticks (capacity that is) and it will work fine, but you give up dual-channel functionality. That said, it's only noticeable in benchmarks and isn't a big deal realistically. What model of laptop do you have?

Once again with bad information. It is most certainly noticeable. When you cut 20% or more of your bandwidth, you will notice the cut.

[Ivanchg]

LiveBrianD, on 18 May 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

You can have mismatched sticks (capacity that is) and it will work fine, but you give up dual-channel functionality. That said, it's only noticeable in benchmarks and isn't a big deal realistically. What model of laptop do you have?

Hi Brian, I'm using Acer V3-471G. What is the dual channel functionality? Will the dismatched stick of ram affact the system efficiency?

[Evildave]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q...spire+471G+RAM#

http://www.crucial.c...G-upgrades.html

At $52 for 8GB, just get 8GB.

[waldojim]

Ivanchg, on 18 May 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 18 May 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

You can have mismatched sticks (capacity that is) and it will work fine, but you give up dual-channel functionality. That said, it's only noticeable in benchmarks and isn't a big deal realistically. What model of laptop do you have?

Hi Brian, I'm using Acer V3-471G. What is the dual channel functionality? Will the dismatched stick of ram affact the system efficiency?

It will affect how well your machine performs. It is best to run with dual channel functionality. You can pick up 8GB of ram from Fry's for $45.

[LiveBrianD]

waldojim, on 18 May 2012 - 05:41 PM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 18 May 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

You can have mismatched sticks (capacity that is) and it will work fine, but you give up dual-channel functionality. That said, it's only noticeable in benchmarks and isn't a big deal realistically. What model of laptop do you have?

Once again with bad information. It is most certainly noticeable. When you cut 20% or more of your bandwidth, you will notice the cut.

I was running this machine with ram in single-channel mode for a while (4GB), and switched to dual-channel mode (8GB btw), and didn't notice ANY change in performance. Seriously. No perceptible change whatsoever. If you'd like, sometime I'll test it again (with benchmarks). And also, keep in mind that benchmarks don't necessarily mean much for real-world performance. The Pentium machines I've used feel just as fast as my i5 (win7), for example. I suppose if you have integrated graphics it might matter a bit more though.

(In case if you're wondering why I was running in single-channel mode, it's because I was having issues getting the motherboard to use the second 2 slots, and I'm supposed to use slots 1 and 3 first for dual-channel functionality. When I upgraded to 4x2GB, I ran into the issue again, and found that there were a few bent CPU socket pins. Once I fixed that, it worked perfectly.)

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 19 May 2012 - 11:15 AM

[coastie65]

Ivanchg, on 18 May 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

Hi all, I just bought a new laptop with preinstalled
2G RAM. But I would like to add RAM. Is a must I change both to 4G RAM become 8G or I just add another 4G RAM become 6G also can. Please help to advise. Thanks.

Hi. This should do fine: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231295 I put it mine when I upgraded the memory.


UPDATE: I believe you may be outside of the U.S. and may be able to shop at amazon.de so I found it here : http://www.amazon.de...37467776&sr=1-2

This post has been edited by coastie65: 19 May 2012 - 02:51 PM

[LiveBrianD]

Yep, that looks good to me. I'm running a gskill stick in my laptop right now without any issues.

[coastie65]

LiveBrianD, on 19 May 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

Yep, that looks good to me. I'm running a gskill stick in my laptop right now without any issues.

Yep. Good stuff at a good price. Now another problem. I don't think he is in the U.S., so need to find it closer to home.

[henrywilliams]

The best way here would be to replace both with 4 GB or adding a 2 GB RAM to another slot which keeps that 4 GB Laptop. 4GB RAM is not bad and if you want more you can replace both with 4GB.

This post has been edited by henrywilliams: 21 May 2012 - 08:43 PM

[orlbuckeye]

Ivanchg, on 18 May 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

Hi all, I just bought a new laptop with preinstalled
2G RAM. But I would like to add RAM. Is a must I change both to 4G RAM become 8G or I just add another 4G RAM become 6G also can. Please help to advise. Thanks.

Well if the laptop came with 2 gb of ram it most likely only has a 32 bit OS. A 32 bit OS is limited in that it can only use a little over 3 GB of ram. So going to 6 gb or 8 gb would be overkill.

[Evildave]

According to which 32 bit OS. I believe 32 bit windoze XP on up can access more than 3.5 GB, as can latter day Linux kernels.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/3_GB_barrier

Quote

Operating System Support. The PAE kernel is not enabled by default for systems that can support more than 4 GB of RAM.
To boot the system and utilize PAE memory, the /PAE switch must be added to the corresponding entry in the Boot.ini file. If a problem should arise, Safe Mode may be used, which causes the system to boot using the normal kernel (support for only 4 GB of RAM) even if the /PAE switch is part of the Boot.ini file.

http://msdn.microsof...e/gg487503.aspx

There may be a microscopic 'performance penalty' for operating in PAE mode (nothing compared to benefits of having more RAM), but I think if your mobo supports more than 4GB, it's a safe bet that PAE mode is supported in your hardware. It's at least harmless to find out.

This post has been edited by Evildave: 01 June 2012 - 01:40 PM

[waldojim]

Evildave, on 01 June 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

According to which 32 bit OS. I believe 32 bit windoze XP on up can access more than 3.5 GB, as can latter day Linux kernels.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/3_GB_barrier

Quote

Operating System Support. The PAE kernel is not enabled by default for systems that can support more than 4 GB of RAM.
To boot the system and utilize PAE memory, the /PAE switch must be added to the corresponding entry in the Boot.ini file. If a problem should arise, Safe Mode may be used, which causes the system to boot using the normal kernel (support for only 4 GB of RAM) even if the /PAE switch is part of the Boot.ini file.

http://msdn.microsof...e/gg487503.aspx

There may be a microscopic 'performance penalty' for operating in PAE mode (nothing compared to benefits of having more RAM), but I think if your mobo supports more than 4GB, it's a safe bet that PAE mode is supported in your hardware. It's at least harmless to find out.

Windows XP can support it, MS won't allow you to do so with Home/Pro versions. You have to be rocking the 32bit advanced server for that functionality. Another money grab if you ask me.

Quote

Windows 2000 Memory Support. With Windows 2000 Professional and Server, the maximum amount of memory that can be supported is 4 GB (identical to Windows NT 4.0, as described later in this section). However, Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports 8 GB of physical RAM and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server supports 32 GB of physical RAM using the PAE feature of the IA-32 processor family, beginning with Intel Pentium Pro and later.

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 using the PAE feature.

The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. When the physical RAM in the system exceeds 16 GB and the /3GB switch is used, the operating system will ignore the additional RAM until the /3GB switch is removed. This is because of the increased size of the kernel required to support more Page Table Entries. The assumption is made that the administrator would rather not lose the /3GB functionality silently and automatically; therefore, this requires the administrator to explicitly change this setting.

The /3GB switch allocates 3 GB of virtual address space to an application that uses IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE in the process header. This switch allows applications to address 1 GB of additional virtual address space above 2 GB.

The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB, unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. The following example shows how to add the /3GB parameter in the Boot.ini file to enable application memory tuning:

source

This post has been edited by waldojim: 01 June 2012 - 05:57 PM