ram upgrade

[stiles1]

i just saw this sale at new egg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066

and i wanted to know if my computer would be able to handle the extra ram no problems? or would it not be able to pull from the additional 2 sticks. i've heard people saying windows has that problem sometimes but i think they were talking about vista.

here's the build i have now
ANTEC - CHAS ATX TWR 3 5.25-6 3.5 4 FANS
Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB
Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB
LITE-ON Black 20X DVD+R 8X
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB)
Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply
EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB
Windows XP Professional 64Bit SP2C - OEM

 

[TRDCorolla1]

The Vista 64 bit may have some issues with 4GB of RAM, but a BIOS revision will usually solve that problem.

It can work, but just make sure the RAM speeds are all the same. This program will tell you your RAM speed:

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

[stiles1]

how would i go about doing the bios revision?


speeds look the same,
this is the one i currently have
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145034

the one i am looking to add
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066


or would it just be better to get a second set of the same type of ram that i already have?
the only differences i see are in the voltage and the timing. i'm mostly new too this so i don't know if that would make a difference.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

I would go ahead and install the full 4GB first before you do the updates. It may run perfect with what you have. If it doesn't detect the extra 2GB, go to the motherboard's website and see if there are any BIOS updates you can download and install. I think Vista 32 bit can only see like 4GB anyways, but the 64-bit can see much, much more. Most likely, your motherboard supports 8GB of total RAM support but it's a waste to get 8GB when the OS only sees 4GB total!!!

They're the same speed so that part is ok. It does show that it has different timings and that may be a concern for certain motherboards. It's always better to get them all to match up in which case, get all Corsair XMS2 RAM that are exactly the same. That's the way I've always built my systems, whether they're for me or for my customers.

The AData RAM are cheap. I would just buy 4 of them. Or get 2 more Corsair XMS2.

 

[stiles1]

ok in that case i will probably hold off on the upgrade, or at least till the holidays when i have a good exscuse to get it and not feel too guilty of spending the extra cash on a random upgrade .

this brings me to one more question.... since the mobo and os can both handle more than 4 gb should i just go with more than a 2 gb upgrade or would that just be getting to rediculouse.

the computer i am talking about doing to, i posted it's specs but i only use it for games. i have my laptop for all the other stuff. but i recently built it, and it's my first build and i've caught the bug, so i am always looking at other peoples posts or the web sites for ideas of what i could do to the system to improve it or to learn in the process of instalation.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

I've edited my original post a lot. If you find many of my posts, there are a lot of edits, lol. If not, I'll be quadruple posting like everywhere .

Do you have the 32 bit version or the 64 bit version of Windows Vista? There is a 4 GB address space available to a 32 bit Windows OS. Some of this address space is needed to memory map peripherals. The motherboard does this before Windows loads and this determines how much RAM Windows reports. Some motherboards have settings in the BIOS that can change this, most don't. The fix is to run a 64 bit OS. Even then some motherboards will still have this limitation.

4GB max is a nice number to upgrade to if it involves heavy gaming. Don't get more than 4GB or you're just wasting your money.

 

[stiles1]

actually as dumb as this sounds i'm not sure which os i have whether the 32 or 64, i was working a little over my cost limit when building so i went with cost effectiveness . but anyways going through my order history on new egg, this is the xp pro. i ended up getting and it doesn't clearly state which one it is.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832116400

 

[TRDCorolla1]

Oh I'm pretty sure it's 32-bit. If it was 64-bit, it would be clearly labeled.

 

[stiles1]

so importantly for my knowledge the os is 32 bit. which is good to know.

but anyway on this topic what you say would be good to do is get a max of 4 gb or memory, because that is pretty much the max for the 32 bit and also all i pretty much need.
and also because some of this address space is needed to memory map peripherals.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

Windows XP Professional 64Bit SP2C - OEM

Wait a minute!!! Look what I found. Looks like you are running 64 bit, lol. Yet, another paradox: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is not to be confused with Windows XP 64-bit Edition, as the latter was designed for Intel Itanium processors although they both are commonly referred to as 64-bit Windows by Microsoft due to their similarities from developer's point of view. Go figure...

Windows XP x64 can technically support up to 16 billion gigabytes lol, but it's currently limited to 128 GB of physical memory and 16 TB of virtual memory. Microsoft claims this limit will be increased as hardware capabilities improve so don't worry about getting 128GB

Most motherboards compatible with 64-bit CPUs do not support anywhere close to the maximum limit, and often retain the 8GB limit as of right now.

4GB is a nice round number for you. I've never had a PC with 4GB before but I'm curious to see just how fast it can load and do other stuff when it comes to gaming and extreme multitasking. Is your PC feeling sluggish for you to upgrade to more RAM?