RAM Advice

[spleenboy]

Hi all,

My workmate has this motherboard and was looking to upgrade it's memory to the maximum possible. Reading that page, am I right in thinking that 4gb is the maximum it would take? Also, which combinations would people recommend - is it as simple as 4x 1GB DDR or would 2x 2GB be best? I myself have absolutely no idea, so thought it best to ask here before offering advice to others!

Thanks in advance

[Senorchris]

Hey mate,

Going on the specs on this page, the maximum memory it can take is 4gb. I'd heartily recommend 4x1gb sticks, as 2gb sticks of RAM that old cost around quadruple a 1gb stick. It was designed for PC2100 DDR RAM - I'd stick to that, to be safe. It should be able to take DDR clocked faster (PC2700, PC3200), but it might need a bios flash - and even if it does, the FSB of the board might not go up that high.

To summarise, four sticks of 1gb PC2100 DDR RAM should do the trick - something like this (crap brand, but very few places sell PC2100 now, it seems).

[spleenboy]

Great stuff, I'll let him know. Thanks!

[briareos_kerensky]

I agree with senorchris, but why does your roommate needs 4 GBs? Considering the maximum CPU and GPU the mobo can accept 2 GBs are already enough and he's going to use WinXP, he probably won't notice any real improvment; WinXP is able to correctly recognize up to 4GBs, and although the way it manages memory is not a faulty as the Win9x family, it's far from being perfect...having to address so much memory could even slow down the system, if everything goes wrong.

[spleenboy]

It's for a Vista upgrade. So there's the possibility of too much RAM being detrimental to the system...?

[briareos_kerensky]

Well, it could. Not as bad as with WinME (BSOD most of the times) and in general with the 9x family (in Win98SE you just had to modify a system file if you had problems), but, yes, if the system RAM is maxed out this can cause some problems.
Some motherboards, for example, have problems in using all of their slots filled to their maximum capacity, and OSes might have problem addressing RAMs after a certain limits. However, we're speaking about pretty extreme cases with WinXP and modern hardware. It could be a possibility, however.
BTW, why does your friend need to swap to Vista? The OS is not even out and there's already a Service Pack under development, I wouldn't "upgrade" to Vista until the first SP is out and tested.
Besides, I cannot think why you would need to upgrade to Vista? DX10 graphics? Oh wov, there are uhmm...0 games and one videocard supporting them? Do you really want to be the first to test all the DRMs inside that OS?
Also, if he's still looking for a Vista-capable PC, I suggest he saves some money to get a new system altogether.

[spleenboy]

It's a work machine that he uses for a personal business, he doesn't use the PC to play games so I guess DX10 is irrelevant - as such I'm not sure why Vista would be so important right now. I'll be sure to pass on the advice; thanks for this.

[Hohum]

Seeing as he is limited to a 32-bit processor, 2GB is the maximum needed really... especially considering what he uses the PC for. Can't see why he'd want Vista either personally but that's just me.