I was checking around town on prices for a 1.0GB DDR ram stick (But I’ve decided that, even new and still sealed, eBay has the cheapest, plus none of the stores seemed to have any) and in one store a salesman warned me about that saying that Windows XP (Home or Pro) can’t really handle a single 1.0GB stick.
Is that true? I’ve tried looking it up on line but can’t find anything about it. The computer I’m buying it for has 2 DDR slots (and 3 SDRAM slots, which is what I’m upgrading from) and if the Windows XP limitation is true, does that mean it’s best to just have 1.0GB DDR RAM using 2 512MB sticks?
I haven’t heared about the XP limitation you talk about, but in order to take advantage of the dual channel feature, it is advisable to have a pair (or two) of memory chips. So, limitation or not, it is better to buy two 512 chips.
Go to the computer manufacturer’s site and do a search for the computer you’re buying to see what the specs are for that computer. My computer’s motherboard is supposed to be set up to take a maximum of 2GB of ram, and I know there are only two slots, so obviously it’s supposed to be able to handle 1GB sticks despite having XP. Many manufacturers also have on-line tech support, so you could ask them about it as well.
I got the motherboard off of eBay. However, it’s an excelent board and I was able to find the manual on line and print it out. I can’t find it now, but I know the specs of the motherboard pretty well. It’s a P4 with a 533mhz frontside bus. It can take either 3 SDRAM chips or 2 DDR RAM chips. It can handle a total of 2GB, thus, the maximum is 2 1.0GB DDR chips.
The motherboard can handle it just fine, its Windows I’m curious about.
To be honest, I was kind of suppsicious when the sales man told me about that, because the store wasn’t carrying any 1.0GB chips, only 512MB chips and lower. I’m wondering if he told me that in order to get me to buy 512MB chips from the store.
Well, thanks to everybody for their input. So far, nobody else has heard about a problem with XP and 1.0GB chips. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make it untrue, but I guess I won’t worry to much about it in the future.
I am currently typing an a computer with winXP and 2 1GB memory chips. As people have mentioned, I have 2 matched corsair modules so that I can take advantage of the Dual Channel function of my motherboard, but if you don’t have dual channel capability, then a 1 gb module will work just fine.
The only time you get a bottleneck in XP because of ram is when you don’t have enough, and it has to go to the page file instead of the real RAM. How too much ram could cause an operating system to bottleneck is beyond me. That feels like saying too much gas in your car will cause low tire pressure. Windows used to have RAM limitations, but even then the OS just failed to recognize the amount of ram above its upper limit.
Also, even in a dual channel capable mobo, 1 stick of ram will work just fine… it just works faster with 2.
Just make sure you go to the mobo’s manufacturers website to check out what ram is compatible with it. Some ASUS mobos, for instance, have very short compatibility lists (the KT-600 for example) and if you get non compatible ram the computer may never even start. (A tough experience to go through.)
Don’t be so sure. DDR RAM comes in a wide spectrum of speeds, and some older motherboards - like I suspect yours to be, considering it has both SDRAM and DDR slots - topped out at DDR-333 (PC-2700) or even lower… some couldn’t even get past PC-2100.
If you get DDR-400 chips, they may not work with your motherboard, or not work at their maximum velocities. Make absolutely sure you’re getting RAM that will work.
I re-downloaded the motherboard manual since I can’t find what happened to the other one, and it says “Supports DDR up to 333MHz (enhanced) memory bus”, so I know my limitations.
I’m running WinXP with 2 sticks of 512MB PC2100, and I have been running for about a month with no page file at all. I occasionally get memory read/write errors that crash the system (I’m slightly overclocked), but even running Half-Life 2, SimCity 4, and other RAM-hogging games at maximum performance, I haven’t encountered any real slowdowns.
Try moving to a teeny-tiny page file of a static size, say, 256MB. Page file resizing is one of the biggest culprits of slowdowns, because it only happens when you’re already maxing out your RAM :smack: If things run fine, dial it back to 128MB, and then try getting along without it. One caveat: you should make sure you defrag your drive regularly if you go with this approach, so that when you do need to thrash the HDD, everything is in its right place.
Oh crap. Over the weekend I bid on some PC3200 because on some eBay auctions, and when I was looking around the web I saw other message boards where people were basically saying that PC3200’s backwards compatible.
However, I’ve also seen messages where they don’t work one some computers at all. I thought for sure that I would get out bid and could safely bid on PC2700’s but no, I actually won the auction yesterday.
Now my only two chances of everything coming out all right is that my computer will be able to run them (when I lost the manual and went to a different computer store than in the OP, the guy working there said that I should be able to go up to a PC3200 since I have a 533mhz frontside bus), or if my wife’s computer doesn’t run (I’m getting the memory for her for Christmas) then hopefully I can resell them on eBay and turn around and use that money to buy some DDR that works.
Oops
“basically saying that PC3200’s backwards compatible.”
should read
“basically saying that PC3200’s are backwards compatible.”
And
“Now my only two chances of everything coming out all right is that my computer will be able to run them”
should read
“Now my only two chances of everything coming out all right is that my wife’s computer will be able to run them”
PC3200 is 400mhz FSB, so if your board is 533mhz FSB you should be fine. If 533mhz is the FSB just for the chip, find out what the bus is for the RAM. If it’s 333 or higher, I know that PC3200 will be fine. In fact, I can’t even think of a mobo that doesn’t match the FSB of both. Not that they don’t exist, I just don’t know of any. So your only problem would be checking the compatibility of the brand of RAM against your mother boards preferred RAM.
Memory • The mainboard accommodates 2 DDR + 2 SDR 168 pin, 3.3V DIMM sockets with a total capacity of 1 GB system memory
• Supports DDR up to 333MHz (enhanced) memory bus
Installing Memory Modules
This mainboard accommodates 168-pin 3.3V/184-pin 2.5V unbuffered SDRAM memory modules.
The CPU supports 100MHz system bus. The SDRAM DIMMs and DDRs can synchronously work with 100 MHz or operates over a 133 MHz system bus. DDR SDRAM provides 800 MBps or 1 GBps data transfer depending on whether the bus is 100 MHz or 133 MHz. It doubles the rate to 1.6 GBps and 2.1 GBps by transferring data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock. DDR SDRAM uses additional power and ground lines and requires 184-pin 2.5V unbuffered DIMM module rather than the 168-pin 3.3V unbuffered DIMMs used by SDRAM.
Oops, I was saying three SDRAM slots and up to 2GB of memory, I think I was confusing my wife’s computer with my own (which is funny that her limit is 1GB when my computer doesn’t even take DDR sticks, go figure).
But anyway, threre’s the memory specs.