Questions about 4gb

[Taliseian]

I originally had 2gb of ram and just purchased another 2g.

I've read the stickies and other posts about this issue. I realize that my 945 chipset based motherboard (Gigabyte GA-945P-S3 rev1.0) cannot fully address the 4gb of memory I just installed, plus I have a 512mg graphic card which explains why Vista only shows 3.5g available.

My question is -- Was purchasing the extra 2g a waste? Is there anyone else in this situation who has noticed a performance increase when going above 2g of ram?

Thanks in advance...

T

[fizban2]

more RAM is always useful, depending on what you do with the PC will determine how useful, if nothing else if you move to a 64-bit OS you will have 4 gigs of useable RAm, which is never a bad thing to be ready for a future move

[Stead]

out of interest, do you have any PCI cards installed? and have you had any trouble since installing the extra ram?

I have the same motherboard, using vista 64, have trouble, xp64 everything works fine...

[Taliseian]

I had some issues with my Linksys Wireless card and went back to Vista x86. For some reason it wouldn't stay connected. I'm assuming that going to x64 with the extra ram was causing issues, but those may be corrected with SP1 or better drivers from Linksys down the road.

Other than that, no issues at all.

Gigabyte GA-945P-S3 rev 1.0

C2D e6300 (not OC'd)

4g DDR2-667 Patriot ram

eVga 7950 GT 512mg PCI-E

Linksys WRG54GS v1

Logitech G15

Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty

Vista Ultimate x86

T

[Stead]

so, vista x86 has no issues with the extra memory but 64 does?

I have used 2 machines now with more than 2 gig of ram and both have a problem with an asus 138g wireless network card, take out the extra memory and can get it to work, xp64 handles the memory fine tho. Having to use usb wireless to get connected on the one machine, ordered another card for mine to get around it for now!

I have to say having the extra memory seems to speed things up on mine in vista, but then the network connection doesn't work so maybe thats why...in xp64 I find i can turn off the paging file which is nice even when running lots of vm's

[fizban2]

so, vista x86 has no issues with the extra memory but 64 does?

I have used 2 machines now with more than 2 gig of ram and both have a problem with an asus 138g wireless network card, take out the extra memory and can get it to work, xp64 handles the memory fine tho. Having to use usb wireless to get connected on the one machine, ordered another card for mine to get around it for now!

I have to say having the extra memory seems to speed things up on mine in vista, but then the network connection doesn't work so maybe thats why...in xp64 I find i can turn off the paging file which is nice even when running lots of vm's

Vista 64 runs fine with 4 gigs or 6 or 8 gigs, it is meant to be able to handle the load without issue, Sounds like there is an issue with the drivers for your wireless card, doesn't sound like they are ture 64 bit drivers if simply upping the ram causes it to stop working.

[Taliseian]

That's my thought as well, fizban2....its just lack of driver support for the 64bit version.

Eventually I'll go back to it, but for now x86 is working so I'll stay there.

Once thing I did notice however is that when I installed XP, my msinfo32 report showed all 4g but the same report run in Vista only shows 3.25g

I'm guessing its because Vista may have better native support for higher end video cards -- I have a eVGA 7950GT 512mg PCI-E -- it shows the memory as taken in msinfo32 so the OS and other programs don't try to use it.

My system is very stable and runs great. Have x86 drivers for all my hardware and now that Creative ALchemy is out I'm able to get hardware sound support back in my D3D games.

T