memory

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom
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Tom

Is there any point in having more than 2 gigs of ram on 32-bit Xp pro?
I'm asking this because ddr2 memory is cheap these days, so I'm thinking
about buying 2 sticks of 512 MB. I currently have 2 sticks of 1 GB.
 
Is there any point in having more than 2 gigs of ram on 32-bit Xp
pro?
I'm asking this because ddr2 memory is cheap these days, so I'm
thinking about buying 2 sticks of 512 MB. I currently have 2 sticks
of 1 GB.
Click to expand...


Unused memory is wasted memory. How much is unused now when you are
running the suite of applications & services that you normally have
running concurrently?

You could run into problems in trying to exceed 3GB with Windows XP.
Why would you mix 512MB modules in with 1MB modules? Keep them all
the same. The price for a 1MB stick is the same as for two 512MB
sticks.


Note: When munging your e-mail address, and when designating a domain
or TLD that does not exist, use the special .invalid gTLD, not .mail
as the gTLD. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid. Using
..invalid means the sending mail host won't even bother to waste
further CPU cycles trying to deliver an e-mail that is undeliverable
(the mail process gets short-circuited and the sending mail host will
immediately abort the mail session with the sender). Using .mail
means the sending mail server has to waste time to attempt to deliver
and then find out there is no such gTLD defined.
 
Depends entirely on what you use the computer for. Editing gigabyte sized
video files, possibly yes. Everything else probably not unless you often run
a number of Virtual PC sessions simultaneously. IMO.
 
32-bit XP doesn't support more than 3 GB and I have a dual-channel
motherboard so I thought that 2x512 MB will perform better than 1X1024 MB.
 
Tom said:
32-bit XP doesn't support more than 3 GB and I have a dual-channel
motherboard so I thought that 2x512 MB will perform better than
1X1024 MB.
Click to expand...


Check your mobo specs. Dual-channel may only work with 2 memory
sticks, one it each bank (which are usually colored the same for the
slot). When you add a 3rd or 4th stick, you may lose dual-channel
mode. You may also lose it if the architecture for the sticks don't
match (so addressing is the same across both channels/controllers).

Read:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx
"Operating systems based on Microsoft Windows NT technologies have
always provided applications with a flat 32-bit virtual address space
that describes 4 gigabytes (GB) of virtual memory. The address space
is usually split so that 2 GB of address space is directly accessible
to the application and the other 2 GB is only accessible to the
Windows executive software."

I doubt you want to play with the /3GB switch in the boot.ini file as
that can result in resource starvation for the exec. However, with up
to 2GB for the exec, you might want to use the tweak to keep more of
the exec in real memory (and out of the pagefile); see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184419 (I have 2GB and did this) and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895932 (I didn't bother with this one
because my old box still uses AGP for video).
 
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