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I have a TOSHIBA Satellite Laptop which has 2GB RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, T5750 2GHz.
I am considering buying an additional 8GB RAM for the machine. I have little knowledge about hardware and am not sure if 8GB ram will fit the machine or not.
What should I do?
At the most basic level, do you think that it will affect my computer positively at all if I put new RAM in it? I'm considering at least 4GB but would look at 8GB if it will certainly give better performance.
The machine is currently running Windows Vista 32-bit - I plan to purchase Windows 7 Home Premium this month. Would I be able to install the 64-bit edition on this machine and it would take advantage of 8GB of RAM?
Whats your OS? 32 bit os's are unable to address over 4gb natively. – Supercereal – 2011-05-17T19:34:46.687
1@Kyle: Incorrect. PAE will allow a 32-bit OS to access the memory, at a small performance cost. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – 2011-05-17T19:37:13.907
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@tugberk - It would help to post the model number of the system. Do you see something like "M300-HF8" on a sticker on the back? If that is your model (by chance), you're limited to 4 Gb
http://www.crucial.com/upgrade/compatible-memory-for/Toshiba/Satellite%20Pro%20M300-HF8/list.html
@ignacio I knew someone was going to come along and say that! which is why I specified natively meaning with 32bit registers (yes with extend registers it will allow more) However I have not seen anyway to over come this limitation in XP. – Supercereal – 2011-05-17T19:44:40.843
@ignacio also see this answer: http://superuser.com/questions/245792/windows-xp-pae-6gb-ram-see-more-than-3-5gb/245805#245805
– Supercereal – 2011-05-17T19:45:54.023@Kyle: OS has not been mentioned. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – 2011-05-17T19:46:32.947
@ignacio why do you think I was asking then? This is why I said natively.... I should have wrote up that it works in *nix and windows 7 with PAE but I have not seen a way to do it in xp... It still seems long winded which why I decided to choose my adjectives (natively IE with 32 bit registers which is/was the default when the x86 architecture was developed) wisely... – Supercereal – 2011-05-17T19:49:53.257
@variant my model number appears to be PSAG0E on the back of my machine – tugberk – 2011-05-17T20:36:42.630
guys, see my update on my post. what is the situation now? is there a hope? – tugberk – 2011-05-17T20:40:49.257
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As I wrote in my answers comments below - Sorry, your laptop will NOT be able to support 8GBs, I saw the model number you wrote above and tracked it down as a Satellite A300-1J1, this has a GM965 Chipset, and from Intel's specifications, it states that the maximum amount of supported memory is 4GBs
– William Hilsum – 2011-05-17T20:52:53.100@Wil thanks for the info. so what do u think about 4 GB? should I put that? is it gonna effect it positively? also 'll purchase a Windows 7 Home Premium within this month, so I am thinking to install 64bit version of it. but not sure if I can do that? can I do that on that machine? – tugberk – 2011-05-17T20:57:50.053
Unless you go for OEM edition, you may spend more on a Windows License + memory than a cheap second hand but faster laptop - I really can't suggest how you should spend your money. How much memory do you actually use on average? If you are in the 70+% then it will most likely make your machine go faster - whether or not it is a good ROI, I can't say.... As memory prices are so low, if this was me, I would probably just get the 4GBs and forget the Windows upgrade for now. – William Hilsum – 2011-05-17T21:00:04.123
@Wil that was helpful. thank u very much. I really appreciated. – tugberk – 2011-05-17T21:11:27.343