Potential Ram Upgrade

kinggeorge1987

Hey everybody,

As some of you know from previous posts, i've been having some trouble with my Dell Inspiron 1501. According to the specs, it comes with a 32bit vista operating system, well I've noticed that my processor is 64 bit architecture, so ofcourse I've upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. Now, it also says that the max upgradeable ram is 2GB SODIMM DDR2. I just find it a little funny that it is suppost to max out at 2gb, so my question to you is -

What would be the result of upgrading to 4GB(2X2GB Modules). If it doesn't support it will it just recognize the ram but give me the 'ol 4GB(2.00 GB Usable) or do you think it might cause some damage ? Im very seriously doubting damabe, but I'm not far enough into my A+ studying to completely understand :P. So ofcourse, help me gurus!

TheShadow

As long as it is the same family of memory you won't do anything bad to it. It is the address decode coming from the memory control section of your motherboard. That is the north bridge or what took the place of it in later processor families. There simply are not enough pins to put the entire address out to memory so addressing is split in half with two gating signals RAS (Row Address Strobe) and CAS (Column Address Strobe) RAS address bits select a row of storage cells and CAS select a single bit in each bit plane.

As architecture grows because they can shrink things they normally do in in multiples of fours. Four planes, four bits per plane etc. That part is not important to this discussion the point being the address bits don't get decoded so you can't get the bits out of the chips, simple as that. So the limit refers to the number of decoded address lines that get to the chips, one bit missing and you get reduced functionality. If they say 2Gig then 2Gig it is. The best source to find out is Crucial.com the consumer wing of Micron. They have a guide based on system that will tell you for sure.