Try this. Right now, do ctrl/alt/del to launch task manager. In the bottom right corner, check your percentage of physical RAM usage. Note if you do the math, you will never see this hit 1.5GB or more. No matter how many programs you run.

At this moment, good quality RAM is roughly $30 per GB. Knowing that you never use more than about 1.5GB, you can max out a system’s physical RAM by buying exactly 2GB. Many systems have 4-8GB though. That is anywhere from $60 to $180 spent on extra RAM that will never be used.

That $60 to $180 wasted on extra RAM that literally does nothing could be spent on a faster CPU, a better video card, a larger hard drive, dual hard drives…there are dozens of good uses for that money.

Yes indeed, it is possible to have too much RAM. Anything over 2GB is too much, as you are paying for RAM that will literally never be used.

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/4s121shqnhp47BA67564A58875B

Did you do the same? I love to give back to the Admin – he has helped me so much over the last few years.

I appreciate the info but all I need to know is whether my HP dv2699ea with it’s Intel 945GM Express chipset will take 4GB of RAM. Do you know whether this is possible, I’m not fussed if it shows up 3.5GB etc, just as long as I can get above the original 2GB’s I’ve already got?

Thanks,
Rory

a fairly obvious hint why this is happening: 32-bit Operating System. In any 32-bit operating system, the virtual address space is limited, by definition, to the size of a 32-bit value:

232 = 4,294,967,296

4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096

As far as 32-bit Vista is concerned, the world ends at 4,096 megabytes. That’s it. That’s all there is. No más.

Addressing more than 4 GB of memory is possible in a 32-bit operating system, but it takes nasty hardware hacks like 36-bit PAE extensions in the CPU, together with nasty software hacks like the AWE API.

Unless the application is specifically coded to be take advantage of these hacks, it’s confined to 4 GB. Well, actually, it’s stuck with even less– 2 GB or 3 GB of virtual address space, at least on Windows.

OK, so we’re limited to 4,096 megabytes of virtual address space on a 32-bit operating system. Could be worse.* We could be back in 16-bit land, where the world ended at 64 kilobytes. Brr. I’m getting the shakes just thinking about segments, and pointers of the near and far variety. Let us never speak of this again.

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2004/02/19/the-4gb-windows-memory-limit-what-does-it-really-mean.aspx

Intel 945GM Express with a Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T7500 2.20 GHz, Level 2 cache 4 MB.

Shouldn’t I be able to support 2GB per slot?

When I contacted HP about it they said if I put in 4GB then the laptop ‘ may emit beeps or no display so we recommed using 2 GB memory module only’. But then 2 minutes later another representative emailed and said I could install it but 32bit MS OS would only show it as 3GB.

I’m a bit confused….can I install more RAM or not??????

Unless you're running a triple boot system with a separate data partition (like I am) and ended up needed to repartition the whole system to make room for the larger files. It's always something….

I loved the part where you bought your ram from our affiliate link! ;)

And FYI: I almost always hibernate instead of shutting down even for the night when I am plugged in. Who knows when you need that almost instant on…

You mean to tell me that people actually USE the hibernate function!?!?