Hell and Sawasdee Khrap,

I just "upgraded" my DELL 1440's DDR 2 memory from 2 to 3 GB and I'm quite happy with the speed, performance and the way it starts up and shuts down.

I have to apologize as I'm aware that such questions must be annoying for some experts. I could have another 2 GB of memory for 500 baht and only wanted to know if the speed and performance would increase?

I've read a couple of threads before, where people said that the W 7 /32 bit version would have a limit which is 3 GB.

There's really nothing wrong with the performance right now, but if one more GB would be helpful, I would just add another GB.

Thanks a lot to all the experts and expats on this forum here.

The limit in Windows 7/32 is actually 4GB, but because Installed Device Addresses and Shared Video Memory overlap real memory that amount will be reduced to 3.32GB usable.

What does your control panel SYSTEM (<windows-key> + <pause>) report under "Installed Memory RAM: xGB (x.x usable)" currently?

The limit in Windows 7/32 is actually 4GB, but because Installed Device Addresses and Shared Video Memory overlap real memory that amount will be reduced to 3.32GB usable.

What does your control panel SYSTEM (<windows-key> + <pause>) report under "Installed Memory RAM: xGB (x.x usable)" currently?

It doesn't show me how much memory is usable. All i see under System properties is Installed memory 3 GB , nothing about how much is being used.

Seems that I found the right answers: On Microsoft's webpage

Physical memory limits in Windows 7

The following table specifies the limits on physical memory for the different versions of Windows 7.

Version

Limit in 32-bit Windows

Limit in 64-bit Windows

Windows 7 Ultimate

4 GB

192 GB

Windows 7 Enterprise

4 GB

192 GB

Windows 7 Professional

4 GB

192 GB

Windows 7 Home Premium

4 GB

16 GB

Windows 7 Home Basic

4 GB

8 GB

Windows 7 Starter

2 GB

2 GB

Edited October 17, 201411 yr by lostinisaan

Too bad it isn't reporting how much RAM is currently usable, as that would have told you how much you might possibly gain. At minimum your current 3GB configuration is reserving a portion of RAM for Shared Video Memory, but unlikely to be disabling any other RAM for being in the 1GB conflict range residing at the top end of a 3GB to 4GB address space.

According to Wikipedia

3GB barrier

"The exact barrier varies by motherboard and I/O device configuration, particularly the size of video RAM; it may be in the range of 2.75 GB to 3.5 GB [usable memory]." [...] "The BIOS and chipset are responsible for detecting these address conflicts and disabling access to the RAM at those locations. Due to the way bus address ranges are determined on the PCI bus, this disabling is often at a relatively large granularity, resulting in relatively large amounts of RAM being disabled."

Worst case scenario....install Windows 7 64 bit....

Boot with the /PAE switch to enable physical address extensions. Although I'd recommend throw an SSD in to see a huge performance increase.