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8GB and up for Laptop By cperng,  Apr 20, 2007

The 2GB maximum memory is too little to do any real work in MS Vista OS, we need minimum 8GB and up for the laptop.

DELL/ Status Update

The M6500 supports 16GB RAM
cperng620.0
  Fri Apr 20 16:49:06 GMT 2007
Comments: 57
Categories: Accessories (Keyboards, etc.)  Laptops  Operating Systems  
Status:Implemented


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By benjesuit  Apr 20, 2007
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Yeah, I don't think spending twice the price of the laptop on memory makes economic sense.
By premcv  Apr 20, 2007
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Yup! Better still, switch to Ubuntu. ;)
By hjwasson  Apr 20, 2007
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4 GB of memory can be had on many newer models of Dell notebooks, including the M1210...if you have an extra grand you want to drop for 2 GB memory modules (increasing the purchase price by 30%). 4 GB is the most memory that can be easily addressed with 32-bit operating systems. You'd have to move to a 64-bit environment to address a larger range. What kind of work are you trying to do on your notebook computer, anyway? It sounds like your money would be better spent on a 64-bit desktop system!
By premcv  Apr 20, 2007
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or a Linux system for me. :)
By hjwasson  Apr 20, 2007
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I stand corrected - my Linux savvy friends tell me that Linux can handle up to 32 GB, even on 32-bit systems! Still, I'm trying to envision the needs for so much RAM on a notebook computer, and the cost in terms of both money and battery life!
By premcv  Apr 20, 2007
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Ubuntu for me anytime!
By jmecc  Apr 20, 2007
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No linux 32-bit can't handle ove 4GB of ram. No 32-bit OS ever will. 2^32 addresses is 4,294,967,296 addresses, i.e. keep track of 4GB. Right now 1GB works fine for Vista, 2GB if you do scientific work or photoshoping. 4GB is the ridiculous frivolousness you see with folks who think more must be better. 8GB is for a nice server with hundreds of users, not for a laptop!!!
By cosh  Apr 20, 2007
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Linux has been 64-bit ready for years and years though. What sort of nutter buys 8 GiB of RAM???????????????
By beckster  Apr 21, 2007
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I haven't seen any review state, "1GB works fine for Vista". Everything I've read said 1G is the minimum necessary to get Vista to function. 2G is necessary to make Vista work like it is supposed to.
By cosh  Apr 21, 2007
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And I have seen reviews stating that it runs fine with 512 MiB, but much better with 1 GiB.
By hjwasson  Apr 23, 2007
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My understanding of memory addressing limits was the same as jmecc's, until the Linux guru's in my office expanded my knowledge. The 32-bit Linux kernel plays some memory addressing games to address a larger amount of memory (up to 32 GB). I would think this would cause a big performance hit, but the Linux converts swear not. You can learn a little more about it here: http://kerneltrap.org/node/2450?page=1

I've thought about the "more RAM" suggestion for a while, and have concluded that it would be nice if higher performance notebooks could address more memory. If the notebooks had more DIMM slots, then less expensive RAM modules could be added as needed. While most of us would be fine with lower amounts of memory, there are certainly uses that could require a lot of RAM. I run virtual OS's with VMware, and 2 GB is not enough when doing that. I imagine CAD or other applications might gobble up tons of RAM as well...but I'm still curious why cperng needs 8 GB!
By joffe100  Apr 23, 2007
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I have a 32GB Ram 8x dual-core 8way opteron system, SuSE 64bit server with 8x 145GB striped scratch drives and 1TB of raid storage, ner ner ne ner ner :-P I was lead to believe that it was all a combination of the chip, O/S, what you want to do with it and how you set it up... I had 8GB on 2 hyperthreaded xeons with Fedora Core 2 32bit - from what I could gather (without being an expert) was that the O/S saw and used the full 8GB but the Cpu's could not handle more than 4GB and so pushing more than 4GB was pointless anyway - unless you wanted to run different jobs with 4GB on each cpu (with some room for background apps) - windows saw 4GB max irrespective... I have to learn node management next....
By premcv  Apr 24, 2007
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Oh, wow! 32g ram? Phew!
By hjwasson  Apr 24, 2007
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LOL! Using a server as a personal workstation sounds cool...but aren't you wasting a lot of power (both in terms of power draw & unused processing)? And I can only imagine what kind of sound levels you have to put up with - unless you have everything water-cooled? Or maybe you keep that monster in another room? ;-) In any case, I bow to your performance machine - and can only drool.
By premcv  Apr 24, 2007
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Is it water cooled? Tremendous power...!
By cosh  Apr 24, 2007
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Wow even I'd be impressed by a water-cooled 32 GiB personal server... and I'm a DOS and 640k sort of person.
By premcv  Apr 24, 2007
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Those were the days of the 640k! ;)
By joffe100  Apr 24, 2007
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haha nah, it's used for doing FEA calculations to simulate extruding metal - hidden in sound-proofed air-cooled room with 2 fans per cpu, it's got the new low wattage opterons - still trying to get my head around cpu/ram management and programming linux for parallel computing - all very cool stuff unless you get stuck on memory crashes that don't make sense (weeks of hair pulling when I started to figure out what was going on) - no grpahics so I cant sneak in and play Halo on the weekends :( lol
By thejedimaster  Apr 25, 2007
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4GB option on all 15" and up..
By hjwasson  Apr 25, 2007
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LOL! Joffe, that's sounds like cool & very technical work, and I appreciate your input regarding large memory addressing to this discussion. 32 GB of RAM and optimizing 8-way multiprocessing sounds like a real challenge. However, I think we need to get the discussion back on topic - cperng was wanting 8 GB and up on notebook/laptop computers. That led me to wonder what he needed so much RAM in a laptop for!

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