I have a toshiba laptop satelite version. It came with 1g of ram in two 512 strips. I purchased two 2gig strips and put them in place of the two 512gig strips. When I look at the setup menu and the amount of memory I have, it tells me there is 3.1gig not 4g. I was told by the toshiba people that I could upgrade to 4gig.

Can someone tell me what is going on. Maybe I have a bad strip. If so, is there a test I can run?

Thanks in advance for any help. John

32 bit operating systems have a mathematical limit as to RAM.

That limit ranges between 3.0 -> 3.5 max.

Most boards handle at least 4GB but only a 64 bit OS will detect it.

I am using XP. Are you saying I need to upgrade to Vista to have all 4gig available? I suppose there is no way to configure XP for 64 bit operation is there?

There is a 64 bit XP aka Server 2003. Basically the XP server version.

But no you cannot configure the bit size. It is in the OS.

Vista 64 bit will utilize 4GB RAM. Vista 32 will not.

Whether there is any noticeable difference between 3GB and 4GB on a personal computer (especially a laptop) is very questionable in my opinion.

Check out Dude where's my RAM??

Whether there is any noticeable difference between 3GB and 4GB on a personal computer (especially a laptop) is very questionable in my opinion

I would venture in a double-blind AB test, that is, where neither you or your "handler" knew which machine had 3Gb and which had 4Gb - you would not be able to tell which was which. Of course, the person with 4 will swear theirs is definitely faster. And there is something to be said about bragging rights too!

For PC users, if the choice is between:

a. 4Gb
or
b. 3Gb and a better graphics card

I would take option b in heartbeat.

Jephree said, "(especially a laptop)", I will take that one further, and say, any computer with on-board graphics.

4 gigs is actually overkill anyway, i run 2 gig of patriot ddr2 and vista 64 bit, and have no performance issues at all, in fact, performance wise my system so far has ran everything my friends system with the same processor and 4 gigs of ram has, just as well. (well my system did before i fried the PSU with new video card, but ahem different story, and I have a new PSU ordered) im going to upgrade to somewhere between 4-8 gigs of ram ultimately, but thats just to make sure it has plenty of horsepower for future programs, not cuz i need any of it. but yeah, for only 4 gigs of ram, i wouldnt waste money on a 64 bit OS, you wont notice the memory upgrade, and you only might recognize the processing ability difference if you run a lot of processor intensive programs.