03-26-17 17:45 august abolins wrote to Ed Vance about New HDD for XP pc
Howdy! August,

 aa> {at}MSGID: 
 aa> Ed Vance -> Dale Shipp wrote:

 EV>> My HP a1430n XP SP3 pc has a AMD 3800+ Dual Core CPU and has been
 EV>> acting very slow when starting up or when I start a program.

 EV> I couldn't see trashing the two 500MB DDR 400 sticks and buying four 1GB
 EV> sticks to fill all the slots, so I decided 3GB should be enough on a pc
 EV> with a CPU that run at 2 Mc/s.

 EV> The XP OS is 32-Bit and I was told here that the maximum RAM it could use
 EV> was 3.8GB iirc.

 EV> Is that still true?

 aa> G'day Ed.   I still settle for XP on a couple of computers here and
 aa> have explored the ram upgrade options as you have.  XP is indeed
 aa> limited to about 3GB ram (I have seen people quoting estimates between
 aa> 3.25 and 3.8) So, there is no point going beyond the 3gb that you have
 aa> invested in.

 aa> I have also bumped up the ram in one specific HP model (it too just had
 aa> 2x500mb modules) but the mobo manual indicated that in order to
 aa> maintain and activate the fast "Dual channel" processing
speeds, the
 aa> ram modules had to be in specific slots.

 aa> In my case the mobo supported up to 8gb but it only had XP 32-bit
 aa> installed, so no point going beyond 3gb. However, to maintain the
 aa> dual-channel speeds, the modules had to be "balanced"
across the dimm
 aa> slots.

 aa> Originally, the 2x500mb modules were in slot 1 in each bank. That
 aa> triggered the proper dual channel mode.  All I had to do was add each
 aa> 1GB module right next to the 500mb module in the same bank to maintain
 aa> the balance. The "banks" are often colour-coded to indicate their
 aa> pairing. BUT, your mobo might have another design.

It has been a long time but I think I left the two 500MB cards where they
were and placed the two 1GB cards in the empty slots.
So I wought to be O.K. on that "Balancing" the dual-channel speed. ???

 aa> I won't go into techy details about all that because your mobo manual
 aa> could probably explain it with illustrations for your particular mobo.

I probably D/L'd the mobo manual just after buying the pc, I will hafta look.

 aa> Also, the pc will only operate as fast as the slowest supported module.
 aa> For example, if the 500mb modules are PC4300 rated, don't expect faster
 aa> performance if you add PC6300 modules.

I know I bought 1GB DDR 400 RAM but unsure what speed the store had to sell
to me.

 aa> The best performance difference would be to main the "dual-channel"
 aa> mode vs "single-channel" mode.

 aa> Ciao! ..AA

Thanks Much!


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