Can my R61e lappy run with 4gb ram (2gb+2gb)? [ Edited ]

[MinhP]

Hello there,

I need your advice. 

I think of purchasing a pairs of 2gb+2gb Kingston ram 200 pin

to upgrade old 512mb+512mb. I wonder if my R61e lappy could

run with the new pairs without any errors? I understand that it

may only recognise  2.5-3gb. My logic is that I will keep that

2gb+2gb for further use if I buy a new laptop.

So, may there any errors be occurred when I do so?

Thank you in advance,

Minh

ThinkPad R61e Laptop - NG1A6UK

Product Information

Processor - Intel Pentium Dual Core T2310 / 1.46 GHz ( Dual-Core ) ·        

RAM - 1 GB (installed) / 3 GB (max) - DDR II SDRAM - 667 MHz - PC2-5300 ( 2 x 512 MB ) ·        

Hard Drive - 120 GB - Serial ATA-150 - 5400 rpm ·        

Operating System - Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 ·        

Screen - 15.4' TFT active matrix 1280 x 800 ( WXGA ) - 24-bit (16.7 million colours) ·        

Optical Drive - DVD-Writer - integrated

·         Graphics - Intel GMA X3100

Message Edited by MinhP on 07-05-2009 07:15 PM

[fmyhr · Accepted solution]

Hi MinhP,

4GB in your R61e shouldn't be a problem. As you say, if you're running a 32-bit OS it will only use about 3GB. I think buying from a major RAM manufacturer like Kingston is a good idea. Kingston, Crucial and probably others have memory configurators on their websites that will show you compatible upgrades.

Cheers,

Frank

[PaulC]

Hello,

Your answer to MinhP is surprising.  I have two R61e and one has four gb and one has two.  They are both dual booted with XP and Ubuntu.  The one with four has the four recognised by both OS and runs better than the two.

Are you saming that the fourth gb is not functional?

Paul

[MinhP]

Dear Frank and PaulC,

Your answers are really helpful.

I searched on the internet much about this matter but none of its topics had a clear answer. I have just placed an order on a pair of Kingston 2GB 667MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 SODIMM on Amazon.co.uk. Should they be arrived next week, I will confirm soon.

Minh

Message Edited by MinhP on 07-06-2009 07:13 AM

[fmyhr]

Hi PaulC,

Welcome to the Lenovo forum 

Both XP and Ubuntu are available in 64-bit versions that can use the entire 4GB. The 32-bit versions can access a maximum of about 3GB. More info is at the links here.

Best regards,

Frank

[PaulC]

Frank,

Thank you for the welcome.  Hmm  Having two machines the same can I put in 1x1gb module in each and 1x2gb module in each and have a similar performance to the one with 4gb in it?

one other question

As these machines have system memory allocated to video how it is decided how much memory is allocated to video?

These are very good machines (for the price) but the video performance is not great.

Regards

Paul

[fmyhr]

---

PaulC wrote:

Having two machines the same can I put in 1x1gb module in each and 1x2gb module in each and have a similar performance to the one with 4gb in it?

---

Yes. If you go from matched to unmatched DIMMs you may give up memory interleaving. (I'm not completely sure if the R61e cpu / chipset does that anyway...?) Non-interleaved is at most about 5% slower on very RAM-intensive applications: not worth worrying about the speed difference.

---

PaulC wrote:

As these machines have system memory allocated to video how it is decided how much memory is allocated to video?

---

The tip in this post may give you some control over the amount of RAM set aside for the video card.

Cheers,

Frank

[PaulC]

Frank

Thank you for the reply

I shall move both laptop to 3 gb and see how that goes as far as the performance goes before buying more RAM

Video Ram

As I mainly use Ubuntu I shall habve to figure that out but at least I know that it is possible

Regards

Paul

[fmyhr]

Paul,

For Ubuntu, try "man intel". In /etc/X11/xorg.conf you can set:

Section "Device"

Option "VideoRam" [Integer]

EndSection

[Integer] should be at least 16384, or DRI will not work.

Good luck!

-Frank

[PaulC]

Frank

Thank I shall try that

Paul