HELLO Everyone ..............................
Well seems the "saga' again of ,,,,, WHAT PUBLIC see's and WHAT LENOVO does, is not matching up !!!
Not sure anyone at Lenovo is even listening to the customers and am MORE SURE Microsoft is not going to change nor release their windows source codes anytime soon to help users see what is where and what's happening(s) and WHY USERS are getting confusing and often what seems USELESS & CONFLICTING information. I often feel like that " MEAT in BETWEEN THE SANDWICH" when it comes to WINDOWS PC environment!!
I have a few thoughts And or ways to use that EXTRA RAM .......(please note am NO EXPERT and not working for LENOVO !!)
1) Memory (PHYSICAL:
Yes you can install 4GB of RAM on most IBM/LENOVO laptops (I have a T4x with 4GB of ram and its working nicely!!) and even can even LOAD 2 /8GB of RAM if you had the money to buy them on a W500!! As I have had running for a while. so in short , there is rarely no LIMIT's PLACED BY LENOVO on what you can Physically put/slot inside the LATOP - W500 in this case!
2) BIOS LIMITATIONS:
I have had the (disc)pleasure to MODIFY my BIOS for a few THINKPADS to either CATER FOR 4GB of RAM &/or 8GB Ram &/or 16GB of RAM on various thinpads. (((Sorry - these are personal bios version and not for SALE NOR am I giving them to anyone)) So in fact , that you want the "system board" to reorganize those ADDED RAM , then BIOS MODIFICATIONS is the only way to reorganize them and have those RAM AMOUNTS available to OPERATING SYSTEM(s) to use.
3) OPERATING SYSTEM(s)::
I have experimented with various WINDOWS (x32 & x64) in XP Pro, and Windows 7 and ALSO with IBM Linux and REDHAT Linux via Thinpad W510CTO , W500CTO, W700ds and T61p, T60p and T43p series of machines.
3a) Windows x32: is
HARD CODED to ONLY READ (access limited) to 29xxmb of RAM ( thus windows x32 rounds it up to 3GB. So regardless of how much RAM etc you put in , and regardless of how much 'memory' the Video display uses , that 29xx** does NOT CHANGE!!. Also , note the amount of RAM that is used by "'as required"' by GPU(video Display comes from this 29xx RAM allocations. SO INFACT the windows x32 = has less and less to run with - thus in WINDOWS VISTA case , it gets slower and slower as more intense 'graphic apps' are opened e.g. Adobe Photoshop etc . This is my discovery and I am resigned to the this fact , since MS wont release the windows source codes , this LIMITATION of x32 OS is set!!
3b) Windows x64 : is
a bit different as it comes from WINDOWS NT family of codes(from what I been told) which was originally designed to run/work in DEC ALPHA series of machines/servers. These machines at that time were ALREADY "64 bit" technology and able to address memory in DUAL CHANNEL and Max memory available at that time was 4GB memory sticks - thus the HARD CODING for 4GB that you see windows 'system screen'. This what I have found out thru my experimentation. Since I cannot get WINDOWS SOURCE CODE;, am kindastuck !!!
3c) Windows 7 (x32 & X64) : is
Interesting here is that in WIDOWS 7; MS has kinda 'merged' the two systems and put both of them on ONE DVD. This tells me the even MS is looking at what other pple have done with their SEPARATE DVD'S(lots of MERGED DVD'S you see on Bit-Torrents sites). In summary, you can see results of this 'merger' in Windows 7 , as you can see often laptops/PC with x64bit in WINDOWS 7 HOME(basic) version loaded on heaps of OEM systems.
3d) LINUX) : is
the only Operating System that one can MODIFY and CHANGE parameters that can handle lots of RAM and SYSTEM parameters that inter-acts with BIOS & GPU &SYSTEM BOARDS etc
To cater for this you can LENOVO has modified BIOS in W510 series machines , as you can configure from factory with 16GB RAM !! Thus creating this confusion in my view , to the users, that WINDOWS will and able to use all 16GB of RAM !! Personally I haven't yet tested the 'factory 16GB with windows 7x64 but will get around to it ,,,,,,,, soooooon as,,,I get enough sleep LOL !!!
3e) APPLE OS : is
able to run widows very well!!! I also have APPLE PRO series laptop running with Windows 7 x64 ultimate (via parallels Viz) and there WINDOWS can use full 16GB RAM without any issues!!! so its very intresting to see and wonder this option.......
4) EXTRA RAM USAGE SOLUTION : is
if you were lucky enough to get/buy the extra RAM and windows (you know its never going to use) here is one solution that I am very impressed with (and currently being used very successfully in my teenagers laptop W500 x32 laptop)
(please read and inform/educate yourself with this feature - and use at your OWN RISK)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_disk
There are several companies that have expertise in this area, and here is one MS APPROVED software mater:
http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php
(Currently have using two full server& PC lisc from them)
Note:
Several options are available to use here ; and I am using all my PAGING files and CACHE placed on RAMDISK drives.
(Microsoft experience Index testing (WEI)= 7.9 on this w500 machine and it means nothing to me since I don't believe in any 'benchmarking etc' figures BLAH BLAH !!!) but its great to be able to use the EXTRA RAM where windows does not make use of it!!!
Hope this helps someone
Cheers!:robotwink: