Are all Studio 1737's upgradable to 8GB RAM?

Dell.com now has an option to order Studio 17's with 8GB of DDR2. Can I upgrade a 1737 built last year to 8GB (2 x 4GB)?
TIA,
Joe

 

make sure the mobo and chipset are the same I don't see why not.

hopefully you have a 64-bit OS

but even if you do. Going from 4GB to 8GB you will notice no improvements.

Spend the money on a Solid State Drive or some INtel Turbo memory

 

Check if you have a 965-series chipset or a 45-series chipset. AFAIK, the Studio 15 was built with both 965-series chipsets AND 45-series chipsets, but only the 45-series chipset will support 8GB. I do believe the same should follow for the Studio 17, so if yours was built near the time of release, you probably can't use 8GB.

That being said, 8GB is indeed probably not going to give you much in extra performance.

 

Thanks for the info. yes, I have a 64-bit OS.

How do I tell if I have a 45-series chipset?

I am not looking for performance improvements so much as being able to give more memory to my VMware and Xen virtual machines.

 

Download and run CPUZ, and check the "mainboard" tab.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

Thanks again.

 

@Joe Schmoe

Did you motherboard allow for 8GB and have you tried it ?

I have the correct motherboard, am just hopeing to find somebody who has done it before I splash the cash on the memory.

 

I have not yet tried it. 2x4GB SDRAM is way expensive. I just want the option of doing later when the price comes down.

 

The Studio 1737 is the newer model with the PM/GM45 chipset. The 1735 is the older PM/GM965 model. If you have a 1737, then 8GB of memory should work.

 

I have the T9400 and the newer Montvieniea chipset so yes it works. But why Would you do it??

better off getting a SSD. Like I did. Max boot and shutdown times 20 seconds. Just imagine how much battery juice I am saving right there.

 

So I would only notice a marginal improvement in performance going from 4GB of RAM to 8GB?

 

Unless you're hosting a server, using professional editing software, or playing games that were released yesterday, I don't really see the need for 8GB of RAM, especially since it costs so much. 4GB is more than enough for the average home user.

 

Or running several virtual machines at the same time. I guess I'm not "average" .

I have the 1737 with a T9400, 4GB, and Vista Home Premium as the boot OS. I can comfortably run one Ubuntu 9.04 VMware VM with 1 GB RAM. Any more than that and I start to see significant performance hits.

 

I can only imagine that the extra 4GB of DDR2 Ram will use up your battery much faster because RAM is contstantly powered.

I've noticed impressive and immediate results by installing an 80GB SSD drive, and a Intel 2GB Turbo Memory (its like a constant Ready Boost Drive but faster) to my Mini Pci slot

the performance gains have been down right cool.

http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/turbomemory/index.htm

The empty mini pci slots on my 1737 because I did not get any internal Bluetooth or any internal verizon or Sprint cards have really been a good choice.

I plan to install a HDTV Tuner card into the last remaining mini pci slot.

So what I am trying to say, is that adding an extra 4GB of RAM you will not se any performace gains, it will drain your battery faster. My advice is a better bang for your buck is to get a SSD drive and 2GB of INtel Turbo memory.

 

That's definitely not average. I was able to run 1 VMware VM on my old laptop with 512MB RAM, boy was it slow.

 

you won't notice the difference between 4GB and 8GB, I got the 2x4GB free from Dell, and I've been using 1GB to try Windows7, so the 8GB, aren't that much of a good investment.

 

spend $40 and get a 2GB intel turbo memory, think of it as an internal faster form of ready boost, but faster because it takes 1GB for ready ram (ready boost) and 1 GB for what they call Ready Drive.

Imagine having a hard drive with not 8MB or 16MB of Cache buffer but 1GB of cache buffer, thats a good way to think about how much faster your machine will feel with Turbo memory.

not to mention all the battery life you will save from the HDD not having to spin up as much.

 

guess i'm confused
almost $300 for just a 64gig SSD or am i missing something? is it really that much better to drop so much hard drive space - maybe i'm wrong so please educate me - too rich and way too big of a hit on hd space

as far as the turbo memory, do you guys suggest removing all your memory and only running the turbo or combine? also, who the hell sells this stuff? only online since it seems big box stores don't seem to list on their web sites

thanks

just to add - if you read reviews anywhere it sure seems nobody is blown away by the performance bump they get from the turbo memory so i'm curious why users here say its SOOO much better