The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
If it isn't listed as a configuration, then the answer is no. Besides, since RAM is so cheap it's better to take the default configuration and then buy RAM from newegg.
Processors that use speedstep (or hyperthreading) need two banks of identical RAM for optimal performance. It's always better to have two sticks of 1GB than one stick of 2GB.
32 bit operating systems can't use more than 3GB of RAM, so unless you are going to use a 64 bit OS, I would stick with 2GB. There have been reports of system instabilities with 4GB.
I have read reports of XP systems refusing to boot with 4GB (XP already installed, just a RAM upgrade), some nVidia Forceware drivers crashing with 4GB installed on Vista 32 bit, and various software problems on XP and Vista with 4GB. This is across the board, including desktops and laptops, so there is a definite possibility that having 4 banks instead of 2 could also be part of the issues.
You install 4GB's of ram in the laptop via 2x2GB sticks and windows vista 32bit will recognize 3.5GB's. so yes, you can.
I always see people say it's 3gbs when it's not. although it's only a 512mb difference, it's still relevant. Getting 3.5GB's out of a possible 4GB's is still worth the investment. And from what i can tell it's better than getting 64bit and dealing with drivers and a lack of dell support just for the extra 512MB's of ram.
I get a total of 3582MB's of Ram out of my 4GB's. so yes, it's a worthy upgrade from 2GB's.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
