Maxing RAM on old system, what's the limiting factor?

[Radium_Angel]

It's a build for a charity case and I've got enough parts laying about for a full build but I'm not certain about RAM.

Official Dell Inspiron 560 specs say max RAM is 8GB (4 slots) on an Intel G43 chipset, but Intel says the G43 will support 16GB RAM (DDR3)

So, is it the chipset that is the limiting factor, or the mobo itself?

It's an old system so documentation from Dell is sketchy about this.

[Whiro]

What Windows version you got? I believe x32 supports only 4gb max so that may be the problem 

[jaslion]

14 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

It's a build for a charity case and I've got enough parts laying about for a full build but I'm not certain about RAM.

Official Dell Inspiron 560 specs say max RAM is 8GB (4 slots) on an Intel G43 chipset, but Intel says the G43 will support 16GB RAM (DDR3)

So, is it the chipset that is the limiting factor, or the mobo itself?

It's an old system so documentation from Dell is sketchy about this.

4gb ddr2 dimms that are not ecc memory weren't really made. There are some chinese ones circling around and they seem to work but that is at your own risk if you want to try those.

[Pasi123]

22 minutes ago, jaslion said:

4gb ddr2 dimms that are not ecc memory weren't really made. There are some chinese ones circling around and they seem to work but that is at your own risk if you want to try those.

I wouldn't recommend trying DDR2 on a DDR3 system

[Alex Atkin UK]

42 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

It's a build for a charity case and I've got enough parts laying about for a full build but I'm not certain about RAM.

Official Dell Inspiron 560 specs say max RAM is 8GB (4 slots) on an Intel G43 chipset, but Intel says the G43 will support 16GB RAM (DDR3)

So, is it the chipset that is the limiting factor, or the mobo itself?

It's an old system so documentation from Dell is sketchy about this.

It just means the motherboard manufacturer only tested up to that amount so make no guarantees that bigger will work.

As a general rule, it SHOULD work up to the chipset limitation (although with vendors like Dell there is always the possibility they artificially limit which sticks you can use so you had to buy off them), but it would be entirely up to trial and error finding compatible RAM.

 

I know I've had motherboards in the past claiming 4GB max where 8GB worked fine, it was simply that sticks that big did not exist when the motherboard was certified for compatibility and vendors rarely bother to go back to re-assess their older models.

[jaslion]

7 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

I wouldn't recommend trying DDR2 on a DDR3 system

My bad. I made a mistake whilst googling and opend the specsheet to a different dell.

[Whiro]

57 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

It's a build for a charity case and I've got enough parts laying about for a full build but I'm not certain about RAM.

Official Dell Inspiron 560 specs say max RAM is 8GB (4 slots) on an Intel G43 chipset, but Intel says the G43 will support 16GB RAM (DDR3)

So, is it the chipset that is the limiting factor, or the mobo itself?

It's an old system so documentation from Dell is sketchy about this.

 

54 minutes ago, Whiro said:

What Windows version you got? I believe x32 supports only 4gb max so that may be the problem 

 Damn I completely misread that that how it end up replying straight away when you wake up I thought you meant that system have 8gb and its limiting to 4gb only. In that case it could be windows version but to answer your question 16gb will be good. Prebuilds very often offering systems with less amount of ram (like 8gb) and they saying its max.

[mariushm]

The Intel chipsets of that time were picky about what memory sticks you could use.

 

With DDR2... you'll find LOTS of cheap DDR2 on eBay and various places which are advertised as "AMD compatible" or "for AMD systems" - those are memory sticks which have the tiny memory chips of a certain format and wired in a specific way on the memory stick that's correct according to memory standards and supported by AMD chipsets and processors, but the Intel chipsets did not support these sticks. Basically think of Intel as supporting "DDR2 light / strict mode", while AMD systems supported "DDR2 plus / extended"

 

With DDR3... about the same story, but there's better compatibility. I suppose there could be 4 GB DDR3 sticks which would work, but I seriously doubt it. I think it's better to stick to 8 GB in total.

 

So yeah, you have 4 memory slots, and you can use 1 GB or 2 GB memory sticks.

See page 529 which says what's supported: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/4-chipset-family-datasheet.pdf

 

 

32 bit operating systems from Windows will limit you to 4 GB, regardless if you enable PAE or not.

There may be an exception if you install Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 as these are server operating systems, but why would you... the cpu should be new enough that Windows 7 should run fine.

 

[Eigenvektor]

On 12/18/2019 at 8:08 PM, mariushm said:

32 bit operating systems from Windows will limit you to 4 GB, regardless if you enable PAE or not.

Yep, you need a server OS, compatible hardware/drivers and programs must also support AWE (Address Windowing Extension). My previous employer used more than 4 GB on 32 bit systems with Windows Server and SQL Server, but that would be about the only software I know that could do this.

 

~edit: To be clear, with PAE (physical address extension) compatible Windows versions can address more than 4 GB of RAM, but individual 32 bit programs are still limited to a virtual address space of 4 GB unless the program supports AWE.

[Radium_Angel]

42 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

AWE

I'm not certain how we got off to the topic of a 32bit OS, I am aware of the RAM limitations. The system in question will be powerful enough to run a modern OS.

As it stands, the system does indeed support 16GB of DDR3 without issue, I just now needa C2Q CPU to complete it (ebay to the rescue...again)

[Whiro]

21 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

I'm not certain how we got off to the topic of a 32bit OS, I am aware of the RAM limitations. The system in question will be powerful enough to run a modern OS.

As it stands, the system does indeed support 16GB of DDR3 without issue, I just now needa C2Q CPU to complete it (ebay to the rescue...again)

Probably cos of me I miss read what you meant in first place (was still half asleep)

But I corrected myself in later post

On 12/18/2019 at 6:54 PM, Whiro said:

to answer your question 16gb will be good. Prebuilds very often offering systems with less amount of ram (like 8gb) and they saying its max.

 

[Radium_Angel]

22 hours ago, Whiro said:

Probably cos of me

No harm done, the more info we can post on LTT, the more we can help out others with similar questions.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Even the best C2Q is REALLY weak by todays standards though, so don't fall for getting the very top-end models that are seriously overpriced.

[Radium_Angel]

3 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Even the best C2Q is REALLY weak by todays standards though, so don't fall for getting the very top-end models that are seriously overpriced.

I spent 5$ for a Q9550. I figure that's fine to work with, as I think it's the penultimate C2Q.

 

Single slot video card is next, probably a Quadro K2000

[Alex Atkin UK]

Nice, when I upgraded a friends PC I had to go with a Q6700 as everything better seemed to suddenly double the price and I think there were maybe a few the motherboard didn't have listed as compatible so seemed a gamble.

 

It looks like a few years of Ryzen has caused even the top-end C2Q prices to fall now.  I should hope so as the lowest Ryzen desktop CPU is going to run rings around the best C2Q.

You have to be careful not to get tunnel vision with older hardware upgrades as its so easy to end up spending more for less power than just building a newer low-end machine.  With the price you paid for that CPU though, sounds like did a better job than I did.

[Radium_Angel]

10 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

spending more for less power

Yeah this is just one of many spares I have that I fiddle with purely for fun and nothing more.