memory Max memory for Intel D945GCNL mobo

[Vector0102]

So I have an Intel D945GCNL motherboard i decided to put some use today. I was planning to upgrade the memory from 3 GB for obvious reasons, so I decided to look at Intel's website for info and i found out that my mobo supports only 2 GB of RAM, the strange thing is i've been using it with 3GB for years now. Ive seen ppl on the internet saying they've been using it with 3 GBs too and some even got it to work with 4 with no modifications to the board at all. Some people have also mentioned that their manual states a max of 4 GB for their mobo while a majority say their manual states 2GB as the max. I'm really confused rn and I want to know if I can upgrade the RAM on this mobo any further.

[GoodEnough]

the people who can have 4gb maximum probably just got their motherboard a little after the people who can only have up to 2gb.

 

for example, the b450m ds3h used to only support ryzen 1000 and 2000 cpu's but then after a year or so, the manufacturer started adding support for ryzen 3000 cpu's, this would simply be due to bios updates, chipset updates, and other similar factors.

 

the newer uprated version of the b450m ds3h motherboards also now have a sticker on the box directly saying that it now supports ryzen 3000 cpu's. to let people know that it does in fact support the newer cpu's. since the website still says it only supports ryzen 1000 and 2000 cpu's

 

but thats just a guess, i cant really say for sure why yours supports 4gb while others support 2gb.

[Var_]

Did some digging on the Intel forums.

 

https://forums.intel.com/s/question/0D50P0000490BFKSA2/intel-d945gcnl?language=en_US

 

People have been having the same issue, some can use 2gb while others can use up to 4gb. I think it might be dependent on the bios version or which copy of windows you use

[Vector0102]

there are actually 2 revisions of this board. So can it be like the newer revision supports upto 4gb or smthn?

 

[3rrant]

6 minutes ago, Vector0102 said:

So I have an Intel D945GCNL motherboard i decided to put some use today. I was planning to upgrade the memory from 3 GB for obvious reasons, so I decided to look at Intel's website for info and i found out that my mobo supports only 2 GB of RAM, the strange thing is i've been using it with 3GB for years now. Ive seen ppl on the internet saying they've been using it with 3 GBs too and some even got it to work with 4 with no modifications to the board at all. Some people have also mentioned that their manual states a max of 4 GB for their mobo while a majority say their manual states 2GB as the max. I'm really confused rn and I want to know if I can upgrade the RAM on this mobo any further.

Officially, it states 2 dimms for a total of 2GB supported: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/50369/intel-desktop-board-d945gcnl.html

In the official manual (https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/boardsandkits/desktop-boards/945/D945GCNL/D945GCNL_TechProdSpec.pdf) it states again 2GB, of which a part cannot be accessed because it's reserved for other parts of the system (PCI, addon cards, etc).

 

So what might be happening is that the official specs are referring to the original release of the motherboard (Q3 2007) and not an "updated" versions that might have been released later which supported more ram. If you are currently ABLE to use 3gb (can you actually fill it? or does it just show) you should be able to read 4gb dimms, so your max memory supported would be 8gb.

 

BUT, as there's no official support for it, you need to try it out and might be unstable.

 

[Vector0102]

1 minute ago, 3rrant said:

Officially, it states 2 dimms for a total of 2GB supported: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/50369/intel-desktop-board-d945gcnl.html

In the official manual (https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/boardsandkits/desktop-boards/945/D945GCNL/D945GCNL_TechProdSpec.pdf) it states again 2GB, of which a part cannot be accessed because it's reserved for other parts of the system (PCI, addon cards, etc).

 

So what might be happening is that the official specs are referring to the original release of the motherboard (Q3 2007) and not an "updated" versions that might have been released later which supported more ram. If you are currently ABLE to use 3gb (can you actually fill it? or does it just show) you should be able to read 4gb dimms, so your max memory supported would be 8gb.

 

BUT, as there's no official support for it, you need to try it out and might be unstable.

 

im using a 2 + 1 GB config now. and yes, i can fill it up completely. I'm using Ubuntu 18.04.4 btw.

 

[Jurrunio]

Maybe it's actually refering to 2GB per stick? 4GB non REG DDR2 is a thing but notorious for being picky in system specs

[Vector0102]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Maybe it's actually refering to 2GB per stick? 4GB non REG DDR2 is a thing but notorious for being picky in system specs

no, it says 2GB of maximum TOTAL system memory. but some ppl have been able to get it up to 4 gigs. Im using it with 3 btw.

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, Vector0102 said:

no, it says 2GB of maximum TOTAL system memory. but some ppl have been able to get it up to 4 gigs. Im using it with 3 btw.

I know it "says" something, but reality dont always align with that

[3rrant]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

I know it "says" something, but reality dont always align with that

 

1 hour ago, Vector0102 said:

no, it says 2GB of maximum TOTAL system memory. but some ppl have been able to get it up to 4 gigs. Im using it with 3 btw.

The 2GB total limit was for the original release of the motherboard, there have been some revisions of it later but the documentation was probably not updated. If you can read 3gb you should read up to 4gb/stick = 8gb of total system memory (considering a 64-bit OS of course, otherwise you're still limited).