Is it possible for OEMs to cap the max amount of ram?

[Soulchaser]

I just acquired an old Dell Inspiron 2650 and it only has 128Mb of RAM so I'd like to upgrade it to something usable under XP. I was looking at the online manual and the Crucial site specs and they both said that there is a max of only 512. The Crucial site went on to say that it is limited to only 256 per slot. I've never actually dealt with an OEM PC internally, so I'm curious if they can actually stunt the computer like this, if it's some sort of odd motherboard limitation, or if its all utter crap. I know that normally there isn't any limit like this and it's based on whether it's a 32 or 64 bit processor.

 

[mayonnaise]

It's most likely a motherboard limitation. Even if you put a bigger stick of ram in there, it probably wouldn't recognize above its limit... provided it even boots that is. There is always a limit, granted its very large on modern day machines, but there is still a limit as to how much addressable physical ram a system can handle.

As for a processor.. if you are planning on running 64bit operating systems, then you need a 64 bit processor. 32 bit operating systems are limited to 4gb of physical memory that they can address (including add on cards such as video), while 64bit OS's are breaking this barrier.

512 should run XP decent, but look up the motherboard model and specifications before taking crucial's word on it.

 

[Nothinman]

It's possible, but it's more likely just a hardware limitation like mayonnaise said.