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Notebook with access to 4gb RAM

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imported_devzero

Junior Member
Most notebooks claiming 4gb ram support in reality only supports 3.3gb ram (or so) since they only support 32bit address space an no memory remapping.

So my question is, does anyone know about a notebook that supports 4GB ram if i install vista/64bit XP or windows 2003 server?
 
The notebooks that claim the ability to use 4GB of RAM will only be able to do so with a 64-bit OS. The only issue you'll have with that is finding drivers, as notebook manufacturers usually only supply drivers for one OS (and usually 32-bit at the moment). And I don't think Vista-64 is shipping via OEMs yet and Windows Server 2003 is definitely not shipping with notebooks.
 
My experience so far has been with the nw9440 hp machine, it supports 4gb ram and have 64bit vista drivers. I have installed 64bit vista on it and the end result is still 3.45GB ram available to the OS.

This is in other words a hardware issue that i so far has seen in several HP's and a Dell m90.

So to clarify my question: I want a laptop where the hardware supports 4gb of ram.
 
I'm not really sure how one would check for such a thing... The amount of RAM in a system has not really been hardware bound for quite some time. it has almost always been OS bound (at least to my understanding). I am almost fairly certain that the MacBook Pros (the new ones), the Mac Pro, servers from other manufacturers they can all support 4GB or more. So that gives you an idea. If you are looking for a notebook that can definitely support it... I don't know.

Why is that last 500MB so important to you?
 
There are no macBook Pros that support more than 3gb last time i checked. The thing is that they all use the same chipset (intel 945 express) that only have a 32bit address space, and at least 512mb of this is used by gfx and other hardware.

The last 5-700mb ram is important because it means i can run one more virtual machine at the same time.
 
The new MacBook Pros that were just released (check the website perhaps) use the Santa Rosa chipset, and can support 4GB.

Just how many VMs do you need to run at once? Give 2GB to the OS (if Vista) and that still leaves you 3 VMs... so XP, Linux, and..., and yet you need one more... Ok, I won't question it further.

Go to Apple's website, and see what it tells you.
 
My vm's use about 1gb each, 1 per customer. Usually i run sql server, w2003 server and visual studio++ in each vm. That leaves 1gb for OS, 2 vm's. As i support at least 3 diffrent customers that means i have to shut down a vm, then boot another one each time i get a different case. Not to mention that i sometimes need to run photoshop in my host os from time to time, consuming additional ram.

I checked Apple's site and indeed the macBook pro seem to support 4gb ram now, can anyone confirm that a vista installation on this hardware would have 4gb ram available? Is the any non mac's with the same chipset?
 
How important is the graphics card on this machine? If you need an actual graphics card, as opposed to onboard (even though the new Intel X3100 chip is decent [for integrated]) then you are better off getting the MBP since it is cheaper. (1799 on Student discount, and I am sure that you would be able to find a way to persuade yourself that you are a student regardless of your current academic status)

So that is IMHO the way to go. And VMWare Fusion Beta kicks every kind of a$$, so you can even leave the system in OS X which is a little bit more RAM friendly than Vista.
 
I have to ask...why are you using a notebook? Buy a 2u power server with 2 Xeons and 16GB of memory and go VM crazy 😛.

As for the issue, I think in agreement to the previous poster, the gfx card has ram set aside for itself. So find a gfx solution that uses a dedicated card without turbocache or anything like that.
 
I have one of those (actually 4 cpu's and 18gb ram++) but i also need to be mobile, often i go to customers and do consulting/programing at their site so I need a all in one solution.

My current setup has a dedicated nvidia FX 1500M card, the problem lies in available address space as far as i know, not that the memory is actually in use for anything.
 
Have you tried calling up Dell and Gateway and asking for a custom business laptop solution? Consider visiting a branch and getting it in writing that it does your specs or it gets returned. That'sd what I did when I went to HP and Dell to deliver 150+ rackmount servers.
 
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