4GB of RAM in OS X

[markiss]

I had I guess a dumb question but I tried to search and could not find it. But I noticed that the 2gb stick that I installed long ago in the win xp days was recognized alongside side the motherboard mounted 512mb mem for a total of 2.5gb ram in OS X. This got me curious b/c this could never happen with Win. I always thought it was a
motherboard limitation but I was wondering if anyone ever experimented with a single 4gb stick. I found this one and would love to take the plunge if it's compatible:
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT51264AC667
I would also like to jump to a SSD in the near future once I save up, but that's another story. Thanks

[rolf]

Yes that's quite strange - However the 512 MB onboard RAM are actually disabled in OS X as well. If you have a look at the activity monitor you can see that you can only use 2 GB of RAM

activitymonitor.jpg

By the way: I'm also thinking about putting a SSD in my S10e - those 8 or 16 gb ones from Kingston look quite good but they're very pricey :S but it would be enough space for my needs!

[markiss]

Darnit, you're right. I was looking forward to a little speed boost especially when I am using Dreamweaver and Photoshop side by side. Oh well I guess I have to rely on the SSD. But man am I loving running OS X but I may not be technical enough to keep up with the maintenance. I still have to do some more research on kexts and I believe the two times I tried to update the software first to 10.6.7 and then to 10.6.5 I experienced only what I can guess is the kernal panic I've been reading about. This forum is so amazing, very informative in helping a complete novice like me do a project like this.

[rolf]

Darnit, you're right. I was looking forward to a little speed boost especially when I am using Dreamweaver and Photoshop side by side. Oh well I guess I have to rely on the SSD. But man am I loving running OS X but I may not be technical enough to keep up with the maintenance. I still have to do some more research on kexts and I believe the two times I tried to update the software first to 10.6.7 and then to 10.6.5 I experienced only what I can guess is the kernal panic I've been reading about. This forum is so amazing, very informative in helping a complete novice like me do a project like this.

Yes I think SSD would be the best way to give some more power (even though it's still quite expensive )

[haraldrt]

This was discussed long ago: The chipset used in the original s10(e) and s10-2 supports only 2GB Addressspace.
The Bios (and OS X) symply detects your installed dimms and adds the amount of memory. you have 2.5 GB installed, but the 945 Chipsets can only address 2GB of it. Hence youe have 2GB usable Memory. If you insert a 4GB Dimm and it is recognised. you will also get 2GB addressable memory. The difference is sum of installed Dimms and usable memory.

Th ion based netbooks are not limited to 2GB and can use a greter amount of ram.