Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard: can I upgrade to 8 GB of RAM?

ijones@TOGLIinterfree.it wrote:
Hi, 3 years ago I purchased an assembled PC with Asus P5W DH Deluxe
motherboard with two blocks of RAM (1 GB + 1 GB = 2 GB RAM).
It is a dual core. In your opinion will I get advantage to upgrade the
RAM?
Can I add one or two blocks?
If I will buy a diffent brand, will I have problem?
thanks for some info.

Open the Task Manager (control-alt-delete)

Look in the lower left corner, under "Commit Charge (K)"

There are three values there. "Total", "Limit", "Peak".
The Peak value records the most memory that was in usage
during the current session. You say you have 2GB of physical
memory present. If the Peak value was higher than 2GB in value,
then perhaps installing more memory would help. Otherwise, the
extra memory may be less useful to you.

I currently have 2GB in my machine. For a short time, I had 4GB
installed. I could not get any of the programs on my computer,
to use the extra memory (even after adjusting the kernel/user space
split to 1GB:3GB, and attempting to set the Large_Address_Aware flag
on an executable file). Now, if I had some fancy commercial software,
which was Large_Address_Aware as shipped by the software company,
maybe it would have worked out better. But in the time I had the
4GB in the machine, I really didn't see any benefit from it.
I'm currently using 2GB of physical memory.

*******

"Memory Limits for Windows Releases"
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx

Memory type    Limit in 32-bit Windows

User-mode virtual 2 GB
address space for
each 32-bit process Up to 3 GB with IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE and 4GT

"IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE and 4GT tuning"
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb613473(VS.85).aspx

*******

If you inserted 4x2GB sticks in the computer, yes, you could have
8GB total memory. You would need a 64 bit OS installed, in order
to use it all. And no, WinXP 64 bit version, is not a good upgrade choice.
That OS has some problems, which make it less useful to people who
install it. And if you choose Vista 64 bit or Windows 7 64 bit, then
there is always the possibility they might have problems with your
existing programs or hardware.

In summary, if your Commit Charge Peak is high enough, then you
may get some benefit from more RAM. But otherwise, there might not
be any visible difference after you've upgraded.

Paul

"William" <nospam@pacifier.com> wrote in message
news:A5GdnU0tQpmC_NjWnZ2dnUVZ_oqdnZ2d@posted.palinacquisition...


<ijones@TOGLIinterfree.it> wrote in message
news:mn87k5lqtvs6iuah1k909rhnri0an51rii@4ax.com...
Hi, 3 years ago I purchased an assembled PC with Asus P5W DH Deluxe
motherboard with two blocks of RAM (1 GB + 1 GB = 2 GB RAM).
It is a dual core. In your opinion will I get advantage to upgrade the
RAM?
Can I add one or two blocks?
If I will buy a diffent brand, will I have problem?
thanks for some info.

I just de-commissioned my P5W DH Deluxe last week. I used it for the
first year with only 2gig of memory. Then I put in 2 more gig. Never did
notice much difference. Last year I pulled out a Q6600 (2.6 Gh) CPU and
installed a Q6850 (3Gh) CPU. With that I saw the difference I wanted.
Then I over-clocked it at 5% and kept it their until last week. I tried
10% but the system was flakey and I didn't want to spend so much time
tweaking voltages and timings so I settled for 5% OC.

I left that mobo on for months at a time, allowing for cold reboots as
necessary. I always hated to start up that mobo from a cold reboot. I
have had problems with this mobo from day one, and I have been noticing
some strange problems happening when using games lately so I decided it
was time to move on to something new. Their was a strange pleasure in
taking that mobo apart.

I just purchased an ASUS P7P55d EVO with an i7 860 CPU and 8gig of Corsair
Dominator RAM. And Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, VelociRaptor 300gb boot HD
and a Corsair 750wt PSU. I hope this will give me at least 3 good years
of service.

That P5W is getting long in the tooth, I hope it serves you will.

I still use a P5WDH as my main PC for day to day use (satellite, TV,
music, video-editing, email & internet) and managed to overclock a
Q6600 to 3.4GHz with relative ease (just needed a good CPU cooler.)
Runs great with 2GB RAM but, like others have found, increasing to 4GB
made no appreciable difference.
Although I now have a P6TD v2 with an I7-920 overclocked to 4GHz
(also easy) and 6GB with 2x64GB SSDs in RAID0 as boot/workspace,
I can't fully replace the P5WDH as it runs Win7-64 and there are no drivers
for my media cards yet. Looking forward to using that as my main PC, but
will probably have to buy new TV and satellite cards. Have to say it's
bloody quick though - takes longer to go through BIOS than to start Win7
and number-crunching apps run at least 4 times faster, some much more than
that.
--
Rob

"DevilsPGD" <DeathToSpam@crazyhat.net> wrote in message
news:vqlck55r6p8cmhh5iqrateej3rjb7ge17g@4ax.com...
In message <A5GdnU0tQpmC_NjWnZ2dnUVZ_oqdnZ2d@posted.palinacquisition>
"William" <nospam@pacifier.com> was claimed to have wrote:

I left that mobo on for months at a time, allowing for cold reboots as
necessary. I always hated to start up that mobo from a cold reboot. I
have had problems with this mobo from day one, and I have been noticing
some
strange problems happening when using games lately so I decided it was
time
to move on to something new. Their was a strange pleasure in taking that
mobo apart.

Pulling that stupid wifi USB module helped. Even so, the P5W DH could
have been a spokesperson for a decent UPS, cold boots are always a bit
interesting.

I just purchased an ASUS P7P55d EVO with an i7 860 CPU and 8gig of Corsair
Dominator RAM. And Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, VelociRaptor 300gb boot HD
and a Corsair 750wt PSU. I hope this will give me at least 3 good years
of
service.

That P5W is getting long in the tooth, I hope it serves you will.

Mine have served me well thus far, although I am starting to drool over
an i7 system. I'll probably wait until the summer though, thinking a
new laptop should come first.


The remote control is what did me in. That thing wrote directly to BIOS to
set up power options. Somehow I managed to hose BIOS and had no video when
booting up, just two days after putting the system together. I purchased a
second video card to confirm video board problems - which it was not.
Finally I decided to pull the BIOS battery and recovered the video during
boot process. Two days of being pissed-off. I really don't like OS's
writing directly to BIOS at all. To much can go wrong. ASUS still does
this for OC'ing within the OS. It scars me to think what can happen.

I had trouble with slow RAM until I purchased better quality stuff. I
always had troubles with tray icons not showing up during boot process under
Win XP (someone told me to log out and back in to correct this.) I start to
get the new components for my new computer Friday. Christmas 3 weeks late.
I sure hope all goes together without trouble this time around. This new
mobo has some advanced trouble shooting features for running things down
that I like.

William

The remote control is what did me in. That thing wrote directly to BIOS to
set up power options. Somehow I managed to hose BIOS and had no video when
booting up, just two days after putting the system together. I purchased a
second video card to confirm video board problems - which it was not.
Finally I decided to pull the BIOS battery and recovered the video during
boot process. Two days of being pissed-off. I really don't like OS's
writing directly to BIOS at all. To much can go wrong. ASUS still does
this for OC'ing within the OS. It scars me to think what can happen.


I'm sorry my inexperience.
My PC has one hardriver with OS + 2 RAID0 harddrivers + 2 RAID0
harddrivers. Every time I turn on my PC in the black screening I
always see No RAID (for every harddriver). Perhaps have I to configure
remote control?
Thanks

You're on the P5W DH here?

Yes I have Asus P5W DH

Which RAID controller are you using, the
"EZ-RAID" or one of the others?

I see:
ICH7/DH SATA RAID controller
I don't know tell you other things.
I hade thess green writings when I used Win XP and now thay I use
Windows 7 I see these writings too.