Re: [TCLUG:9929] Adding RAM for slow machine

[Mike Hicks <hick0088@umn.edu>]

> Should I shell out the approximately $140 to get 64 MB of RAM?  Because of
> the way my system is configured, I'd then have 80 MB installed. I've been
> told that with this processor adding more RAM above 32 MB won't make much
> difference.  Is this true?

Some Pentium chipsets cannot cache memory above 64 MB.  This means that
if you upgrade to over 64 MB, you will notice a decrease in system speed
(and it would probably be immediate, as I understand that memory is
mapped from the top down on x86 systems..)  Linux does have a workaround
for this (in 2.2.x only?) where you can use the extra memory for a RAM
disk (in theory, you can put some swap space there), and still have a
full 64 MB of cached memory.

However, I have never heard of a system having that barrier at 32 MB. 
More memory would definitely help you (even if you can only use 64MB of
it..)

-- 
 _  _  _  _ _  ___    _ _  _  ___ _ _  __   Not a real message, but 
/ \/ \(_)| ' // ._\  / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__   an incredible soy  
\_||_/|_||_|_\\___/  \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __)  substitute! 
 [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088@umn.edu ]