upgrading ram advice

I've got an net book acer aspire one D270 windows 7 starter 32 bit with 1 GB. I'm constantly running out of memory and lagging, I don't expect much from a net book but I should be able to play flash games and watch you tube without freezing and crashing, it's defiantly a memory issue according to task task manager with 90-98%used and CPU only about 5-10%max and any point, I'm a student and don't have the money for anything better now so I've been looking into some options and would enjoy some advice.

Part A: So the cap for 32 bit windows is 2 GB and 4 GB for 64 bit so changing the operating system to add more ram would be good if I had the money for that which I don't so I found this page explaining how to remove the ram cap http://www.unawave.de/windows-7-tipps/32-bit-ram-barrier.html?lang=EN it make sense to me that it is a software issue because just changing to OS makes 4 GB possible also the malware guide says “MINIMUM of 3 GB for Vista or Windows 7 but the more memory you can add the better.” so 2 GB can't be the real cap, but I'm not an expert, so if it is safe/legal and you've actually tried to remove that limit can you tell me about it.

Part B: if it's a hardware problem is there a way to use more of the CPU to help balance resources?

Part C: if it's a OS issue but not legal with windows is there another OS that would work for what i need to do, I have no experience using anything other than windows

thanks guys hope you have a good one

 

Welcome to Major Geeks.

My experience has been that upgrading the RAM to 2GB will make a noticeable difference when surfing the Internet or using programs like MS-Office. It will not, however, allow the netbook to run advanced games or video editing.

Most netbooks only have one memory slot that will accept up to a 2GB chip. As such, it is not possible to increase the memory to the point where a 64x OS will make a difference.

You might also want to use a program such as Advanced System Care Free to check for registry errors and disable unneeded programs at start up.

Hope this helps.

 

Ummm, no not true at all. The cap for 32-bit is 4Gb (though typically only 3.2 - 3.6Gb is addressable) and the cap for 64-bit Windows is 16EB (1 exabyte = 1 billion Gb).

Note hardware (netbook and BIOS/chipset) makers can impose tighter limits (for example, one slot with a 2Gb limit as noted by gman) so you really need to research what your Netbook can support before attempting any upgrades.

 

The 4GB/32bit and 2GB netbook limitations are licensing/software limitations, rather than hardware, though with netbooks the limit is implemented via (crippled) hardware.

 

I don't know what "licensing" limits there would (or could) be. No one "owns" the license rights to the amount of RAM you can use.

 

We are talking Microsoft/Windows licensing.

X86 Server versions can use much more than 4GB.

^ Mark Russinovich here: https://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx?PageIndex=9

 

Okay, after some additional research, I understand what you are saying. Not having dealt with many netbooks, I was confused. The issue with MS licensing in this case is Windows 7 Starter. W7 Starter can, by the terms of the license, only be operated on systems with 1Gb or RAM or less and on systems with a screen of 10.2 inches or less.

 

Memory limits in Windows 7

The memory cap for 32-bit Windows is 4GB total. The cap for Windows 7 Starter is 2GB, and upgrading from 1GB to 2GB makes a huge difference. If you upgrade above 2GB, Starter will not use the additional RAM, so unless you switch OS it's not worth your while to go higher. Any Linux distro should do the trick, for example. No one has the right to force you to stay on the OS the netbook came with.

However, the Aspire One D270 has an Atom CPU that won't support more than 2GB, so you might not even get it to run if you install more, regardless of switching OS or not. Since you're limited to 2GB by your CPU and other hardware, going above that amount won't benefit you. Getting to 2GB definitely will though.

 

My daughter has the same netbook. The max memory is indeed 2GB and it does make a big difference.