RAM upgrade 2-4mg cards or 1-8mg card?

WESTINFLORIDA

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Mar 19, 2014
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My Dell M-5110 64-bit states that the memory is upgradeable to 8mg. Is it better to purchase one 8mg card or, since there are 2 slots, 2-4mg cards? The 8mg is less expensive than buying 2-4mg.
Thank you!
 
Solution
First off, both comments are not entirely accurate; most laptops are only equipped with 2 slots and therefore shipped with 1 module, running in single-channel mode.

to be technical, it depends on the motherboard chipset used and the memory amount, speed, timings, and number of ranks (1R vs 2R per module) it supports.
This is always the case with any computer, but since laptops often get cheaper, stripped-down or lower-powered chipsets compared to their desktop counterparts, they're way more nitpicky as far as RAM is concerned. A wrong choice can lead to a non-booting or unstable system, and might void your warranty on the laptop or, at least, the ram.

I advise you to search for a QVL or Qualified Vendor List, to be sure you're getting...
I am not sure Sweey is correct on that, because technically yes you can boot on 1x8GB and would not cause a problem, because your still at the 8GB maximum. BUT it is NOT good practice to go 1x8, because multicore computers use Dual Channeling, meaning they need 2x_ RAM so that as one core uses one RAM to load / unload data from / to the HDD the other RAM stick is available for the other CPU core to do the next task, and switch back and forth so not to 'max out' one RAM stick all the time.

So the answer is best and common practice to ALWAYS 2x
 
First off, both comments are not entirely accurate; most laptops are only equipped with 2 slots and therefore shipped with 1 module, running in single-channel mode.

to be technical, it depends on the motherboard chipset used and the memory amount, speed, timings, and number of ranks (1R vs 2R per module) it supports.
This is always the case with any computer, but since laptops often get cheaper, stripped-down or lower-powered chipsets compared to their desktop counterparts, they're way more nitpicky as far as RAM is concerned. A wrong choice can lead to a non-booting or unstable system, and might void your warranty on the laptop or, at least, the ram.

I advise you to search for a QVL or Qualified Vendor List, to be sure you're getting memory that'll work and be stable. If that's not available,your best bet is to identify the chipset using tools like AIDA64, Sandra or CPU-Z, and try to find compatible memory that way. The latest model laptop we just got in happens to only support low-voltage 1.25v ddr3 memory for example, while over 95% of all other notebooks need 1.5v

If you don't want to do all that; the odds are big that 2x 4GB will be accepted over 1x 8GB

Best of luck!
 
Solution