Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

Can someone tell me whether Windows XP will work with 4Gb RAM? or XP is only working with maximum of 3Gb RAM?

Is it possible to have maximum of 8Gb RAM on Lenovo Thinkpad W500 Machine, in case if I need in the future?

Thanks,

Fernando

1) 32-bit Windows XP will work with 4 GB of RAM (i.e. it will install and run), but it won´t be able to fully utilize all 4 GB, it will be limited to ~3-3.5 GB of RAM depending on hardware (given that W500 has a graphics card with 512 MB VRAM and most likely some more addresses reserved for peripherals, it would be most likely rather less). Some folks even claim that 32-bit can utilize only 2.5 GB RAM on their W500... HOWEVER, you can avoid this OS limitation by installing any 32-bit or 64-bit SERVER OS (like Server 2003, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2) OR "normal" 64-bit Windows OS like 64-bit Vista, 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit XP if you want to run XP at any rate. Note that Lenovo doesn´t provide any (driver) support for Windows XP x64, hence making everything work in XP x64 might be from tricky to impossible. That is if you want to stay with Windows, on the Linux side things look slightly different though.

2) Yes, it is possible to have 8 GB of RAM in a W500 machine, that will be fully utilized with the appropriate OS (see 1). Even right now, there are folks out there running 8 GB of RAM in their W500 machines. It is well possible that W500 coult take even more than 8 GB of RAM provided someone would make suitable modules.

Hope this helps,

Marin

I have Win XP on my W500 with 4GB of RAM. Task Manager says 3,139,536K Physical Memory.

Thanks to all replies!