RAM question

[gernb]

Pardon my ignorance...

I've got a dual 500 G4 tower. Just loaded up RAM. I know the specs for my machine say that it will only take 1.5 GB. I have all four slots filled with 512 / 512 / 512 / 256 respectively.

I'm running Jaguary and About This Mac tells me it sees 1.75 GB of memory.

Is the computer really using that last 256 MB dimm, or does it only recognize that it's there?

[Bradcoe]

if the OS recognizes it, then its being address mapped and used.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by Bradcoe
if the OS recognizes it, then its being address mapped and used.

More like it it *can* be used. But you'd have to be doin' some serious work to use all 1.75gigs.


Lethal

[will]

Type 'top' in a terminal and look at the memory usage if you want to be sure. For example the machine I'm currently on is a 256M iBook and top says:

PhysMem: 30.4M wired, 126M active, 82.1M inactive, 238M used, 17.6M free

So you can see I have 256M (238 of it used and 17.6M free).

See man top for more details.

[mc68k]

the 1.5GB limit was not HW but rather OS specific. the unix core of X should be able to take advantage of all of it.

[gernb]

thanks. i guess that clears it up.