RAM questions .... again!!

[JDN]

This is a totally newbie question, but i have been surifng these boards for just over a week now and questions keep croping up. I have been reading the 'Is Core Duo 64-bit' thread, and as much as its a nice idea, hmmm, even i am sceptical. However, my question is related to RAM.

Someone said that the iMac and MBP are physically limited to 2GB RAM. Then someone else said surely they can take 4GB RAM because there are two slots and you can now get 2GB RAM sticks and Tiger supports 4GB RAM. I think some kind of debate then took place.

To put the questions easily:

- How much RAM can the MBP really take Maximum? (I thought it was 2GB)
- What limits the amount of RAM able to be taken by a computer/laptop?
- Could Tiger or something else, be upgraded in the future to allow the MBP to accept more RAM?

Thanking you muchly kind folk!!

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

max ram is mostly a motherboard/firmware issue more than anything else.
With macs, it is NOT Tiger or the CPU's, thats 4 sho

 

[JDN]

So is it possible that in the future there would be a firmware update to allow MBP's to take more than 2GB of RAM?

 

[tvguru]

I used to have an iBook G4 800 that said it could only have 640Mb of RAM. I put in a 1Gb DIMM along with the hardwired (was it hardwired?) RAM and ended up over the "limit" with 1.12Gb. I think that the "limit" is based on the size of DIMM at the time of production, but I don't have a 2Gb DIMM to prove my theory in my MBP.

Disclaimer:
Just because it worked then doesn't mean it works on todays hardware. Here's hoping for a more definitive answer.