I think I already know the answers to most of these, but I'm hoping I'm wrong. I have three 1G sticks and one open slot. My mother board supports up to 8G. I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor. My system is an Acer Aspire M3100-UD5200A (all stock). I'm running 32 bit Vista. Now, onto the questions.
1. I thought since my processor was an AMD Athlon 64 that I would be able to upgrade to the 64 bit Vista. I was checking around and was told to look under my "Environmental Variables" to see my processor architecture. It says x86. Does that mean I cant upgrade to the 64 bit Vista, or am I misinterpreting something?
2. Am I correct that 32 bit Vista will only recognize between 3 - 3.5 gigs of RAM?
3. How do I check the speed of my RAM?
4. I had my computer scanned at www.crucial.com and it says my RAM has to be installed in pairs. That doesnt make sense to me though since it came with 3 sticks in it. Can someone explain this to me?
5. If my first two questions are correct, is there any better/cheaper way of upgrading my RAM to the max 8 gigs without having to buy a new processor and upgrading to 64 bit Vista?
Thanks for any help you guys can give me.
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