Dell NM176 owner manual System Memory, Memory Module Installation Guidelines

System Memory

The four memory module sockets are located on the system board adjacent to the power supply and can accommodate 512 MB to 8 GB of unbuffered ECC PC-5300/6400 (DDR2 667 or DDR 800) memory. See Figure 6-2 for the location of the memory module sockets.

You can upgrade the system memory by installing combinations of 512-MB,

1-GB, and 2-GB unbuffered memory modules. If you receive an error message stating that maximum memory has been exceeded, see "System Messages" on page 19 for more information. You can purchase memory upgrade kits from Dell.

NOTE: The memory modules must be PC-5300/6400 compliant.

Memory Module Installation Guidelines

The memory module sockets are arranged in banks (1 and 2) on two channels (A and B).

The memory module banks are identified as follows:

Bank 1: DIMM1_A and DIMM1_B

Bank 2: DIMM2_A and DIMM2_B

The memory module banks must be installed in identical pairs in configurations that have more than one memory module. For example, if socket DIMM1_A contains a 512-MB memory module, then the second memory module to be installed must be a 512-MB memory module in socket DIMM1_B.

Table 3-1 shows examples of different memory configurations, based on the following guidelines:

•The minimum memory configuration is 512 MB.

•If only one memory module is installed, it must be installed in the DIMM1_A socket.

•A bank must contain identical memory modules.

•Install the memory modules in bank 1 (DIMM1_x) before installing memory modules in bank 2 (DIMM2_x).

•Installing three memory modules is not supported.

Installing System Components

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