FA-5300CL5D-4GBSQ Apple DDR2 - Will it work in a PC laptop?

[Muse]

I purchased two of these:

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel, part number FA-5300CL5D-4GBSQ.

It was an ebay auction, and although the seller said it was Apple Notebook memory, the photo provided was of PC compatible memory and I went ahead and bought it. I would have asked the seller perhaps if his photo was an error, but the auction was one day and there was only an hour or two before the auction closed, so here I am with this RAM. Don't have it yet.

My laptop is an Acer Aspire 6530-6522 with 3GB of PC2-5300 667MHz DDR2. It seems that the specification for this G.SKILL DDR2 is the same as that for my Acer.

The ebay auction had a link to a page at Newegg but I didn't notice that it was a link until today (the auction closed yesterday). The seller pictured two sticks of F2-5300CL5S-2GBSQ, so I mistakenly thought it was compatible with a PC. Perhaps it is. Is it possible that those two 2GB sticks will work in it OK?

The auction page is here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...EOIBSA:US:1123

Here are my system specs (from the box label):

CPU: Mobile AMD Athlon 64X2 QL62
LCD: 16" HD Acer CineCrystal LCD
ATI Radeon (Mobility) HD 3200 onboard (shared Memory) graphics chip
RAM: 3GB DDR2
HDD: 250GB
Card Reader: 5 in 1 Card Reader
ODD: DVD - Super Multi DL
Modem/LAN: 56K, 10/100/1000 BASE T
Wireless: Acer Nplify 802.11b/g/Draft-N WLAN
Softload: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (I'll be loading the Windows 7 upgrade soon)

[Tradesman]

Should work OK...you'll want the 64bit version of Win7 to be able to use that 4th GB of RAM.

[Muse]

Should work OK...you'll want the 64bit version of Win7 to be able to use that 4th GB of RAM.

Thanks. I heard that Windows 7 64 bit won't operate properly without that 4th GB, but are you saying that Windows 7 32 bit won't utilize the 4th GB? Well, I don't plan to get 64 bit immediately, probably eventually. Unfortunately, Acer only supplied the 32 bit Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade path (in the mail in November) from the 32 bit Vista Home Premium supplied with the machine. Got the machine in August.

The following MSDN page indicates that the limit is 4GB in 32 bit Windows 7 Home Premium (16GB in 64 bit):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...mits_windows_7

And AFAIK, 4GB is the maximum memory for the machine.

[Tradesman]

It's a limit of 32 bit operating systems, depending on the hardware and software config, with 4GB installed, the OS will generally only see between 2.8 and 3.35 GB of the 4GB.

[Muse]

Thanks for the info, Tradesman. I checked out your info and they say you are right. I'll see if I can move to 64 bit one day, mean time not worry about the unused .7 GB.

[Tradesman]

OK, have a gud 1 !