Thread: upgrading laptop ram

  1. #1
    Linguistic Engineer... doubleanti's Avatar
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    upgrading laptop ram

    Hi,

    My Toshiba a665 s6094 came stock with 4 gb of pc3 8500 ddr3 ram. I bought 8 gb of corsair 1333 ram, and installed it in place of the previous ram. The bios reads it correctly but I'm getting no screen on boot.

    Is this because of the different speeds? I thought you could use faster ram even if your fsb was slower?
    hasafraggin shizigishin oppashigger...

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    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    hmm... isn't the PC3-8500, a 133 Mhz RAM anyways?
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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    Linguistic Engineer... doubleanti's Avatar
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    PC3-8500 is 1066, not 1333.
    hasafraggin shizigishin oppashigger...

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    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Oh, right. You are talking of transfer rate. I was thinking memory clock.

    They should be compatible with your system and there's no reason why your Toshiba couldn't support 1333. You will want to guarantee your memory is of a speed equal of lower than that supported by your motherboard. But 1333 for a an i7 seems to me more than expected.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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    Quote Originally Posted by doubleanti View Post
    Hi,

    My Toshiba a665 s6094 came stock with 4 gb of pc3 8500 ddr3 ram. I bought 8 gb of corsair 1333 ram, and installed it in place of the previous ram. The bios reads it correctly but I'm getting no screen on boot.

    Is this because of the different speeds? I thought you could use faster ram even if your fsb was slower?
    You should go to the Toshiba website and look up the memory compatibility list for that laptop. In my experience Toshibas are a bit fussy in this regard.

    It may not be the speed difference, it may be the timings...

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    Quote Originally Posted by CommonTater View Post
    It may not be the speed difference, it may be the timings...
    I' no expert. I only upgrade memory twice in 20 years, and both times I just went the easy route and looked for the exact specs of my previous memory. But should timings matter? As far as I know with DDR3, besides the limitations of speed, the only other concern should be guaranteeing you do not get ECC modules for mother boards that support it, or the other way around.

    Being that his BIOS does detect the memory correctly and he doesn't get the ominous error beeping on boot...
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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    Timings do matter, for a broken system.

    A system that correctly implements the DDR/DDR2/DDR3 standards should ask the module for the correct timings via JEDEC SPD, and run it at those timings.

    By design, all DDR3 modules should work in all systems (lowest common denominator).

    Unfortunately some systems (mostly laptops) don't implement the negotiation properly, and since they don't allow you to adjust timings manually in BIOS, they don't work with some modules.

    Timings basically tell the memory controller how many clocks it should wait after various instructions. Timings too tight is equivalent to overclocking (eg. the module says after a bank switch instruction, the new bank will be ready in 5 clocks, and you try to access it in 3 clocks).

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    Linguistic Engineer... doubleanti's Avatar
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    Oh drat... but if I bought 8gb of pc8500, that should work? Do modules of the same pcXXXX level have different timings sometimes? The stock ones are Hynix, and don't list the timings on them.
    hasafraggin shizigishin oppashigger...

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    Quote Originally Posted by doubleanti View Post
    Oh drat... but if I bought 8gb of pc8500, that should work? Do modules of the same pcXXXX level have different timings sometimes? The stock ones are Hynix, and don't list the timings on them.
    As has been pointed out, many laptops are not "timing flexible", they require memory that works with their controllers...

    Also... don't forget that laptops have imbedded video systems that must also access main memory on a share-time basis. You may find memory that will boot the computer but will leave you with a blank screen because the GPU initialization fails.

    You really do need to look up the memory compatibility list for your laptop on Toshiba's website ... Print it out and buy only from their list.

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    Yeap, same frequency modules can and do have different timings. Lower (tighter) timing modules are usually more expensive.

    You can use a program called CPU-Z to find out the modules' timings.

    Or just pick from their compatibility list.

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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish View Post
    Yeap, same frequency modules can and do have different timings. Lower (tighter) timing modules are usually more expensive.

    You can use a program called CPU-Z to find out the modules' timings.

    Or just pick from their compatibility list.
    Actually, I'd suggest doing both.

  12. #12
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Also of note....if you change memory and you get no boot it could be because the memory is not seated properly. However in this case I would agree that memory timings is the culprit. Memory timings can also cause BSODs in Windows if you can get that far.

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    Linguistic Engineer... doubleanti's Avatar
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    Annoying... well, I ended up giving the ram to my brother instead of RMA-ing it and losing 15 points on the dollar, screw that.

    Does anyone have a suggestion as to which 2x4gb kit would work? My laptop is back home now...
    hasafraggin shizigishin oppashigger...

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    We don't. The compatibility list does.

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    Quote Originally Posted by doubleanti View Post
    Annoying... well, I ended up giving the ram to my brother instead of RMA-ing it and losing 15 points on the dollar, screw that.

    Does anyone have a suggestion as to which 2x4gb kit would work? My laptop is back home now...
    As cyberfish says... That is what the compatibility list is for.

    With all due respect... You need to actually listen to the advice several people have given you.
    Last edited by CommonTater; 12-05-2010 at 04:26 PM. Reason: bad spelling...

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