8 gig RAM on older hardware

On 20/05/2014 1:41 PM, Dominique wrote:
Thanks all for your answer. I like this laptop, it has 2 hard drive bays,
integrated TI firewire and I use it in music production. Some music
software loads "samples" or softsynth sound banks in RAM; for example,
you could load a drum kit which is 2 gig in size plus a 1 gig piano, etc.
so in that usage more RAM is better.

Oh well, I guess I will live with 4 gig in this one. I will put another
system hard disk in it to experiment and try to install Win7-64bits, (all
my music software supports 64 bits). I might even try an SSD later. I
would have prefered to upgrade this one instead of buying a new one
because I doubt I can still find notebook with 2 drive bays and Firewire.

Dominique

Yeah, dual drive-bays are pretty hard to find these days, or any days
really.

Yousuf Khan

Loren Pechtel écrivait
:

On Mon, 19 May 2014 22:50:31 +0000 (UTC), Dominique
wrote:

Hello, is there someone who ever tried to put 8 gig of RAM in an Acer
TravelMate 7720 or similar "notebook"?

I'm actually running Win7 32bits with 4 gig of RAM, I'd like to go 64bits
and it would be great to go 8 gig.

All the documentation I've found (old) says 4 gig RAM maximum. It uses
DDR2
sodimm RAM (I know, it's expensive); but I am curious to know if someone
actually tried it? I could go to a computer shop and try it but I doubt I
would find someone who has 2 x 4gig DDR2 sodimm lying around.

Why would anyone try it? Boards don't take more than their documented
max.


There are all kinds of people in the world... ;-)

Dominique wrote:
Loren Pechtel écrivait
:

On Mon, 19 May 2014 22:50:31 +0000 (UTC), Dominique
wrote:

Hello, is there someone who ever tried to put 8 gig of RAM in an Acer
TravelMate 7720 or similar "notebook"?

I'm actually running Win7 32bits with 4 gig of RAM, I'd like to go 64bits
and it would be great to go 8 gig.

All the documentation I've found (old) says 4 gig RAM maximum. It uses
DDR2
sodimm RAM (I know, it's expensive); but I am curious to know if someone
actually tried it? I could go to a computer shop and try it but I doubt I
would find someone who has 2 x 4gig DDR2 sodimm lying around.
Why would anyone try it? Boards don't take more than their documented
max.


There are all kinds of people in the world... ;-)

I installed 4GB of RAM, where the chipset maker
claimed 2GB max... and it worked. It was throwing memory
errors, because the timing wasn't properly optimized.
(A limitation of the BIOS.) But, for all practical purposes,
the memory still worked as expected. I didn't leave it
that way, preferring the 2x1GB configuration that
was "solid as a rock".

If you were to find a large enough DDR2 SODIMM, what would
happen is the SODIMM would be "half-detected" due to address
bit limitation. No harm would result, but you would not
get your money's worth from it. The reason this works, is the
BIOS has two size detection methods - the official SPD chip
information, plus the legacy peek and poke method of verifying
size. And it's the peek and poke, that trims the declared
module size down, when the necessary address bit is missing.

I wouldn't have had confirmation of this, except for a case
here where a poster bought a DIMM with the wrong SPD chip
soldered to it. We looked at the SPD declaration with CPUZ,
looked at the system response, and concluded the wrong SPD
was present. And the BIOS figured it out just fine, no
crash or error beep pattern at all. That confirmed the presence
of the old peek and poke method (which predates SPD).

We used to use the peek and poke method at work, on entirely
different computing equipment. No declaration ROM was present on
our memory cards (a square foot each), and the processor just
probed each board until it figured out the size. The timing
was defined by the board itself, so no guessing was needed there.
A safe access handler was bound to the memory error interrupt,
so nothing wobbly could happen while peeking and poking.

Paul

On Tue, 20 May 2014 21:41:02 +0000 (UTC), Dominique
wrote:

What's with the attitude? I was asking about upgrading an old laptop in a
hardware group.

I was just pulling your leg.

On Tue, 20 May 2014 21:58:40 -0400, Flasherly
wrote:

-
Come to think of it, if you already haven't, put in a nice and fast
SDD. About $80 for the best (Samsung's are hard to beat for
popularity) in 128G capacity.

What's then the difference (aside from running a slower SATA2
interface) between that and $300 more memory -- matter of program
efficiency, getting what's needed -- as the SSD won't be effectively
slowing anything else down.

So, how are your batch, macro and scripting language skills doing
lately?

And keep your old HD if possible -- storage, of course, but notably
the swapfile. If there's no room, then check out allotting free space
for wear leveling (potentially in conjunction with the TRIM in W7,
which also helps. Garbage collection algorithms are more
sophisticated on newer SDD controllers, though likes Windows writing
incessantly to a swapfile, testing theoretical wear on NAND
hundreds-of-terabyte life cycles.)

Let's see...$300, minus $80. Mail me the difference when you get
around to it.

Flasherly wrote:
On Tue, 20 May 2014 21:58:40 -0400, Flasherly
wrote:

-
Come to think of it, if you already haven't, put in a nice and fast
SSD.

You can do that, with a laptop that has an MSATA slot internally
as well as a hard drive bay. That allows two storage devices
to be connected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSATA#mSATA

You'd have to search around, to find a good article
stating what to look for. An option would be,
to buy a laptop with a hard drive already in the hard
drive bay, and leave the MSATA empty. Then shop for
an MSATA device, until you find one with good specs.
Rather than accepting some rubbish they happen to
put in the MSATA slot.

The interesting flavor is M.2. While this article is about
an "adapter" card for such things, you'd want a laptop
that has room for an M.2. And that gives the equivalent
of an SSD, but with a different form factor.

http://www.thessdreview.com/our-revi...boot-features/

Example of a laptop with such a slot, discussed here. The thing
is, when they put one of those in a design, a natural temptation
would be to remove the hard drive bay entirely.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thin...4-a-print.html

Paul

On Wed, 21 May 2014 01:27:48 -0400, Paul wrote:

The interesting flavor is M.2. While this article is about
an "adapter" card for such things, you'd want a laptop
that has room for an M.2. And that gives the equivalent
of an SSD, but with a different form factor.


http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-120GB-.../dp/B00BQ8RFAI
/ref=pd_sim_e_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1GS0FPRVTSGZKSM2P7Y0

looks reasonably small, tad pricier, might be -- even has more reviews
than a comparable Samsung. Easiest easy-in scenario @least cost -
presuming direct SATA cable interface. Of course, only a stopgap to
get by, and perhaps involving losing/ditching what's in there...

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://t...0%25207320.pdf
&sa=U&ei=WEZ8U_qYJ4jSsAS8qYDwBg&ved=0CD0QFjAD&usg= AFQjCNFVKUrLj5QvRF5so5HPEtksuw1X6g

Somebody better give me money to read a friggin' Acer 38Meg service
manual.

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review...2g50mn/221427/

OK He's got two HDs in there, unbelievably both 250G HDs Acer most
weirdly installed. Room for a house perhaps in there or possibly get
normal/common SSD size factor. Bump back in the best-selling Samsung
EVO, normal factor, over the Crucial bare PCB.

Give me a desktop to beat around on, though, anyday. My days with
laps are very likely over.

Who made 4 GiB DDR2 for laptops?
I have only seen 4 GiB sticks in servers. There were a few for desktops,
but I haven't seen any used. I think by the time it came out, people were
switching to DDR3.

On Thu, 22 May 2014 03:22:24 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Who made 4 GiB DDR2 for laptops?
I have only seen 4 GiB sticks in servers. There were a few for desktops,
but I haven't seen any used. I think by the time it came out, people were
switching to DDR3.


Good point (servers often use parity memory, cheaper as a result of
less demand in an after-consumer market). And physically remove the
modules, verify their nomenclatures first before ordering memory;- I
made the mistake of running a diagnostics and ordering on that --
diagnostics was dead wrong, so I get to eat the cost of some memory.
(Cheap, aftermarket/used memory, tho by far not worth a hassle of
returning it.)

écrivait :

Who made 4 GiB DDR2 for laptops?
I have only seen 4 GiB sticks in servers. There were a few for desktops,
but I haven't seen any used. I think by the time it came out, people were
switching to DDR3.

I was talking about something like this:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...20x%204GB %29

or

http://tinyurl.com/o5l8vgp

but thanks anyways, that wouldn't work on my specific model; chipset issue.