8 gig RAM on older hardware

D

Dominique

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.

It's a Core2Duo 2.00 ghz.

Here's the hardware report from Belarc:

ATA Channel 0 [Controller]
ATA Channel 1 [Controller]
Contrôleurs de stockage Ultra ATA Intel(R) ICH8M - 2850 [Controller]
Intel(R) ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family [Display adapter] (2x)
Seiko Epson 17,2 [Monitor] (17,2"vis)
Bus Adapters Multimedia
Firewire: Contrôleur Texas Instruments PCI-8x12/7x12/6x12 CardBus
ISO Mounter
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2830
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2831
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2832
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2834
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2835
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2836
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 283A
EDIROL FA-101 (Firewire)
Périphérique High Definition Audio (onboard)
UM-3G (USB)
Yamaha USB-MIDI Driver (WDM)

TIA
Dominique
 
F

Flasherly

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.
Click to expand...


http://www.miniputer.com/Acer/TravelMate_7720.html

Spec's do say 4G, so you put some more in, variously and however
mixed, which, once exceed the specs, get flagged by a BIOS trap for an
event error message routine. Or it goes mysteriously dark, no beep
beep, or something else insidious.

I've got the same processor, circa thereabouts, dualcore
Intel Pentium 4E, 2666 MHz ICH7 in a S775 desktop factor.

2G in both machines, the other a near same-age AMD x2 4200. No idea
of further memory limits to my MBs...

Surprised with a PCI-E SSD on the highend of things -- extra, extra
fast NAND and such (for swapping into a dedicated bus) -- there isn't
all kinds of software devices for manipulating a norm sale skew of
128-256GB of SSD memory into sharing some of that with operational
memory.

Software was once all over that kinda thing. Task swapping out of
EMS3.2, when to populate above 640Meg to a full 1M with, say, Ratshack
T1000 "special" system memory, might run close to $300. TRON stuff,
heh, although guess they didn't get the Rat for nothing. The new
Clue(less) Age is turn up your nose and let "them" do it for you --
out of cloud service subscriptions on a tablet or whatever comes first
out from a unisex purse or "fanny pack." Eight, twelve cores, even if
two 16G of System Memory is so boring! Well, doubt SODIMM is anywhere
near a 384M T1000 module, or saving up for those $1500 glasses that
cost Google $50 materials.

Plus, figure you ain't going to be using it if it says it won't take.
Take that money and buy yourself a MB with six SATA ports and a PCI
slot or two. Once a PS is on it, the rest just kind of falls into
place.
 
P

Paul

Dominique said:
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.

It's a Core2Duo 2.00 ghz.

Here's the hardware report from Belarc:

ATA Channel 0 [Controller]
ATA Channel 1 [Controller]
Contrôleurs de stockage Ultra ATA Intel(R) ICH8M - 2850 [Controller]
Intel(R) ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family [Display adapter] (2x)
Seiko Epson 17,2 [Monitor] (17,2"vis)
Bus Adapters Multimedia
Firewire: Contrôleur Texas Instruments PCI-8x12/7x12/6x12 CardBus
ISO Mounter
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2830
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2831
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2832
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2834
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2835
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2836
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 283A
EDIROL FA-101 (Firewire)
Périphérique High Definition Audio (onboard)
UM-3G (USB)
Yamaha USB-MIDI Driver (WDM)

TIA
Dominique
Click to expand...

http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/316273.pdf

Page 12 Section 1.1.2

"Maximum Memory Supported: 4GB"

The GM965 would be the PM965, but with the internal
GPU turned on. The memory limit should be the same.
The GL960 is limited to 2GB, and has a separate line
to that effect in the document.

The desktop version of the same chipset (which drives
up to four sticks of RAM), has an 8GB limit. The laptop
on the other hand, only has two slots defined for memory,
and using the maximum density chips, gives a 2x2GB = 4GB limit.

The chip has a 36 bit FSB, so is not artificially limited in
that way. And it has memory remapping support. If the processor
supports 64 bit instructions, and you install a 64 bit OS,
the entire 4GB of RAM should be mapped in, with the video
address space also assigned some room. With a 64 bit OS, I
would expect to see 4095MB (or so) free, versus the 3.25GB
I see on my current setup with a 32 bit OS.

And just to make you feel better, that high RAM hardly ever
gets used. I have an 8GB machine, with 32 bit and 64 bit OSes,
and don't have my virtual machines set up in the 64 bit OS.
And as a result, it would be a strange day, to have all the memory
used in Windows 8 x64. I would need to load up a few VMs to get
there. The newer Windows does like to waste memory when running
CHKDSK, and that may be the most amusement you can get from
having a lot of RAM. (These comments are for an "average" user.
If you're designing silicon chips and doing Verilog simulations,
then you use all the memory, all day long. But for more common
activities, even using GIMP on large photos, the machine would
likely feel too slow, if you actually attempted to manipulate
7GB objects. You need a lot more memory speed, than a DDR2
DIMM can manage, to help the thing scale a bit. This is one of
the weaknesses of current design, is memory can be very large
now, but it's still about as slow (in mega-transactions per second).
The cycle time to do a cache line burst, really isn't speeding up
all that much. And if you, say, buy a desktop today and put
64GB in it, you;ll be sitting on your hands if the machine
ever uses it. Having that RAM could add another 20 to 30 seconds
to your BIOS startup time (and that doesn't even constitute a
decent test either, just a fill operation).

If you're going to put a lot of memory in a modern machine,
there had better be a justification for doing so. Having
64GB as a "hood ornament" on the computer, the thrill will
soon wear off.

Paul
 
D

Dominique

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.

It's a Core2Duo 2.00 ghz.

Here's the hardware report from Belarc:

ATA Channel 0 [Controller]
ATA Channel 1 [Controller]
Contrôleurs de stockage Ultra ATA Intel(R) ICH8M - 2850 [Controller]
Intel(R) ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family [Display adapter] (2x)
Seiko Epson 17,2 [Monitor] (17,2"vis)
Bus Adapters Multimedia
Firewire: Contrôleur Texas Instruments PCI-8x12/7x12/6x12 CardBus
ISO Mounter
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2830
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2831
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2832
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2834
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2835
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 2836
Contrôleur hôte universel Intel(R) gamme ICH8 USB - 283A
EDIROL FA-101 (Firewire)
Périphérique High Definition Audio (onboard)
UM-3G (USB)
Yamaha USB-MIDI Driver (WDM)

TIA
Dominique
Click to expand...

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
 
F

Flasherly

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
Click to expand...

Build...

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=284717

I've a computer on one side of the top shelf, mixer in the middle, amp
on the farside;- shelf below, another amp. Either side of the
shelves, four speakers.

Alesis and early vintage Polk SRS for studio monitors, Art and Carver
amps fed from laser optic SPDIF off a rackmount Behringer programmable
EQ/processor unit. Nothing short of sound and big sound.

Done some recording with it, mics, headphones....Athlon X2 4000
(discounting the HDs) that cost $200 to put together. (Though the
speakers alone might be comparable to $1000 or more to replace, as
well the amps and rest of the gear).
 
D

Dominique

Build...

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=284717

I've a computer on one side of the top shelf, mixer in the middle, amp
on the farside;- shelf below, another amp. Either side of the
shelves, four speakers.

Alesis and early vintage Polk SRS for studio monitors, Art and Carver
amps fed from laser optic SPDIF off a rackmount Behringer programmable
EQ/processor unit. Nothing short of sound and big sound.

Done some recording with it, mics, headphones....Athlon X2 4000
(discounting the HDs) that cost $200 to put together. (Though the
speakers alone might be comparable to $1000 or more to replace, as
well the amps and rest of the gear).
Click to expand...

I already have a desktop for recording, the laptop is mainly for live
situations. It does most of the jobs I throw at it. I was wondering if I
could give it a little more power but I can live with it. I will try to go
64 bits though.

Thanks
 
L

Loren Pechtel

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.
Click to expand...

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

Flasherly

I already have a desktop for recording, the laptop is mainly for live
situations. It does most of the jobs I throw at it. I was wondering if I
could give it a little more power but I can live with it. I will try to go
64 bits though.
Click to expand...

http://compare.ebay.com/like/281342292382

Can't find 'em, exactly pictured (they're rare), though similar to
$2600 array references - first row, far right pictures: I've two
silver domes, two mids, thicker-depth cabinet with 10" passive
radiators in the back (also features a passive cable for mixing
imaging -- except it messes with amp impediances, so I've the cable
disconnected).

These aren't floor speakers - need to be raised up then ideally set
up.

250watts rated speakers into the Carver's output: 100watts RMS at
180watts reserves for peak. It's a 50lb. boat.

Speakers don't really kick in until at 20watts.

--
Yea, that's the deal with live recording. Macs are popular with the
industry, although $10K might be feasible, too, considering pro;-
pros, tho, can call it the way they see it as far as gear goes.

So what was you saying -- just about ready and gonn'a stuff, jam,
hammer up, some no' memory sticks into your laptop. . .jeez, guy,
wha's up wid dat. You a "frustrated" pro or sumpt'n?
 
D

Dominique

http://compare.ebay.com/like/281342292382

Can't find 'em, exactly pictured (they're rare), though similar to
$2600 array references - first row, far right pictures: I've two
silver domes, two mids, thicker-depth cabinet with 10" passive
radiators in the back (also features a passive cable for mixing
imaging -- except it messes with amp impediances, so I've the cable
disconnected).

These aren't floor speakers - need to be raised up then ideally set
up.

250watts rated speakers into the Carver's output: 100watts RMS at
180watts reserves for peak. It's a 50lb. boat.

Speakers don't really kick in until at 20watts.

--
Yea, that's the deal with live recording. Macs are popular with the
industry, although $10K might be feasible, too, considering pro;-
pros, tho, can call it the way they see it as far as gear goes.

So what was you saying -- just about ready and gonn'a stuff, jam,
hammer up, some no' memory sticks into your laptop. . .jeez, guy,
wha's up wid dat. You a "frustrated" pro or sumpt'n?
Click to expand...

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

One of the nice answers I got was that 4 gig RAM is generally enough and
other answers I got told me it wouldn't work with my chipset. I just
explain why I could use more RAM with THAT laptop.

It's good manner to give feedback when you ask a question on USENET and
the matter is solved.

You seem to have a nice setup.
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

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
Click to expand...

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

Yousuf Khan
 
P

Paul

Dominique said:
There are all kinds of people in the world... ;-)
Click to expand...

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
 
F

Flasherly

-
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.
 
P

Paul

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

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-rev...xtor-m6e-pcie-m-2-ssd-revealed-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/thi...2-ngff-slot-x1-carbon-gen-2-2014-a-print.html

Paul
 
F

Flasherly

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.
Click to expand...


http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-120GB-mSATA-Internal-CT120M500SSD3/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://tim.id.au/laptops/acer/travelmate%207720%207320.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/acer/travelmate_7720g_7720g-602g50mn/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.
 
B

bruce56

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.
 
F

Flasherly

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.
Click to expand...


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.)
 
D

Dominique

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