G73JH-BST7 Memory questions?????

New G73JH-BST7 owner here, just bought it last week.
i7-740QM cpu.
I picked up a 4Gb 1333mhz DDR3 stick to max out the ram to 8GB.
When i opened up the case I noticed 3 ram slots, the bottom
2 are occupied, the top one is a 2GB and the bottom a 4GB.
What can go in the third slot, can I drop the 4GB in and get 10GB
total ram without any problems, or can it just take a 2GB?
I've read on here that it can, but no conclusive proof. Can it
really handle 16GB? The salesman at Best Buy wasn't sure
what the true max ram is on this computer.
Thanks for any advice in advance.

 

It actually has 4 ram slot. 2nd (I guess) slot is in other side. So you have full disassemble to reach it. Therefore, you have 3x2gb ram. You can put 4gb ram. Also it can handle 16gb, 4x4gb, ram.

 

Yes you can go up to 16gb and if you want to do 10gb that will work also. Honestly unless you are running cad or video editing stuff there isn't much reason to upgrade over the 6gb you have. Benchmarks have shown 4gb is all you need for gaming right now.

 

Well, I would replace the 2GB stick with the 4GB to get 8GB in full dual channel.
You can also pick another 2GB stick and match 2+2 and 4+4 for 12GB in full dual channel.
Maybe your gaming experience won't benefit too much from the 12GB ram, but it won't hurt it either. The more memory the merrier
Especially if you multitask alot with memory hungry apps and transferring big files here and there.
Even if W7 uses the extra memory only as cache, it is still an overall improvement.

The biggest con will be hibernating the 12GB of ram... it will take some time :SLEEP:

 

The bst7 comes with 3x2gb sticks.

 

Thanks for the help and info guys, I appreciate it.
I wend and picked up a second 4GB stick,
so now I'm running 2 x 4GB on the top slots and
the two 2GB factory sticks.. So right now
it's 12GB and everything seems fine...
Now to go strip all the bloatware and crap out
and start installing apps...
Thanks
EDIT: I forgot to add, I'm not really using this for gaming,
I'll be doing a little gaming on it, but it's mostly
my graphics/design machine.. I'll be doing mostly
a lot of photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver/web design,
as well as 3D modeling in Rhino 3D and a few other 3d apps..
I'm hoping this thing handles everything I throw at it when
the polygon counts get super high in 3D programs..
From what I've read though, it sounds like it will chew
up and spit out everything I'll be doing on it..

I need to understand this better. If you have the ram slot that's hidden
under the keyboard, and then on the bottom when you open it up and
you're looking at it, you have 3 slots. Right now, I have the stock 2 GB
under the keyboard, then in the ram compartment, I have another 2GB on the bottom, with two 4GB's on top. Does it matter what slots they go in?
Am I running in full dual channel?
Thanks for the help..

 

As long as you have 2 or more, on HM55 or PM55 the RAM will always run dual channel. If it's an odd amount of slots populated, it'll run in asymmetric dual channel mode. This is explained in the chipset whitepaper.

 

AllurGroceries,
forgive me for asking, but where do i find the chipset whitepapers? And what does HM55/PM55 refer to? From the RAM setup I described having installed on my G73, am I running full dual channel? This is all pretty new to me, I haven't
bought a new laptop since my 2004 Compaq R3360.. I've been working on old
equipment for a long time, and I hadn't really paid attention to the new stuff
because I couldn't afford it and had to use what I had.
Thanks

 

Just download and run the CPU-z app
It will tell you the slots numbers and whatever memory you have in that slot

 

HM55 is the intel chipset used on the G73J* it's listed in the specifications.

The whitepaper is here, starting on page 20 http://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts/320765.pdf

 

The chipset doesn't really matters since the memory controller is inside the CPU lately, although ALLurGroceries corectly points you to the pdf specs of the i7 CPU

Anyways, as i said, use the CPU-z to see the slots&dimms or the manual.
For example, my i5 G53 has only 2 ram slots, No.1 and No.3.
Extrapolating, I'd say that it should be the same for you and you should use identical DIMMs in slots no.1 and 3 and the same for slots no.2 and 4 - like 2GB Dims in 1 and 3 and 4GB dimms in 2 and 4.

 

@samhell.
I have the exact same memory configuration as you do and according to CPU-z it is in dual channel mode.
My older laptop had 3GB (1x2) and it ran in asymmetric dual channel mode.

And BTW, for all you folks that say that more memory is a waist, I'm here to tell you... MORE MEMORY STILL RULES!

 

Woops yeah thanks for the correction, my bad from force of habit. The memory controller is on the CPU now not the chipset. Anyway this asymmetric dual channel feature has existed for some time now, it goes at least 3 generations back for intel.

 

the memory ram frequency that this version of laptop brand new comes is 1333 or 1066?
(g73jh-bst7)

 

My bst7 came with 1333mhz.

 

so this may be a dumb question. I know very little about computer internals. but since there are four slots is it possible to instal 4 8gig ram drives?