Question about installing RAM in a G53jw

I have read so many conflicting things about how much memory a G53jw will take. The specs when I bought it from amazon said 12GB max. Crucial and Kingston both say 8GB. ASUS says 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB depending on where you read.
I know it has 4 slots, right now 3 are occupied with 2GB each.

Has anyone installed more than 8?

 

I just increased my G53JW-XA1 from the default 6GB to 14GB. I bought 3x 4GB sticks of G.Skill RAM and installed them into the following three slots: the easy to reach slot under the keyboard and the 2 slots on the bottom of the laptop (accessible in the same way as getting to the hard drive bays).

I still have 1x 2GB stick in the slot that requires a substantial amount of disassembly.

 

With Windows Home you can put 16GB max (4x4GB) we do it all the time so i know it will work

 

How hard is it to get to all of the memory slots? I was looking at the e-manual, but it's not very clear.

 

windows versions have ram caps, but that shouldn't be an issue unless you downgraded your install to 32bit/x86 from the supplied copy. the four slots will take up to 16gb total. different cpu models supported by the mainboard will only handle up to certain amounts of ram, and may determine max ram speed as well. g53jw, so first gen core processor with gtx460m graphics. didn't specify g53jw-__ so assuming I7 equivalent cpu from an g53jw-a1 model, in which case 16gb max. if you have an i5 equivalent or i3 equivalent less than 16gb.

or short answer:look up the max supported ram for your cpu model on intels website.
that'll be your answer assuming you are using windows 7 x64 home premium or above.

as to slot access..
one slot is a pain requiring almost total teardown, two are easy, in the same area as the hdd bays to get to and one is easier only needing keyboard and some black tape taken off.. check videos of dissassembly on youtube. there are three covering the g53jh/jw/sw/sx (layouts more or less the same for all).

 

Thanks for the replies. My model is a G53jw-A1. I ordered 12GB from Crucial which should bring me to 14. However, these are my concerns:
1. memory usually works better in pairs and I will have a miss matched pair (1) 4GB chip and (1)2GB chip. This is in addition to the 8GB of paired memory.

2. The 2GB chip is a slower chip than I could have bought. I had to buy the slower chips as they would have been clocked down to the slowest speed anyway. This ones not so much a concern as a whine.

 

Mixing different sizes wont affect performance but mixing speeds will. You mentined your 2GB is slower then you could have bought and also that you had to buy the slower chips. Does this mean they are all the same speed but slower then the board can support or did you mix speeds. If they are all the same speeds you're fine, but if different speeds you could encounter errors. If possible always match the same speed with all sticks if you can.

 

I should clarify, I bought DDR3 1333 to match what is installed in that one hard to reach slot. I could have bought faster if I was going to replace the one in that slot, but since I'm not I had to go with the slower memory. So, yes, they will all be the same speed.

 

I don't think the JW supports speeds higher than 1333MHz. Not very sure though. And it supports a maximum of 16gb ram which is overkill unless your into HD video editing and heavy multitasking.

 

i actually use mine for work and gaming. I program phone systems, usually using a virtual machine. I don't really need the memory, I just want the memory and it's cheap.

Next up a SSD.

 

The G53JW with an SSD for the OS and extra RAM is a great machine if you need to run several virtual machines.

When you get the SSD installed, I recommend redirecting your user folders to the HDD (or, at a minimum, save your virtual machine disk files to the HDD). This is what I do for my "home ESXi lab". I can run two instances of ESXi (themselves hosting an instance of Windows Server 2008), an instance of FreeNAS, and an instance of Windows Server 2008 R2 without issue.