Replacing ALL memory modules in G73JW?

Hi..new G73JW owner here. Great forum BTW!

New G73 powered it up for about 10 min on the primary HD just to verify it booted, then shut it down and installed an 80g Intel SSD. Loaded a clean win7 ultimate and only latest drivers and necessary apps. Damn thing runs like a champ!

Now onto my issue..I don't game much, but I do use VM a lot. I figured 8g would be fine...lol...day one I launch my VM Lab infrastructure...and use up all 8 gigs very quickly! I says..Newegg can help me out, and I ordered 4 4g ddr3 sticks..they will be arriving tomorrow.

After reading and reading...I am confident I can install that last stick under the keyboard..but WHY for the love of god didn't they make an access panel for that last stick? All you would have to do is remove the keyboard, and voila! but nooooo...you need to disassemble pretty much the whole thing.

I have watched the video and read the guide...but I just want to confirm that I only need to go to about the 6 min mark on the video...and up to page 2-10 in the PDF.

Anyone actually done this on their own, and not had a vendor pre-install them for you? Tips, Tricks, and Shortcuts Welcomed!

 

Yes you are correct. You do not need to completely disassemble the machine to get to the 4th dimm. But you do have to get to the point where you remove the LCD housing and pull the top panel off. Just get to the point before you flip over the motherboard, put all your ram in and then plug it in and make sure that it posts. Then reassemble and your good. As a hint Hynix ram(G-skill uses their ram), Kingston, and Samsung seem to work the best for us. Patriot seems to give the most trouble, Asus will tell you to use only Hynix or Nanya.

Hope that helps, good luck!

Joseph L

 

Joseph thanks for the reply. I purchased "rendition by crucial" memory. Same specs as stock, timings and all.

I'll probably just pop in the 3 sticks on the bottom and check for post first. If that fails Ill try just 2 4g sticks in the top 2 slots and leave the others at 2G. I read somewhere that is how you get to 12g. I just need to be able to run my VM Lab with a bit of overhead...Lab is currently 8-9G...16G might be a bit of overkill, but I'll probably find a way to use it.

 

You are very welcome. We havent used Crucial RAM for a while. A few model seasons ago it caused some issues and seemed to be unreliable.(could have been coincidence, but we dont take any chances when it comes to potential customer service issues) I'm not sure if micron and the laptop boards from Asus do not get along or what. If it works great, if it doesnt hopefully you can return it and then if you like I can give you the model numbers of the RAM that we use and know works.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

OK guys...all mem modules replaced with the Rendition 4x 4GB sticks...everything seems fine so far. KB lights, Keyboard and touchpad working still.

Windows wanted to re-index my experience, but it didn't change..still a 7.1.
It also re-allocated a 16G page file, which I have disabled...precious SSD space dontcha know.
One Tip: That little connector under the keyboard...the one without the tape on is indeed fragile...what exactly is it used for?

Replying to my own post...it is for the speakers, and they now sound like poop.

Oh well..lesson learned. Let the professionals handle it. That is a very fragile connector..and Im pretty sure I pulled most of the base away from the MoBo..I tried i sit it back down as best I could..but it needs to be re-soldered...and it is waaaaay tiny to do that...not worth a whole MoBo replacement. Good thing I have good quality headphones.