W3J RAM Upgrade

Hi,

I am about to buy another gig of RAM for my W3J notebook (Duo T2500 2.00 Ghz).

I am aware it has 1x1GB, and it has an open slot for another gig, although I do not know what type of RAM I should buy. I was considering the following (also I do know if it is DDR or DDR2.

link of the ram i might buy:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145012

specs:

Model
Brand CORSAIR
Series ValueSelect
Model VS1GSDS667D2
Type 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM
Tech Spec
Capacity 1GB
Speed DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)
Cas Latency 5
ECC No
Buffered/Registered Unbuffered
Heat Spreader No


I am not sure if this is the correct one, or if there is a better one I should get. Any advices prior to my purchase would be great.

I see that there are many types don't know which is compatible:

144-Pin SO-DIMM
172-Pin DDR MICRO DIMM
200-Pin DDR SO-DIMM
200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM
214-Pin DDR2 MICRO DIMM

 

I asked Danny from MilestonePC about that brand for my w3j a while ago and I believe he said that one was good to go. I haven't actually gotten around to upgrading my ram yet so unfortunately I can't tell you about performance. If you do end up getting that one (nice price btw) let us know how it does!

 

Your linked RAM chip @ newegg will be fine for the W3J.

 

ok i ordered it already

also found that zipzoomfly is cheaper and faster shipping, but I had one bad experiance with them so I stuck with newegg.

also...I know I saw a guide with pics here on opening the w3j. can anyone help me find that guide...i would like to know how to open it up to install the ram stick.



Ok, I tried removing all the screws from the large panel in the back, I could not get the k screw since my screwdriver was not long enough :O

i will set out to buy one. just to make sure if I should remove all screw from back large panel including k. I would hate to have removed unnecessary screws for ram upgrade.

a total of 11 screws, one of them keing next to a k.

 

K > should be the only ones needed to open up the keyboard (then push the 4 latches along the top of the keyboard).

Those are the ones you need, if the RAM is under the keyboard. Otherwise, it might be under a panel on the bottom of the notebook, or it might be more complicated. Maybe someone with a W3J knows.

 

The bottom slot on my W3J was empty upon arrival and the keyboard slot came with a 1gb stick. If you need to get to the keyboard slot, be careful not to rip out the wires which attach the keyboard to the rest of the comp.

~ Brett

 

theres a picture guide laying around to get to the keyboard slot

 

I installed the gig of RAM now making my W3J a 2gig beast.


so easy, the empty slot was in the bottom panel, i open it up, stick and click it in and close it. done. running smoother so far

 

do individual programs run better also? does the upgrade give you faster load times?

 

Hey, congrats for your successful RAM installation, my friend! Right now I'm thinking about upgrading one of my 1 GB module to 2 GB module... sigh

 

I too am thinking about upgrading the ram on my w3j (with XP) to 2 gigs using the same ram as latino. However, considering that I have to replace both ram modules because I originally had 2x512, would it be worth it to just get one 2 gig stick? Slightly more expensive than 2x1024 but it could be useful to have a 2 gig stick down the road. The brand of ram for the 2 gig stick I am looking at is Kingston (versus the 2x1024 Corsair). Bascially what I'm asking is, Would the combination of (2 gig + 512) or (just one 2 gig) be better than 2x1024? Thanks everybody,
Dan

 

You're unlikely to notice a major difference in performance between 2 & 2.5Gb, but it would certainly be simpler to only replace the underside stick. Not that the keyboard stick is all that difficult, however. Dual channel (2x1024) is overrated in notebooks, anyway, and has shown very little in terms of real world performance gains.

Bottom line - do whatever your mind and budget are comfortable with .

 

thanks for the reply clearskies. I don't know too much about dual channel but would I be correct in saying that since my FSB is only 667 MHz anyways, there wouldn't be a significant bottleneck with a 2 gig 667 MHz speed ram?

 

Correct, no bottleneck expected.

 

cool thanks again. I should ask another really important question tho, can the w3j handle a 2 gig stick in 1 slot? I want to make sure because I just looked at the asus website and it says "2x SO-DIMM socket expandable to 2GB". Does that mean each socket can be expanded to 2GB or both combined can be expanded to 2GB?

 

When the W3j was manufactured 2GB RAM sticks didn't really exist, so that's why the original specs referred to a max (at the time) of 2x1024 - 2GB total; no one would have even been thinking about 2x2048 in the W3j when it was being sold.

The current OS and BIOS should have no issue with recognize the full 2GB in 1 slot, but I don't know if anyone around here has specifically installed the 2GB stick in a W3j yet (although some have indicated they were considering it).

 

uhm.. i just installed 1GB+2GB into my W3J...

but My Computer recognizes only 2.8GIGS

i'm running MemTest right now, and it says it is "Dual Channel (Asymmetric)"

how can i make them symmetrical? (would it be a good idea to make it symmetrical?)

 

you cant make it semetrical, it would either have to be 1x1 gig or 2x2 gig. I from 2x512 to 2x1 gig, and I have noticed a huge gain in performance, not gaming but it does help, but more so in photoshop, word, indesign etc... I can have lots of stuff open and on the go and not experience slow downs, so the move form 1gig to two is a definate help for those on xp, and I hear that if you are doing vista it is a must, possable going to 4 would be a good idea

 

okay, so i've been reading and i can't go symmetrical, like dmak said. (duh; cuz the ram chips themselves aren't same size)

but uhm, i'm still baffled with the computer isn't reading "3gb ram"

i'm still on XP, i refuse to go to Vista....

 

thats fine, but you wont get the full memory address in xp. xp cannot address 3 gig or up (correct me if I am wrong, it might be 3.5 or 4) properly. but I really doubt you will use all of it anyway, unless you do video editing. Either way its normal

 

but i want what i paid for

 

I am not telling you that you wasted your money, rather I am saying it is hard to actually use all that ram under xp, I usally only use 1.6 of my 2 gigs when doing photo work. certain games that prebuffer (ie stalker) will use more ram if it is available improving performance in many cases

 

32bit systems can address around 3.6GB of RAM out of which some is reserved for I/O as far as I remember.

Furthermore some laptops have hardware or BIOS limitations that prevent them for using large amounts of RAM (3 or 4 GB). Just be happy that you are able to use almost all the RAM that you have 200MB is barely 6% of your RAM, if you sit and think about it.

 

i've an urge to sit here and be a big baby about it

oh well, at least my laptop doesn't slow down when i have 10+ browsers open LOL

 

2GB is nice and sometimes useful, but when are you honestly going to use 2.8 let alone 3GB in XP? Just be happy that your computer performs well.

 

I just stuck a 2gig in my 2x512 W3J to make it 2.5GB and it was kinda like..oh well thats nice...looking at all that unused ram lol. HD is definitely the next place to upgrade..that and I desperately need to defrag, now that the physical cleaning is done. Thanks again for the guide caleb, great stuff, and to DTX for the step by step upgrade guide.

 

i turned off Virtual Memory paging for the drive with OS

shouldn't be a problem right?

 

With 3GB and typical apps, no. I've run XP w/ 2GB and no paging file for half a year.

But my experience with Vista is very limited, so if you're using it take care.

 

oh, i'm still on XP with 3GB LOL

i do occasional gaming, but only Warcraft 3, ATI keeps crashing Half LIfe2 now with some apparently unfixable .dll error.

mostly office work...

i found that MySQL seems to take up a tremendous amount of resources...

 

my ati's been crashing recently too..scary thing is I don't game. I still use omega drivers, but now i'm thinking it's NHC so I turned that off too.

 

Paul, you'll be fine with no paging file. At the most what can happen you get a yellow balloon pop up and an app that needs too much memory will be closed. But I doubt it will ever happen.

I'm not sure about the ATI crashing, but maybe it's a good idea to try the stock drivers., or drivers from support.asus.com