Can Sager NP5760 take 4GB of RAM?

Sager NP5760
Vista Ultimate 64-bit
Core 2 Duo T7400 (2.16 GHz)
nVidia Go 7950 GTX w/ 512MB vid memory
2GB DDR2 667MHz

When I purchased this laptop a couple of years ago, one of the reasons I opted for a 64-bit system was b/c it could take advantage of 4GB of RAM. Although I only got 2GB at the time b/c of expense, PowerNotebooks.com did provide the option of upgrading to 4GB for an extra $400 bucks. I decided to wait for the price to come down.

Now I finally want to upgrade but after searching the internet I'm finding that most (but not all) specifications for the Sager NP5760 (Clevo 570U) claim 2GB as the maximum amount of RAM it can take. Frustrated, I called Sager support as well as PowerNotebooks support and they both confirmed that 2GB is the maximum according to their specs. When I asked the guy at PowerNotebooks why I had the option of 4GB at the time of purchase he said that it must have been a typo on their site.

I'm pretty confused on what to believe especially b/c I'm not really sure what the determining factors on RAM limitations are. It seems to me that b/c my chipset supports 4GB and b/c I have a 64-bit system there should be no problems.

So I'm turning to you guys. Can my laptop handle 4GB of RAM?

Thanks,
Bret

 

Probably true what they said. My search on the net yielded the same info that you already found.

 

Get CPUZ and give us the mainboard version

That was we could prehaps determine if it does, after all support it.

On crucial, for the MSI gt725, says that 4gb is max, ive heard people putting 6GB + in it hehe.

 

lesson-learned: don't buy a machine for it's update/upgrade capabilities unless you are going to use them Right Now.

Prices and technology change too fast to pay a premium for something you're not going to use for a while.

 

Thanks Cataclysm...here's the data from CPUZ:

Manufacturer: Clevo Co.
Model: CAPELL VALLEY(NAPA) CRB
Chipset: Intel i945PM Rev. 03
Southbridge: Intel 82801GHM (ICH7-M DH)
LPCIO: NS

 

I am certian it can handle 3gb, they claim 2gb max.

 

The intel i945 chipset supports 4 GB of memory, you should have no problem installing a 2 x 2GB kit of memory into your laptop

K-TRON

 

Thanks for the input. Will my BIOS update of its own accord? It just lists the amount of RAM loaded w/o giving an option for changing it.

 

When you change the memory amount in your laptop, the BIOS will update the next time the system powers on.
So say you have two 512mb memory cards installed right now.
If you powered off your system and removed one of the cards, the next time the system powers up it will say 612mb of memory is installed rather than 1gb
When you upgrade from 2gb to 4gb, your system will see that the memory has changed and it will update.

K-TRON

 

Ok - I decided to go for it. I installed 4GB (2x2GB) G.Skill PC5300 @ 4-4-4-12and happily my operating seems to recognize it. Right on! On checking in task manager, though, it appears that only 3GB are being utilized. I know that is not uncommon for 32-bit systems but mine is a 64-bit system. So why?

Also, my Windows Vista index rating on RAM went from 5.0 to 4.7. I know from these forums that performance differences based on timings 5-5-5-15 (which I had) and 4-4-4-12 are too insignificant to really matter but I didn't expect my performance to decrease. So again, why? (It's not much fun always being so ignorant of this stuff.)

 

Is the BIOS recognizing 3GB of memory or 4GB?

If the BIOS is reading 3GB than the limitation is the BIOS. A BIOS upgrade may have 4GB memory support

If the BIOS is reading 4GB, than the limitation is the operating system. I am not sure why a 64 bit operating system would limit the memory, if this was the case.

Windows Vista indexing is very inaccurate. If you want to see real performance differences, download SISandra and run the memory benchmarks with the old memory kit and the new one installed.
The new 2 x 2GB kit will show a higher memory bandwidth

K-TRON

 

The BIOS reads:
Installed Memory 4096 MB
Available to OS 3071 MB

I'll have to contact Sager about a BIOS flash although the last time I looked into it PowerNotebooks.com support told me Sager is very stingy about providing these updates w/o a very good reason. I wish they would just make their BIOS updates readily available like a good OEM!

Thanks for lending me the benefit of your knowledge, K-TRON. I always find your posts to be informative and dependable when going through these threads which is invaluable to so many.

 

Thats normal.

The Clevo M570U (along with every other first generation Core Duo / Core 2 Duo) notebook is using a Napa platform .... mobile Intel 945 chipset.

the chipset limitation is what holds it back from the full support for 4GB of RAM.

Therefore, you may be able to install 4GB physically, but the system will not fully recognize/utilize past ~3GB.

.... thats pretty much it.

I went over this many many times.

 

Yep, Gophn, I changed my search keywords including "napa platform" this time and found a whole slew of info I had missed before. This topic has been thoroughly covered. Thanks for reiterating, though, as I somehow missed a lot of it in my searches.

I'm glad to have the 3GB. My impression from a link I found elsewhere in the NBR forums

http://forums.macnn.com/58/imac-emac-and-mac-mini/334856/3gb-2-1-core-duo-imac/ (starting w/ Eug's question towards the bottom)

is that if I had used 2GB x 1GB instead of 2GB x 2GB, I would no longer have dual-channel support so I'm glad at least that I didn't totally waste my money in getting the extra 2GB stick.