Is manufacturers 1Gig RAM limit on my Laptop true ?

Hello All, first post to the board

I have an old HP ze4560us Laptop that I was hoping I could get a little more performance out of it. I'm running XP Pro on it a its stock aside from the Samsung 60G 7200 RPM drive.

I was thinking of upping the RAM as it only has 512mb's (2 256 PC2100 200PIN SODIMM's) to get more out of it as I just bumped up an old desktop I have from 512 to 2 gigs and it really help a lot but HP spec's state that this unit has a 1 gig limit.

From what I've seen from searches on Google and this board, this is usually written into stone but I just thought I would ask anyway.

Is there anyway I can get more to work on this machine?

CPU-Z tells me that this is a HP Motherboard MN: 0024, it has a ATI Northbridge chipset MN: IDCAB0 and a ALI Southbridge chipset MN: M1533

Its running a AMD XP2500 processor on it and the BIOS is a Phoenix Tech Version KAM1.58

Thanks for any help

 

I can't really answer your question... But, unless you do very RAM intensive work on this laptop, you probably won't notice anything more then 1Gb on XP.

My advice is get 2x512mb and be done with it.
You CAN check for bios updates that MAY upgrade the limit. But usually it's the chipset that can't handle more then it's supposed to.

 

That laptop will only support up to 1GB-DDR-266 (2 x 512's) You could try putting in 2 x 1GB's but then the laptop might not boot at all, and if it does would probably only recognise 1GB total. Sorry

P.S. What Joeskie said it absoloutley bang on!

 

Hey joeskie and thanks for the reply, yeah I figured that someone really wouldn't be able to maybe reply from the exact info I posted, but I think the question I'm wondering about, as I'm not really much of an authority on Laps as much as I am in Desktops, is what the manufactures limit thing is about?

From what I gather it is true due to whatever design limits exist on the machine and not from what was just available at the time. In other words I may be able fit a 1 gig stick into the same slot but it really would be a waist of time as the system either won't boot or if it does, will not recognize or more importantly utilized anything more then its designed to via a hardware design. This is kinda of a unusual thing for me a desktop builder as I'm used to having to configure things based upon some RAM specs but I have never herd of such a thing as a RAM MB capacity size limit, at least not from the hardware side of things around numbers this small.

One other question I have though, I just checked HPs site again and one thing they tell me is that I can use a PC2700 stick as apposed to the 2100 sticks that are in there now, although most of the after market manufactures sites show that the sticks should be 2100, do you have any advice about that?

 

The PC2700 sticks would probably work but would run at the lower speed of Pc2100.

 

Hi.

according to the crucial.com website the max is 1gb , which is plenty for XP anyway.

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/ListParts.aspx?model=Pavilion ze4560us

Regards

John.

 

Hey Everway9 and thanks for both of your replies, yeah in my experience I have found that the going with a higher PC number is better if you want to OC the Buss, unfortunately I don't think that is something I can do with this machine as the BIOS doesn't support changing it and as far as I know, I can't hack it or get a hacked one that would allow me to.

Even if I did, I don't suspect the rest of the hardware would be able to take much of an increase and it would probably run hotter and reduce my batteries charge time more too.

But I think as you said theres no harm to going with the PC2700, right now Dell has the a great price on the Corsair 512 PC2100 sticks they Corsair recommend for this machine but the also have the exact same price on the same ones in the PC 2700 spec too so I figure why not get those if there's not price diff.

 

Hey John and thanks for the reply, I found that Dell has a great price on the 512mb Corsair SODIMM's for this Lap here:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...etail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A1155284

While the Crucial units you mentioned in the US here:
http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=A47D2B1FA5CA7304

...are a bit more.

Tell me, and I know this would just be your opinion but, are the Crucial units better then the Corsairs, I've been using Corsairs in all my PC's for long time but I know that doesn't mean their the best ones to get in every case.

 

no deffeence in real-life situations. Go for the cheapest RAM with lifelong warranty...

 

I seem to believe that I have had this discussion somewhere else! LOL!
At the end of the day we decided that brand did not matter. Just make sure there is a good warranty period! Preferably lifetime. If you have to go for brand though then yeah, Crucial and Corsair are good brands.

John?

 

the PC2700 will have a better lattency that the PC2100, and hence will be slightly faster.

This will bring a slight boost to the performace of you graphics card since it shares the ram memory.

 

Hi.

Just buy the cheapest with the long-lost warranty as has already been said.

Regards

John.

 

I have kinda the same laptop, but mine is ze5385 .. or so, I forgot ..

but yes, 1GB will be the maximum it can support - I upgraded too, it went better. Also, I put 7200 rpm HDD on it so now it runs almost as fast as possible.

 

OK all just to give an update, I installed the two Crucial PC3200 PN: CT713043 modules that their scan system said would work on my ze4560us laptop an that a on-line chat with one of there techs said would work but they did not.

The Laptop tries but will not even boot and dies and just runs through a recycling of that.

I guess I will now have to return these and get the PC2700 ones they say will work and try those.

…way to go Crucial !!!

 

Just thought I would drop everyone a note and let them know that after returning the PC3200 RAM I got from Crucial I got their PC2700 that was more specifically part numbered for the ze4560us and it seems to be working great.

The Crucial PN for this RAM is CT526737 but the actual number on the RAM is CT6464X335.K8TKY

Which BTW as far as I can tell is a different end number then the one on their generic PC2700 200 SODIMM module.

I am using the latest BIOS the KA.M1.60

At this point CPU-Z is showing it is running at a 2-3-3-6 Latency on the 133MHz bus, which my old PC2100 ran at 2.5-3-3-6

I ran memtest for 8 hours which in that time it got to 1004.2% coverage and I had no issues and I have also run a complete file and folder backup of my root C: drive via a networked connection to a spare PC and everything went well and it even cut down the backup time from 2hrs 35 minutes to 1hr 32 minutes. So I guess you could say that the added amount of RAM and perhaps the tiny bit of lower latency defiantly made an improvement in the performance.

Also I should note that Crucial didn’t give me any issues on returning the RAM and credited back my CC account very quickly.

Hope this helps others.

 

I think I also put pc2700 in mine at the time .. but glad it worked good for you.

now go buy some other laptop because this one is old .. lol

 

Yeah, I know.

I did go look at new ones but I just didn't like any of them better then mine.

I know their more powerful but not a thousand dollars worth. There more dinky and I really don't like this whole wide screen thing at all.

Vista is worthless and thats just about you can get on one, then if I wipe that out and try to put XP on I hear its a pain as since they all have SATA drives, its hard to get XP to load as it doesn't have native SATA drivers.

All in all, especially for what I use this for which is just basic work stuff and the fact that I have two other PC that are built to the hilt. in the end it just wasn't worth the expense.

 

so you're kinda like me when it comes to laptops then, lol

that's why I got T61 that is with standard screen and XP Pro, but trust me this one is like 50 times better than the HP. Let me see if I have picture of both next to each other .. the T61 is also smaller (and much more powerful)

well I wasn't going to upgrade, but my mother came to visit me one day and se said that she needed another computer .. and since that HP was like 4 year old I said fine, take it. So I bought new one, and don't feel sorry in any way