RAM upgrade confusing.

Hello everyone. I have a Gateway P-7915u laptop which I was thinking of upgrading to 8 gb ram. I currently have 4 gb ram which is alright for my current needs, but since I live in an area where it is difficult to find computer parts I wanted to upgrade to 8 gb. However, after taking a look at crucial, I found that the max RAM I can have is 2x 2gb. The confusing part is the fact that every other site that I have gone to has told me that the max RAM my computer can have is 8 gb. I am now severely confused. If anybody could help me find the correct information, I would be very grateful.

Other then the RAM, I am also looking for an external hard drive. Since I will be upgrading to 3.0, a 3.0 usb compatible hard drive would be good. I am currently thinking of buying- .

Finally, I would like to ask if it is possible to upgrade my cpu and graphics card. I just finished reading a thread saying that it is impossible on most laptops, but there would be no harm in checking.

Thank you for reading my long and lengthy post. All help would be appreciated.

 

Standard Memory 1GB
Maximum Memory 8GB
Memory Expansion 2 (2 banks of 1)
Memory Comments PC3-8500 DDR3-1066 204pin SDRAM SODIMM
CPU Type Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 (2.53GHz) Processor
Intel PM45 Express Chipset

What size hard drive are you looking for? Lotta good buys out there. Just picked up a Seagate 7200rpm 500GB for 'bout $50.00usw/tax

CPU yes. Search the posts under Gateway and emachines, Lotta good info on upgrading your cpu. I just put the t9900 in my p7811fx.

Graphics card (bottom line) no.

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you for that information. I had seen that information on a few sites, but I was confused by what crucial told me, and by the fact that my laptop came with 4 gb and not 1.

I was looking for preferably a 1tb+ hard drive. Budget is about 100-150 dollars.

 

Here is one from newegg. 7200rpm 1tb. Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

This one is 3.0. http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0355641

I'm sure your system will handel 8gb after install, check to see if your system recognizes it in Controle panel-system-advanced- performance- settings-advanced. Make sure the button is marked "let windowd choose whats best". Vista and 7 should automaticlly detect. xp you may have to change the settings, change them back and then hit apply. I'm sure it'll work.

Good luck.

 

I haven't bought the ram yet, I wanted to make sure that my computer supported it before I bought it. Also, by external hard drive I meant the kinds you can just plug in and use. I'm not sure if you have to install those hard drives that you listed in to the laptop. I might just be getting confused with internal hard drives.

 

The Crucial ram checking isn't very accurate. It said my laptop is supported up to 4GB but in fact it's supported up to 8GB. The best way is to open up your laptop and see how many ram slots you have?

 

P-7811FX owner here,

What are your current needs? 90% of people won't see any performance increase from 4 GB to 8 GB. Also 4 GB sticks aren't cheap.

8GB is the max for PM45 chipsets.

The CPU can be upgraded to: T9800/T9900/X9100 or below, but anything below this is a marginal upgrade and not worth the price.

The GPU is soldered into the motherboard, there is no way to replace it.

The FX series has two hard drive bays, so if you haven't slipped another one in, you should consider an internal 2.5'' hard drive. Also, with any BIOS newer than the stock one, RAID 0 and 1 support has been implemented.

DO NOT buy the hard drive in red. It is a desktop hard drive, 3.5''; it won't fit in the laptop.

Adding a second hard drive is one of the easiest things to do. It takes about 6 screws to unscrew and you literally slide the hard drive in and push firmly. That's it.

If you are looking for an external hard drive, consider one that is eSATA or USB 2.0. The FX line has an eSATA port (yay!) so any external that has an eSATA port or USB 2.0 will work. USB 3.0 hard drives are worthless for us because the laptop only has USB 2.0 ports, so there is no advantage to buying a USB 3.0 drive.

Also, SATA 3.0Gb/s is not to be confused with USB 3.0, they are different interfaces.

 

I highly doubt that I have ever used the full 4 gb of my ram. I thought that if I upgrade my cpu, upgrading my ram might provide a larger performance increase. Currently my RAM is sufficient for any games that I play, but I am not sure whether this will be the case in a few years time. I thought it might be better to upgrade the RAM while I'm able to get it easily, rather than when I absolutely need it.

As for the hard drives, I did not know that my laptop could support another one. Also, since my laptop contains an ExpressCard slot, I thought I could upgrade it to usb 3.0. If that is not possible, I will definitely look for an eSATA drive if I buy an external one.

Another question- Is there any way for me to add another graphics card to my laptop so that I can run an SLI? Not even sure if that's possible on laptops.

Thank you for the information on the CPU's. On my current system I believe that my CPU is slightly underpowered, since I have noticed that when I start a resource intensive application, my cpu hits 70+% usage. An upgrade should greatly increase system performance. Is there any CPU that you would recommend? I'm looking for the greatest performance increase- budget is around $500.

Thank you for your very useful and informative post.

 

Even while playing BF:BC2, running Skype, Firefox and a bunch of other random programs in the background, I cap out at 3.3 GB. I'd say we're good for at least another year if not two. Also, DDR3 is the current standard, even in a year, not only will the RAM be significantly cheaper, but it should be just as available as it is now.

70% CPU usage means there's still that 30% left that isn't being used, so there's still some headroom. In my case, the P8400 is starting to show it's age for single threaded games, but we're starting to move towards complete multi-threaded support, which will increase your CPU's longevity for gaming. If you really think that a CPU upgrade will make a difference, then as I mentioned above, the T9800, T9900 and X9100 will be the best upgrades for the price. They can be found on ebay for cheap (~$250 for OEM X9100's), ES models even cheaper (~$200).

USB 3.0 through Expresscard will work, but why pay more for something you already have (USB 2.0, eSATA AND a second hard drive bay)? An internal 2.5'' drive will provide better speeds and the option to RAID, but an external gives you the ability to quickly transfer files from computer to computer. Remember though, both computers will needs to have an eSATA port for this to work, or else it only be able to be plugged into your FX.

Keep in mind, in the end we are bottlenecked by our GPU. The 9800M GTS is an aging video card (equivalent to the desktop 9600 GT), but still fairly capable. If there were any upgrade that would benefit you in gaming the most, it would be the GPU. Unfortunately with laptops it's a messy situation and not possible. Your second best bet is the CPU, followed by a faster internal hard drive such as the Seagate Momentus XT as your primary drive.

 

Firstly the P7915 is a 260m. This is a good 10-20% faster than the 9800m GTS of the P78xx series. So you get even more life from the system.

While it appears the 79xx's are upgradable to quad core do not bother for gaming or even general usage. The x9100, OEM or ES, is a better choice with Throttle Stop to overclock.

The bios by default should support RAID. My suggestion is to stay away as if the system ever dies so does the data.

External drives, get one that supports both esata and USB 2.0. In this way you can do high speed transfers from the P7915 but still can get the files to a non esata machine. For external you really do not care if it is 2.5 or 3.5, if you really want options get an external HDD dock, esata & usb 2.0, then just purchase bare drives as you need them.

GPU is soldered so this is not upgradable..........

Memory at 8 GB, well if you are running 3GB + used I would say go for it. The extra memory will be used by windows for cache and alow your games a bit more freedom. While gaming it will not increase FPS the Ram GC of cache & programs/data or swap files etc will cause micro stutter, 8GB will help keep you away from this.

Edit; to explain the micro stutter, if the game goes down to 24 FPS if they are evenly spaced the game can appear smooth. If these frames are done where 2 are right next to each other then it skips a few frames before the next two together in the 60 Hz refresh the 24 FPS can be percieved by the eye as only 12 FPS or even worse if 3 frames are sequential. This is the micro stutter the causes the game to loose fluidity of motion. The faster CPU, and even the added ram, can reduce the possibility of this occurance...................

 

Thank for pointing that out, I was thinking 78xx the whole time, not 79xx. The GTX 260M is very close to a desktop 9800GT.

For bootup times, load times and general tasks, a faster HDD like the Momentus XT will help the most. RAID 0 further helps in this area, but if one hard drive fails, both fail. A faster CPU will compliment the GPU for added FPS, but only for as much as the GPU allows before bottlenecking the whole system.

To determine if you want to upgrade your RAM, you should CTRL+ALT+DEL while running a game, click the performance tab and see how much RAM your system is using up.

 

Well, I just ran assassins creed 1. My CPU usage hit 100% quite a few times, and then my display driver stopped responding. This happens quite often, and even updating the drivers doesn't seem to help. I read that it might be a problem with overheating, so I'm getting a laptop cooler which I hope will help to stop the problem. If anybody knows how to solve it, please let me know.

Anyways, my ram stayed under 3 gb usage. I was also downloading a torrent at the same time as I was running the game, and a few chrome windows and files were open, but other then that and my antivirus, everything was off. As far as I know, assassins creed isn't a very graphic and RAM intensive game. I'm getting crysis warhead right now, I'll see how my hardware responds to it and let you guys know.

 

P79xx is well known for having issues with USB devices and the video freezing. try it with all usb devices unplugged and see if you still have an issue.................

 

I did not have any usb devices plugged in at the time. I took down my make-shift laptop cooler, downloaded some temp software, and turned assassins creed on again. My graphics card hit 98 degrees centigrade, and was still going up. Is that normal?

 

Nope, time to clean it out and of course make sure when the video card is hitting those temps the GPU fan is screaming for mercy. If you ahve to do a full tare dowwn to clean it make sure while you are there to redo the GPU paste.................

Edit any more questions on this for me please go to the gateway forums and start a new thread in reference to the issue. I don't get over here that often and there is a full tare down thread over there too..............