HP L2000 and pc3200 RAM

Hey guys, I just got this response from HP regarding the L2000 and RAM:

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Thank you for contacting the hpshopping.com Sales Center.

I understand you would like some information on the special edition L2000 notebook. Only PC2700 333MHz memory can be used with this series notebook, it is not compatible with PC3200 400MHz memory.
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Does anyone know what type of RAM module the L2000 uses? I'm guessing it's 200 pin, but i'm not sure.

I really want a Turion (MT chip, not ML) based laptop with a 14 inch widescreen, pc3200 RAM, and perhaps non-integrated graphics. Is that too much to ask??? Will someone please develop it??

 

Why no integrated gfx? your not going to find any upgradable GFX boards with turion processors in them. Secondly you use the crucial memory advisor tool to find out what kinds of ram can be used.

 

You need standard PC2700 200-pin SODIMMs. Crucial and Kingston are safe.

MSI has a Turion notebook with Radeon X700 coming out:
http://www.msicomputer.com/NB/product_spec.asp?model=MS-1029

The Acer Ferrari 4000 Turion notebook with X700 is out now, but a bit expensive.

A Turion with a decent GPU from HP? I wish they'd make one. The Radeon 200M is about the best shared memory GPU you can buy, a few times faster than Intel's, but it's still no substitute for dedicated video memory if you're into gaming.

 

running the 200m on my r4000 does just fine with most newer FPS running mid to high options. I range from 24 fps to 58 fps (30 avg is perfectly fine)

 

while on the topic of graphics, is there a decent, free graphics benchmarking app out there?

I think the Turion + ATI X200 combo will be better than the Intel+Media Accelerator 900 combo.

 

Definately the X200 is better than the GMA 900.Anandtech had a review of the 2 integrated GPU's where the X200 performed a lot better than the GMA 900.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2427

There are few trial benchmarking programs..most popular are the 3DMark series from futuremark...
http://www.futuremark.com/products/

 

ok this is VERY confusing. HP e-mailed me back and told me this:

"I do apologize that this information was not passed on to you in the original reply. The PC2700 RAM uses a 168 pin configuration."

the only pc2700 ram i can find online is 200pin SO-DIMM. anyone know anything about this.

 

B.S....it IS 200-pin.

 

Yeah. Thats just BS. They sell 200pin SODIMM's in their own parts store and thats probably the most reliable & best way to check for memory specifications...

http://partsurfer.hp.com/cgi-bin/sp...gsite=&strsrch=&keysel=Memory+(DIMM)&catsel=?

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Hey somz,

The L2000 should definitely be compatible with PC3200 memory; the reason for this is because in AMD products the CPU (Turion in your case) decides what memory is compatible.

Most notebook memory come in 200 pin configurations. HP most likely thought you were talking about a desktop, because desktop DDR memory comes in the 168 pin variety.

Turion MT paired with a good graphics card would be awesome (would make Centrino look sorry in comparison), but that's not going to be a reality anytime soon, as the Turion processor just recently came out so it'll take awhile for them to become more common. Plus, AMD just filed a lawsuit against Intel, stating that they used predatory practices (claims that Intel discouraged good graphics cards from being used in AMD notebooks). I don't know if this is true or not, but that may be why there aren't that many AMD notebooks with decent graphics cards. :amd64-2:

Hope this information helped you.

 

thanks for the info guys. i'm gonna go ahead and order the L2000 minimal RAM. best buy has that nice 30 day guarantee, so i'll pop in some pc3200 and see what happens. if it works i'll get 512mb x 2 at newegg.

 

Neither the L2000 or the v2000z are listed actually. (yet)

 

What was the result when trying the PC3200 modules instead of the PC2700?
did anyone try it yet? ... did it just ran at 333 alone or did not run at all?

 

Neero,

In fact, I just did. I installed 2x512 MB PC3200 and work without flaw. I wonder how to check the memory's frequency difference in comparison with PC2700.

 

Run CPU-Z (Freeware) and click on the "Memory" tab to tell if your PC3200 is really running at that speed.

You can download CPU-Z at:
http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php#download

 

I think the ram should run at a frequency no greater than the bus frequency of the CPU, and since AMD CPUs use a lower bus-speed, it has to use slower ram too?

 

Actually, current AMD CPUs have an integrated memory controller so memory access goes directly to the CPU, separate from the HyperTransport bus that runs at 2GHz DDR. You're limited to what the memory controller and motherboard (and BIOS) can handle. I don't think HP validates anything other than PC2700 though so if you try PC3200 you should definitely validate the new config with MemTest86+ (as you ought to do for any memory upgrade anyhow).

Intel CPUs have neither integrated memory controllers nor HyperTransport, so their memory latency is considerably higher than AMD's. Memory bandwidth may be higher on Intel DDR2-based systems but at the cost of additional latency. It looks nice on synthetic benchmarks but can bite you in the real world.

 

Please tell us if the PC3200 runs at the supposed 400 MHz DDR (it should say 200 MHz in CPU-Z)! Thanks

 

thanks for letting us know it works

i would like to know what "brand" of modules you used and if it ran at 400

ty

 

Bringing this up again, has anyone actually run the PC3200 RAM at its full speed? I know for sure that HP's own DDR333 chips are set to run at DDR266 speed (for information on how to change the RAM settings, go here and go to last page). Make sure to change it to 200 MHz (DDR400) and not 400 MHz (DDR800)!

Thanks

 

*bump bump*

 

*bump bump*

 

Bumpity Bump

 

I bought a 512Mb Geil pc3200 SODIMM from newegg and installed it in my new L2000 notebook. The default memory speed was set to 160 MHz (2.5-3-3-7) as seen in the images below. I swapped out the pc2700 and replaced it with the pc3200 thinking that if it worked well I would purchase a second pc3200 SODIMM. With the pc3200 memory installed and no other changes made CPU-Z showed the bandwidth to be 200mHz (images below). I'm not sure why the Memory tab listed the cas latency at 2 clocks when the SPD tab lists it at 3 clocks (newegg listed it as 2.5). The system ran for less than a minute when a blue screen flickered momentarily and the notebook shut down. I restarted it, and the system was still unstable. I added the original pc2700 SODIMM to the second slot and rebooted. The system was stable and the error report from the last use came up (image below). CPU-Z now listed the memory bandwidth as 133MHz even though the two sodimms have the same timing values at 166MHz. Frustrated, I attempted to reset the frequency to 166MHz using A64 tweaker but a change to any value causes the system to freeze and have to be forcefully shut down.

I am by no means an expert, but it seems that swapping pc2700 for pc3200 is not plug and play. There may be a memory compatibility problem with the integrated GPU (there are people using the DDR400 on the Acer Ferrari laptop, which I believe has a dedicated GPU).

If anyone could give me some advice on making the system work with the pc3200 memory I would appreciate it.

 

If you're going to attempt PC3200, buy Crucial RAM. Don't mess around. Even then, since HP doesn't test against PC3200 their motherboards and BIOS may or may not play nice with it even if the CPU's integrated memory controller can handle it and then some. Micron memory (Crucial is Micron's retail arm) is the most AMD-friendly RAM out there and what HP told me they test against.

 

Here is a memory guide from and AMD tech doc. It is a little old but shows memory timings have to change as you load them...
I have a Compaq Presario V2311US and changed the memory to 333Mhz and also turned off the 2T timing. I did get my PC2700 factory SODIMMs running at 400MHz for a while but it was unstable. I ordered 2 1GB PC2700's for mine. BTW, the on board video was faster with 1T timing at PC2100 than 2T PC2700.... Also the HT link is 200x4 (800MHz). I can't get it to run at 200x5 (1GHz).

 

my custom ordered v2000z came only with 256MB Infinion memory and according to cpu-z its running at 160mhz this is without any tweak.

then i borrowed another 256MB pc2700(micron) from my acer aspire2000 (this was running @ 166mhz on the acer).Then i could not get 160mhz again on my compaq. It always stays at 133mhz. I thought it was becaused i undervolted my system with "RightMark" but i got the 160mhz back when i removed the other 256MB memory again.

there was nothing wrong with the memory from the acer notebook since it stills run @ 166mhz on the acer when put back. I dont know why this happens

one thing i noticed though is that the 200m automatically borrowed 128MB shared ram from the system when it was upgraded to 512MB and went back to 32MB shared when i removed the other module and my system was 256MB again.

some people posted that their L2000/V2000z 's memroy is clocked at 133mhz stock. can you try to reduce the shared Video memory to 32MB and see if your ram clocks @ 160mhz? Could it be that our video card is limiting our system memory speed when more than 32MB is borrowed?

 

let me correct myself here....

i played around with the video shared ram from 32mb to 128mb and the system memrory (256mb) is still clocked at 160mhz (no tweaks or mods, just undervolted in rmark) so i'm guessing that there are some incompatibility between the memory modules or something like that. (both modules have the same specification timings etc.. according to cpu-z)

 

Probably just something done by HP to get you to buy their RAM...

If your willing, run A64Tweaker and set the RAM speed manually

 

perhaps.

I'm not really a power user or anyting like that. I tried using A64tweaker but my notebook freeze everytime i set it to 166mhz. I am clueless as to what those other setting means. (i dont whant to fry anything by accident.)

But I am still undecided on what RAM to buy (PC3200 or PC2700) there is really no price difference. I will probably would not notice if the PC3200 ran at 166 or not in this notebook(just as log as it does not run 133) but it is nice to have that ram(PC3200) just incase i bought another notebook that needs it. (dont have enough funds to keep on buying rams)

OR i might just stick to the PC2700 that HP recomends( more $$ ) or if someone else here recomends a ram non-HP that atleast runs at 166mhz on this system.

 

I just installed my 2GB and it still runs at DR266. That's the same as the RAM that came with it. I paid $198 at Newegg for 2GB. I got the 512MB running at PC2700 by using the a64 tool and it was stable. Mine is also set at the slow 2T timing for no reason. Of course I have the sister Compaq V2311 laptop.
If you plan on using 2 modules you are wasting your money with DDR400, especially if the sodimms are double rank. look at the second line down in the chart I posted... most people are in that row...

Run at DDR333 with 1T timing if you want speed.

 

thanks for the information troy.. although that chart is beyond me .. i'll try to study it. i will buy one 512 pc2700 (since it is HP recommended for this model) for now maybe from crucial.

 

The new E-series cores (Turions, Venice and San Diego A64s, X2s) are capable of running 1T at DDR400. That was one of the improvements AMD made in the memory controller. That said, the HP motherboard and BIOS still have to cooperate, which they don't willingly do going by your description.

I dislike Infineon memory. I wish HP wouldn't use it. I had trouble getting two Infineon SODIMMs to play nice together in my zv5000z, one of them came with the machine. Switching to two Crucial/Micron SODIMMs fixed things. The price we pay for AMD's high-performance integrated memory controller is that we can't use some of the crap that works with slower Intel parts.

 

Whats the difference between 1T and 2T timings?

 

Just another data point. The OEM memory (samsung in my case will overclock to 200MHz and run on 1T timing with a CAS of 3). It seems pretty stable as well.

 

My laptop had Hynix CL2.5 DDR333 modules in it. I replaced them with two 1GB Kingmax CL2.5 DDR333 modules, Newegg had over 250 positive reviews for the modules so I bought them while they were on sale for $99 each.
I think the BIOS is messed up in these laptops, it is running both sets of RAM at the exact same speed and timings. It looks like the SPD isn't even being looked at. Very annoying.

Can you find updated charts for the Turion? I can't find any updated tech docs from AMD.

 

Congrats. Run 3Dmark2003 and see what your score is.

 

Dunno about an updated chart. You're lucky the Kingmax SODIMMs work at all, they've had an atrociously high failure rate on HP zv5000z/R3000z and other AMD-based machines. (Like I've said, you can't mess around when you have a high-performance integrated memory controller.) It's possible that HP has made their Turion machines' BIOS smart enough to drop back to slower speeds and work rather than die completely (or allow an unstable, BSOD-generating system) when fitted with substandard RAM (kudos to HP if that's the case). Note that Newegg will occassionally censor negative reviews, one of mine mysteriously failed to show up (Lian-Li case, I complained about the restrictive vents and lack of HD vibration dampening in the extremely expensive thing).

 

3dmark03 Scores
Turion ml-37, 512Mb samsung pc2700 512Mb

• @166MHz 2.5 3 3 7 2T timings score: 957
• @200MHz 3 3 3 7 1T timings score: 1257

I also sent back the Geil memory and ordered a 1Gb stick of Crucial PC3200.

 

The 1Gb pc3200 crucial SODIMM was even worse than the GEIL one. With only the crucial stick installed the system refused to boot altogether. Reinstalling the oem pc2700 memory in addition to the pc3200 SODIMM again led to the system setting the memory clock at 133MHz (DDR 266). (This is essentially the same problem that Neero reported earlier in this thread).

It seems that when HP says buy memory from us the really mean buy our memory and only our memory. I'm disappointed. Dead pixel + mediocre wireless reception + memory compatibility issues = my computer may be headed back to hp.

 

That Crucial stick has Micron chips, right? That's disappointing... a single PC3200 Crucial SODIMM should have worked, even though only PC2700 is tested by HP. I guess we're back to "only buy PC2700 if you want to be safe". Hmph.

 

Yes, the chips have micron written on them.

 

i have no idea with how do i translate these information on A64 tweaker
.. right now i have 1x 512 and 1x256 pc2700 modules and they run at 133mhz
i just want them to run at 166mhz. Maybe i'm doing something wrong in a64 tweaker since my notebook crashes every restart. what do i enable? disable? change or set? in a64 tweaker to run @ 166mhz?

 

Sorry Neero, but I think that you are out of luck. Any combination of non-OEM memory that I tried would not overclock at all. Like you said any changes (i.e. 133 ->166) in A64 tweaker=crash. If you want to get it running at 166MHz again, I suggest you buy RAM from HP.

It sucks that they force you to purchase their memory. I actually sent my L2000 back to HP last Thursday and got a refund today! :hp:

 

MichaelK did you send it in becuase you couldnt put the PC3200 RAM in your system?

 

I sent it back beacause of the RAM issue, an annoying dead pixel in the center of the screen, wireless reception that was worse than my four year old notebook with a PCMCIA card, and a heat issue with the hard drive during very light use.

 

there are 2 people in here that has overclocked to 200mhz. while i do not wish to be at 200mhz, i just want the ram to run at 166mhz.

my system runs at 160mhz with one slot occupied and 133mhz with both occupied HP oem or not.

please post your a64 tweaker settings (or any program) to those who has success on this. thank you

 

Sorry to hear that. I think the memory speed is a non-issue, but that's just me; the sticks from Crucial work fine.

My screen was perfect, and the wireless performance is excellent.

As for the heat, another non-issue for me, but I upgraded the HD on my own.

 

MikeC...

Could you share what memprymodel that you are using?

Thanks!
Sean