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Upgrading Elitebook 8740w

Discussion in 'HP' started by Donald Z., Feb 2, 2016.

Donald Z. Newbie

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Ok, so I am overhauling my 8740w. Its running the 620m with 2x4gb of ram. I'm changing the processor to a quad, can I use 16gb of ram now? or am i limited to the 8gb. Changing out the keyboard, couple keys broke off recently. and ditching the optical for a SSD. Any other suggestions? No this is not the IPS though i wish it was.

Donald Z., Feb 2, 2016

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SL2 Notebook Deity

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Update the BIOS if needed first.

Unless you know that you need 16 GB, do the SSD upgrade with a clean OS install first before buying RAM, because that will make the most difference. Remember to only have the SSD attached when installing Windows (if that's what you intend to use), and attach the HDD afterwards. Also put the SSD where the HDD used to be, there's a slight chance that the connector for the DVD is slower. (Probably not, but swapping the HDD for the SSD is an easy task anyway.)

AFAIK, any 8740W can use 8 GB RAM modules, the difference between 2 and 4 core models is that the latter have four RAM slots. Yours should have two slots.

Useful links:

http://h20628.www2.hp.com/km-ext/kmcsdirect/emr_na-c02749041-1.pdf
http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/c04112600.pdf

Last edited: Feb 12, 2016

SL2, Feb 8, 2016

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