CF-C1 Business - Rugged

I just love these Panasonic tough books, I've owned the CF-30, CF-18, CF-19 but I have to say, the CF-C1 is the best for
day to day technical business work. The others are awesome for harsh environments such as workshops.

I don't see many posts by owners of the CF-C1, I just recently got this machine late last year and love it! Has anyone upgraded the RAM to 8 or 16gb? My model is the MK2 and I've seen on the Intel website that my processor can take up to 16gb, but have heard that the 32bit systems will not acknowledge or see this extra RAM. Please chime in and lets start talking about this great machine.

Model No. CF-C1BDHAZ1M CF-C1MK2S10MK2
System Memory 4GB RAM
32GB Ready Boost
MultiTouch + Digitizer
CF-VEBC11U Port Replicator-DVD Functions Include
DVD±RW / DVD-RAM

 

That is right , if you are using 32bit operating system then the max is 4GB but will only show 3.5GB. Now if you were using a 64bit OS then you should be using 16GB because it needs more memory to run. I have a CF-53MK1 with a i5 cpu W7 64bit and 16GB memory and a CF-52MK4 with a i5 cpu W7 32bit 4GB memory and they both run just as fast as the other. I see no difference between 4GB and 16GB. The startup times are all the same.
What are you running XP Pro or W7 ??

 

I've upgraded mine (mk1) to 8GB, max supported by 520m. I could always use more ram, be it for I/O caching, (temp) RAM disks, VMs, or for programs with large data sets.

 

I'm using W7 Pro. Do you have the 32bit system or the 64bit? What do you think about the SSDrives? I'm looking at the SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD500KW 2.5" 500GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD). I'm hoping it would work and make this machine even more quick.

 

I am using 32bit on my CF-52MK2 and 64bit on my CF-52MK4 / CF-53MK1 . I only use SSD's in my Toughbooks from 80GB to 240GB...Intel , Samsung and Kingston. Startup times are very fast...19/21 seconds on my CF-53 and 52. Keep an eye on newegg.com because I have seen prices of $0.50 - $0.60 a gb. I got my 120GB for $69.00 and my 240GB for $140.00 . Once you use a SSD you will never go back to a standard drive

My SSD's
intel X25 , 320 , 330 , 520
Samsung 830 , 840
Kingston HyperX 3K

 

Do you have the 32bit OS? Even though Windows does not recognize more than 4GB, will the 520m use the extra ram anyhow?

 

From what I have read...no it will not

 

+1 What windows can't see, can't be dedicated to a graphics card. pity, but that's the way it is.

 

This is partially correct. Do you know about the PAE (Physical Address Extention)?

Anyway - better use 64bit OS.

 

PAE is something Micro$oft decided NOT to use in their OS'es, probably because of licensing and/or driver instability (>4GB).
They could as well use it, to support more than 4GB (up to 64GB) on a 32bit OS. There are patches to enable 36-bit memory addressing in 32bit Windows.

Linux doesn't have such limitation, so you can use more than 4GB without using a 64bit OS/kernel. There is one limitation, in that one single process cannot use more than 4GB, but if you have multiple applications, then each can use up to 4GB (think of virtual machines, as an example).

So, to sum it up, even if you have only 4GB, using PAE you can fully use it. I think I'll try to find those Windows patches to test stability. It sure beats reinstalling Windows from scratch, and then reinstaling all the Panasonic drivers (I don't have a 64bit Recovery DVD). I'll try it in the C1 (8GB) and 19(6GB).

Oh, another benefit of using 32bit + PAE vs. using 64bit, besides 64bit driver availability/programs versions, is that memory usage should be lower in 32bit mode, than it 64bit, comparing the same programs/data sets.