Maxium Ram for the CF-28

Recently i have been searching for answer's to what can i install on my toughbook, it shows that the same models also came with 1gb ram,
but also it meant the motherboard had to have 512mb soldered, but mine only has 256mb and where ever i looked it said only 256mb, so by chance after stressing panasonic too a answer the question, there said take alot on the help section so i carryed on looking till i gave up and then today i though what the heck just going to buy 512mb ram and try it so i did off ebay,
now after checking the review i went through advance options through google click the ram model number and type panasonic and came to panasonic help section where it was mentioned that version 11 & 12 BIOS will only supports 1GB total RAM as 512 + 512 any bios version under that will not so i checked my bios version and it is 12 so hopefuly with the ram i ordered i'll have 760mb........

before you buy any ram just make sure ur bios is 11 or 12....
or see if there is a bios update for ur model once updated you should have no problems installing a 512mb sdram..........

 

good find that
i did see on one site in US mentioning upgradable to 768 for a secondhand unit, but that is the only time i've seena mention of over 512 total... i have never seen mentioned yet a 1gb unit.
i doubt i'll bother but out of interest what did you pay for your 512?

 

well the ram cost me £20.50p plus 2quid for delivery and total £22.50p,
just hope it dont get caught up in the bloody postal strike,
this postal strike is doing my head in, been waiting for afew letter to come, still havent, also bought 2gb ram for my sister laptop 4 days ago still havent recieved that.........

 

noop, none of us are recieving anything for a while... saw em all stopin up and down outside the lock gates doewn the road... figured not to ask em if they have my parcel.
actually usps are claiming it is in uk, and parcelforce are claiming it has left US, that was days ago so it look like the big bad customs and excise has got it.
somone told me they can put tax on the new price of the item!!!!, if this happens i am screwed as it retailed for about 5k new here :-/

 

dont worry about it, my brother just bought 2 playstation 3 from america, both of which he already sold to guys from his work, just checked usps today and it shows custom cleared so now down too the postman to deliver it,
doubt you'll get any problem at all what is it showing as when you track the parcel, after tracking info comes up click the button aditional details and it will show every date from the date it left where it has been, custom mostly only take half a day to release the parcel,
hopely i'll get the parcel tomorrow caus not doing any thing have to wait for ups to come and collect my phone as the keypad stop working, i contacted hp today and within afew hours there got back to me saying that tomorrow ups will be coming to pick up the phone with there own packaging as well,
started to belive in hp again

 

oh forgot to mention, usps do email info,
so just enter ur tracking number and give ur email address that way every time the parcel moves you will be updated on the progress through emails.....

 

usps still says international dispatch from CA 28th
parcelforce agrees with leaving CA 28th, and now says "advised" for parcel status
wow a compainy that actually gives a s*** about is customers? are you sure
random off topic, supposed to meet some people in shepherds bush tomorrow (aroma if you know it), is there any chance of parking free or very cheap (for most of the day) within walking distance?

 

well there are some roads just before you get into bush, most side streets need a permit now to park but there are some which are free, there is a shopping centre near the cineama acroos from bush station try there some times it be's free even if not it is cheap,
unless you want to try the side streets but most free stops are normaly taken,
if you get there by midday then try it.........

 

Really Pissed Off Now!!!!!!!!!!

thought i'll see if the parcel got through and now it says custom charge

 

damn taxes, hope they at least attempt to be reasonable.
i'm thinking a ps3 might follow me home from hong kong this christmas, along with some other stuff.
good luck

 

still no idea of what i have been charged but looks like 17.5% vat on the total,
as after reading it clearly says charges for vat will be charged per box item so even though there are 2 items am getting charged for it as one.....
plus have to pay parcel force extra fees just too redeliver the damm parcel.....
maybe if i collect it there wont charge me the extra fee just the vat
the parcel is held at acton depot maybe i could break in

 

bummer to hear you got whacked for vat, but my understanding is if they stop you getting hit only for vat is getting off light, they can put on an import duty too!
i think the fee from parcelforce is for customs handling, if you get out of paying it i'd like to hear.

03-08-2007 18:34 National Hub Sorted in hub
03-08-2007 09:26 International Hub En route to delivery depot
03-08-2007 09:24 International Hub Arrived in destination country
28-07-2007 23:04 CAPE ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS) Left origin country
27-07-2007 20:42 Delivery Agent - UNITED STATES AMERICA Collected from customer

is my progress so far, thats from parcelforce, doesnt mention any customs charges yet, it would be nice if they gave you some idea of what a typical procedure should be, what steps can exist... well at least there is some progress after days without an update.

anyway. back on topic did you get your ram and put it in?

 

ur one is fine, it would have said custom charges.........

anyway i havent recived the ram yet so once i'll recieve it i will let you know how it worked out...........

 

right
it seems that despite my vaio 128MB ram fitting in the cf-28's slot it is not detected.
i have two sticks both give me nada, i'm interested if anyone has any idea why?
not really bothered about getting it to work as i'm really after taking it to 512 total.

 

what model number is the ram ur trying to put in?????????/

 

it is mitsubishi ram
pc100-222-620
MH32S64APFB-7

which when i google it says 256 meg... :-/ hmmm
surely it cant have 0 zero ram onboard can it (the sony it came from)?
bought this ram more than 5 years ago, my stoopid brain
there are two, they are both identical

 

http://saskatoon.kijiji.ca/c-buy-an...n-Laptop-Memory-DELL-IBM-HP-W0QQAdIdZ19270889

that site specifically mentions being compatible with the 28
hmm time to put myself on muppet alert and plug it in again (4th time)

 

hey hey,

ur model only takes pc133 and certain pc100, best stick with the pc133,
you have 256mb onboard so if nothing is showing up it means that ram aint compatible for it.........

 

well
i found this mention on the toughbook download site

512KB DIMM memory support
BIOS for CF-28S3/SR/ST, Mark III [BIOS Version: 11a]

this looks like it might be it, my current bios is v3.00L12
numbers dont seem to match to anything 11a?

 

bummer
off i go to buy pc133 then grr
anyone wanna swap some pc 133 for my pc100 LOL

 

when you start up ur laptop what does the bios say, any thing like 512kb dimm mentioned on start up........

 

sorry, got totally engrossed in cf-28 land last night
yeah it is saying about 512kb dimm on boot.
i'm pretty much sold on the having to buy some 133, i know that ram was picky i bought and sent back two sticks of different specs for the sony to detect it.

so i will hang on till you get your ram delivered and decide from there, i think extra 256 is enough for my uses, but if there is not much extra cost and the 512 you talk about works i might just max her out.

i'm sure i've seen the answer to this in this forum but cant find it now, how to stop the mouse pointer jumping around? its a reg entry isnt it?

 

yep same here keep getting that problem once i upgraded,
its ur gps doing it, as windows keeps installing it has a ballpoint series mouse or something like that, best thing to do is just disable the gps in bios install all the drivers so you have the toughscreen working, and then enable it and go into device manager through windows and disable the mouse, only down side to this is that the gps takes for ever to get a fix............

 

hmmmm
ok
i found a document from panasonic that mentions this exact problem, which mentions a registry fix.
but is only for cf-30 models, and i'm sure i remember someone mentioning making a reg entry for something on this forum.

anyhow everything else is working fine, and i'll use your workaround for now

i have one last unknown device, all i can think is modem but that is disabled in bios, overall very happy though.
this laptop rocks.

 

the unknow devices is ur hotkey driver, once you have installed everything locate ur hotkey driver, not the hotkey manage file, the hotkey driver file is a zip file extract into a folder, then go into properties and device manage click on unknow device and click update driver and locate to the folder where you extracted all the hotkey driver files..........

also read testing gps as it will answer ur questions about the gps
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=143012&page=7

 

Yup! That's what I was thinking...

 

recieved the ram for the dell laptop but still havent recieved it for the toughbbook just received email saying i should get it by thursday latest....

anyway going to run upstairs and install the ram and test some new software.....

 

sweet, thanks guys... heh hotkey driver that was it.
everything is now pretty sweet.
i even have some raw gps data scrolling by in winfastgps
now i can either install some software or sit here until i can read it raw matrix style

 

Now.... Go get lost and turn it on and find your way back! Use that thing!

 

toughbook.......pm sent


guess james has already got lost trying to find his way back.......Lol.......

 

postman just gone and still no ram, all i got was a reminder from DLVA that my tax will run out end of this month ........more money going out end of this month.....

 

DLVA? What is that and what do they do?

 

in other terms DLVA run the show here with cars,
once a week you see them driving around with camera to check if you have road tax on ur cars,
also there computer systems checks and 2weeks before ur road tax runs out there will inform you, if you dont get ur road tax renewd by the end of the month you'll get fined for every day ur car sits with out any road tax, unless you declare ur car off road,
also if say you say ur car is off road and it aint and there see it, there will take it and crush it, no question ask, just saw today a beautiful bmw and volvo going on there way to the crusher

 

Okay... Now I remember. I belong to another forum that has a lot of UK members... They talk about that tax a lot. And I thought WE were taxed over here!

The tax you mention almost sounds like the personal property tax in Virginia that they are trying to phase out. I think they should just come up with a higher world flat sales tax and then everyone would pay... Rich, poor... it wouldn't matter. No tax breaks for the rich or corporate loopholes. If you buy something you pay tax on it...

Oh well... things would be different if I ran the planet...

 

shall i start voting for you in the next election!!!!

 

I'm gonna rant off topic
lol yeah but you actually have to be in the UK before you understand the meaning of the word tax, trust me if something can be taxed, we are taxed on it... we even pay tax on tax!!! (i kid you not).

thats a bummer your ram not coming, i'm waiting to hear the results so i can decide what route to take with mine.

 

DJACID... Are you talking about unsoldering and resoldering the RAM that is underneath the removeable RAM? That's some fine soldering skills!

Definitely keep us posted.

 

too be honest if i tried i'll most probaly do it, but would need a spare motherboard to work on first i had 2 toshiba a60 which i bought from the market very chaep both had the same problem on board ram had died so i resoldered new one and it worked but my first attempt didnt go too well as i fried the first motherboard,
i have a pdf some where which explains how to do it!!!!

what am doing with the cf-28 is, that i bought 512mb ram which after reading the motherboard/ram chart should work so once it arrives i'll let everyone know if there can stick 512mb ram into there cf-28........

 

Ouch, and I thought our government was making a mint...

I'd really like to see the memory soldering job, it sounds hard but well worth it.

I finally got my new toughbook today, so I'll have to see what I can do to upgrade this thing.

 

how is it looking?????
i want a new one too, my one looks like its been through a war,
or i could try and do a make over on it!!!

 

My new one looks great. I'm very happy with it actually. Minimal scratches, all port covers are there, and more goodies than I can shake a stick at.

However, I'm a little pissed at the seller of the other one I bought. He gave me a deadline to get it back to him because he was going on his honeymoon, so I paid extra money to rush that thing back to him ASAP. He's had two days now, and still no refund ($400), and he'll be gone tomorrow. So now I've got $25 to live on til Friday, and I'm a little angry about that. Coulda been $35 if I sent it ground.

 

what a w**ker some ppl are just evil,
i bet he knows you have returned it aand read ur emails but just cant be bother,
why dont we wish him a evil marriage.....

but living on that much money well it reminds of a couple of years back when i met this nice girl went all crazy, was with her for a month and flew back with her to south africa where she wanted me to stay well crazyness blew out and i ran out of money came back to london and lived on beans and toast for the next month till i sorted some money out(from my parents).........
well too be honest at that time i was pissed for spending all my money but it was a laugh.........

 

I find this off-topic rambling to be tiresome.

Maybe someone should start a "random thoughts and chit-chat" thread.

The noise level really reduces the usefulness of this forum. I find myself not coming back here as often as I first did, when it was direct and on-topic.

 

Personally... I like the chit-chat to some degree. If you go through the posts there is a lot of technical discussion as well. I have belonged to other forums that were pretty cut and dried... I stopped going there on a regular basis. Forums are about knowledge and friendships...

With that said... Maybe we should have a general discussion thread too.

Just my .02

 

DJACID
any chance i could get that memory soldering tips pdf from you
would like to try it out on some old electronics or motherboards, it's a skill i'd like to have.
could you maybe post a link to the ram you bought so i can check out the spec?
and just to be clear, your unit is a 1GHz with 256MB on board ??

 

as i was telling toughbook yesterday the cf-28 that support 512mb ram are the 800mhz and 1000mhz versions only, also ur bios has to be a 11 or 12 with 512kb dimm support, to find this out simply boot up ur toughbook wait for the bios summary to come up and it will say 512kb dimm, if it says that then great ur model will support 512mb ram,
if not and urs is the 800mhz or 1ghz version go onto the panasonic driver pages and download the bios update and make a bootable floppy and place the update to disk and reboot......
now the tough question is what ram does the toughbook support well it will only take -
Specifications:
Form Factor: SODIMM 144-pin
Data Speed: 133MHz,
Data Integrity Check: Non-Parity
Synch, Unbuffered
Logical Type: SDRAM
Supply Votage: 3.3V (3.0/3.5)
CAS Latency: CL3 (CL3/CL3.5)
I have double checked all the motherboard files i have and double checked the intel boards on these toughbook and the above is correct,
also remember always go for a good brand nothing cheap as these motherboard have soldered ram on board using cheap ram will only make the onboard work harder, in other terms it be like over clocking the board resulting in motherboard failure!!!!!!!!
my ram i bought will be here tomorrow and after i checked it out i will post about it, also pls wait for me to check then everyone going crazy and start buying 512mb ram and then complaining if it dont work.....
the result will be up by monday....

 

DJACID..... I CAN'T BELIEVE you didn't post your good news here!

 

I am new and have learned a lot here. A little bit of bantering about is good. It gives you an idea what kind of people you are talking to.

 

Well sorry for getting back so late but like i said i'll put up my results on monday and well according to the day it is -
check pic below

 

I've already ordered my RAM... Everyone should jump on this... Just make sure that you follow djacid's directions to the letter with regard to exactly what type of RAM to get!