Which Toughbooks will handle 16GB ram? Any?

Are there any units that will run w/16GB ram?

I have a friend that runs huge spreadsheets and databases for her financial consulting business. She is looking for a new(er) unit but wants something able to run 64-bit W7 (no problem there) and 16GB ram. Can be full-rugged, semi-rugged or business-rugged models.

It doesn't matter if spec say max 8Gb if anyone has knowledge that 16GB will work in a specific model.

Thank you.

 

My CF-53MK1 and CF-52MK4 all run 64bit and 16GB which both of them have installed in them...also 240GB SSD :thumbsup:

View attachment 103203

 

Excellent. Thank you Blair.

Anyone else have info on other models? Thanks.

 

I "think" all the I5 models will handle 16gb. All of the toughbooks with the 4500 intel chipset will handle 8 GB.

 

Okay, thanks for the info Paul.

 

not all, only from 2nd gen Core i5 up.

For older models, supporting 8GB, the ones I think you're refering to, are the ones with GS45 chipset: 19mk3 (8GB proven here on the forum), 30mk3 (should work w/ 8GB).

on 1st gen Core models (19mk4: i5-540UM**, 31mk1: i5-520M, C1mk1: i5-520M - 8GB TESTED by me, works OK, F9* i5-5[26]0m) the IMC in the CPU can only handle 8GB (as per ark.intel.com).
* CF-F9 comes with 2GB soldered on the MB, so max ram is only 6GB.
** CF-19mk4 - TESTED 2+8GB=10GB boots, but crashes when it uses >8GB

on 2nd gen Core models (19mk5: i5-2520M, 31mk2: i5-2520M, C1mk2: i5-2520M) max supported ram is listed as 16GB.
I'm about to try 12GB on a C1mk2 - TESTED by me, works OK.

on 3rd gen Core models (19mk6: i5-3320M, 31mk3: i5-3360M, C2 i5-3427U) all the CPUs can handle 32GB - but you'd need 2x16GB sticks, pretty expensive;
not sure about BIOS support.

 

The CF-31JPL2R1M's we have support 16GB

 

Gear6, thank you for the info. That's great.

Rob, I have not had a chance to get details of what she needs, other than cpu and ram. I should be talking with her in the next couple days and will find out if she needs/wants full-rugged. I was planing on contacting you later in the week when I have more details.

 

Cf-19mk5 with 8gb because I work a lot with Adobe. But 16Gb on spreadsheets must be really awefull. On a fully rugged you will have the limitation on the extrernal display resolution and the limited 11/13" display. So I don't know if working on such large spreadsheets is possible with the limited real estate on your display. Perhaps the cf-19mk6 or coming mk7 will have better external resolutions?! I do hope so!

 

Have you looked for a resolution hack for your chipset? I know most of the older toughbooks chipsets have a resolution hack that can be used on external monitors.

 

darn, no I even never heard of it! That would be really nice!
Any idea where to find it? Thanks man!

 

Give me the info, or I can dig up your chipset specs and I will see what I can find out for you.

 

thanks man!
chipset specs you mean something like Intel® Core™ i5-2520M vPro with Intel HD 3000 graphics?

 

The only problem I can see with messing with the display graphics is if you need to change the driver at all it's going to mess up some features on the TB.

 

The old way of doing it is you kept the same driver, you just modded one of the inf files. I haven't had to do it in so long I am having to read back over it and find what I need for the newer chipsets.

Here is how it is done on older chipsets.

How to Get 1920x1080 Full HD Resolution From Your Laptop

The chipset can do it, just some resolutions are locked out / not added as a choice. All you are doing it modding the inf file to have the choice you want in it.


Some of the video mods I do, I do use a non Panasonic driver, but that is not needed for this.

 

woohoo !!
the i5-540UM in the 19mk4 supports more than 8GB, contrary to Panasonic, and contrary to Intel ARK | Intel® Core - L.E. - NOT QUITE !

I'm writing this in my 19mk4 with Fedora 17 with 10GB RAM @800Mhz (2GB from factory + 8GB Crucial DDR3-L 1600 CL11)

Code:

[root@fbox ~]# dmidecode |grep CF19 && dmidecode |grep CPU && echo && dmidecode |grep -A8 -B6 DIMM && free
	Family: CF19-4
	Product Name: CF19-4
	Version: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU       U 540  @ 1.20GHz

Memory Device
	Array Handle: 0x001D
	Error Information Handle: Not Provided
	Total Width: 64 bits
	Data Width: 64 bits
	Size: 2048 MB
	Form Factor: SODIMM
	Set: None
	Locator: DIMM 1
	Bank Locator: DIMM 1
	Type: DDR3
	Type Detail: Synchronous
	Speed: 800 MHz
	Manufacturer: Not Specified
	Serial Number: 2044F510
	Asset Tag: Not Specified
	Part Number: Not Specified
	Rank: Unknown
--
Memory Device
	Array Handle: 0x001D
	Error Information Handle: Not Provided
	Total Width: 64 bits
	Data Width: 64 bits
	Size: 8192 MB
	Form Factor: SODIMM
	Set: None
	Locator: DIMM 2
	Bank Locator: DIMM 2
	Type: DDR3
	Type Detail: Synchronous
	Speed: 800 MHz
	Manufacturer: Not Specified
	Serial Number: 62120000
	Asset Tag: Not Specified
	Part Number: Not Specified
	Rank: Unknown
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:      10036628    1559040    8477588          0      59404     713236
-/+ buffers/cache:     786400    9250228
Swap:            0          0          0

So theoretically it can support 16GB, but I have only one 8GB DIMM... for now

Will follow with Win7 screenshot.

LATER EDIT: after trying to run Memtes86+ 4.20, it almost instantly got an Unknown Interrupt, and wouldn't continue. So, I may have cheered too early.
Seems linux didn't get to use more memory than the CPU support, so it didn't crash.

Later Edit 2: I managed to get Linux to crash too: mounted a 9GB tmpfs in /tmp.

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/bigfile bs=1G count=9

(1GB over the maximum CPU supported RAM)
guess what: after less than a second after pressing enter, it rebooted instantly by itself....

Just for curiosity I booted Win7 x32 (didn't get the time to install 64bit), and it listed 10GB, but used only 3, so it should run with no issues, but not very useful.


So, what do you know... Intel is right.

well, you can't say I didn't try

 

See if you can get the rest of that ram in a ram disk, you could use it that way.

 

I just did that in Linux, with tmpFS which is exactly a dynamic ram disk filesystem (see my update).

 

Its the same with the 965 chipset Toughbook. On a record, it has only 4gb max. but actually it can support up to 8Gb. Its ddr2 btw.

ohlip

 

Nearly all of the Premium ones in Japan have been able to use 16GB for quite awhile. I need to sell my J10 actually (has the i7-2620M, 512GB SSD, and 16GB of memory). The LX3 I just got also has 16GB of memory.