The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Anyone tried to install 4GB RAM on an old SZ which supports only 2GB

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by k77316, Dec 25, 2009.

  1. k77316

    k77316 Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    7
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Im thinking about to install 4GB RAM on SZ3XP. It only supports 2GB and Im wondering if it can take 4GB.

    Anyone tried? is there a workaround or something?

    Thanks for your help in advance!
     
    k77316, Dec 25, 2009
    #1
  2. hendra

    hendra Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    157
    Messages:
    2,020
    Likes Received:
    6
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Hi, I have SZ3. SZ3 has older chipset and hence the BIOS can only see 3GB.
     
    hendra, Dec 25, 2009
    #2
  3. k77316

    k77316 Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    7
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Is bios the bottleneck or OS?

    Going up from 2GB to 3GB would be good enough to get little more performance.
     
    k77316, Dec 25, 2009
    #3
  4. hendra

    hendra Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    157
    Messages:
    2,020
    Likes Received:
    6
    Trophy Points:
    56
    BIOS is absolutely the bottleneck. BIOS is the supreme master. If the BIOS could only see 3GB, no OS in the world would be able to use more than 3GB in such system, not even a 64-bit OS.
     
    hendra, Dec 25, 2009
    #4
  5. k77316

    k77316 Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    7
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Thanks Hendra for your answers!

    Do you have 3GB installed? What memory modules did you use? I tried searching Kingston modules and 1GB was the max. for SZ.
     
    k77316, Dec 25, 2009
    #5
  6. hendra

    hendra Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    157
    Messages:
    2,020
    Likes Received:
    6
    Trophy Points:
    56
    I had Crucial. Bought 2x2GB just to get a slight boost from Dual-Channel Memory, eventhough it could only see 3GB. Any 200-pin SODIMM, DDR2 PC2-5300 should work.
     
    hendra, Dec 25, 2009
    #6