How to make 1st-3rd generations of Z support 8GB RAM?

I'm trying to find some in the UK but no luck yet. Via Micron minimum order quantity is 100!

S

 

with VT enabled I plan to use Z for a while. i have also tried to contact their reseller Silica, an Avnet company in the UK. at the beginning they told me that the MOQ is 100, however after they realized that these modules are expensive, they agreed to sell only a pair to me. However they only sell to companies, not to individuals. In the payment procedure they need to use a company's account. That is really annoying. I will try to buy a pair from the Repair Services in China this September. (Just tell them that I have a high-end Z and my child pulled out the pair of memory moduels and threw them into water, and now I need a new pair. Hopefully they'll sell me a pair without examining my laptop.)

If you have found a way of buying a pair of Micron in the UK, please do tell me! Thanks!

 

Well actually it was via reseller Arrow, who Micron put me in touch with.

Did you get a price from Silica?

S

 

The price I got from Silica was about 360 GBP for a pair. (Note that the price from repair services in China is only 200 GBP for a pair.)

Tried to contact Micron again. This time they put me to Farnell.com. They are the only company who agreed to sell to individuals so far I've met. Still waiting for the response from them.

 

That's not as bad as I expected, but still expensive.

I'm still waiting for a price from Arrow.....

S

 

Maybe it is possible to do a joint purchase. I own a company, so I can also buy from Silica.

 

Just saw this on Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148289 then checked Crucial for that exact model http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT51264BC1067. On the photo you can see Micron logo on the chips. Here's hope that it's what we are waiting for.

 

The thing is that Crucial is a subsidiary of Micron. Furthermore, if one ever notices, Crucial RAMs almost always use Micron chips on them. However, the question here is on whether the OEMs use a different "special" Micron RAM that has lower voltages because if that is the case, then it is a lot harder to obtain them as those are considered "OEM exclusive" products....

 

Unfortunately this is exactly the Crucial module I have tested and proven not to work with my Z described in my OP.

I have just placed an order to buy a Micron pair from a repair service centre in China, at the cost of 100 GBP each. I have checked and confirmed the part number with the engineer. I have no idea why there is such a huge price difference.

 

Now that sounds more like it! Is it a straightforward process buying them from China? Can you post details about how to do this?

Cheers,

Stephen

 

Unfortunately it is not straight-forward at all. I have tried to call all the 3 repair-centres in my home city. 2 of them refused to sell parts from Sony directly to me without examining my laptop and charging me the minimum labour fee and repair fee. The last one told me selling parts to me is violating their contract with Sony so I should keep a low profile - not to let the two other repair centres know. They can forge a case ID and a report for my laptop. It takes about 5 working days for the memory to arrive, and I might have to ask my friend to ship it to the UK declaring it's a 10 usd electronics to avoid huge amount of custom charges.

The engineer has also helped me to check the part number for raid cable, which is also confirmed to be A-1553-769-A in China. The part number and price for the framework holding 2 SSDs is still not known - the engineer will tell me later.

I guess there is a possibility that this specific memory module only goes for OEM uses but will never go for retails.

However the good news is that there are more and more memory companies successfully improved their memory products by reducing power consumption. It won't be too long before Z can boot up with 8GB from other brands, as long as there is not a BIOS limit.

 

Did more investigation. Here it is step by step.
- http://www.memoryamerica.com/sk34g106mb.html Looks interesting.
- Click on image to enlarge. Micron chips with clear designation.
- search Google for "micron d9jpq", 3rd result is XLS file. Download.
- second spreadsheet, find D9JPQ, maps to MT41J512M8THU-187E part
- the part we are looking for is http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail?part=MT16JSS51264HY-1G1
- click on Resources & Support tab, download "Part numbering chart for Micron memory modules"
- check the chart, in the table components for 1G1 module should end in 187E
- match!
- also check http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail?part=MT41J512M8THU-187E

What do you think?

 

I don't quite understand what you are trying to say. They use the same memory banks?

CT51264BC1067 is what I tested and returned. It's simply the chips and circuits are very electrically hungry.

 

Good news. Other brands of 8GB (2x4GB) will also work in the Vaio Z notebook. Read the following link for more details:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5166385&postcount=9286

Good luck.

* Credit goes to ZugZug for his experimentation.

 

omg great find!

I have just ordered a pair of Micron modules in China (MT16JSS51264HY, 149 USD each) from a VAIO repair center and they're on the way to the UK and should arrive by this Friday or next week. (if lucky enough to bypass the UK customs)

Thanks for sharing that information! I'll try it out

 

ffs if the advanced menu were discovered earlier than my previous orders I guess I would have kept that pair of Corsair and I should have been happy running x64 systems already

 

ZugZug could you please tell the brand of this memory module? You mentioned it's Micron banks on Hynix chips. What does it appear in Everest/CPU-Z or whatever hardware identification program? What's the manufacturer? What's the part number?

Thanks!

 

No, I thought it would be on Micron chips but it is on Hynix, nothing Micron-related in these DIMM. It's in fact similar to what Z originally had.

Shows as Hynix (Hyundai) HMT451S6MMR8C-G7.
Z came originally with HMT125S6AFP8C-G7.

 

Great job!

Now I no longer need to worry about compatibility of the Micron modules on the way. Before your discovery there was only hard evidence of Z2 (aka Z590 in US) booting with 8G Micron, not Z3. Now we can assume that Sony didn't intentionally limit maximum RAM of Z3 (aka Z690 in US) down to 6G for marketing strategies.

 

Still haven't got 8GB yet. I have tried to enable DRAM Timings settings however the BIOS reports 0GB for my original 4GB, and Windows Server 2008 Enterprise SP2 32-bit reports 32GB installed, 4GB available... What the hell is this?

 

hmm.. this will also work for Z540 ?
I didn't quite understand how to get to the advanced BIOS menu?

 

You need at least one cold boot (from turned off state) for it to kick in. Otherwise it may get confused.

 

Don't know for sure though don't see why it would not.
Enabling advanced menu is done similar to enabling VT-x in Z. See thread on VT-x.

 

i have tried several cold boots, but it still reports 0GB in BIOS and 32GB in Windows...

I have tried many tests, and here comes my conclusion:

By enabling that option, it looks like the laptop will not read the information of current installed modules but rather uses the information read when the option is disabled and the laptop is boot'ed successfully last time.

If a smaller DIMM is installed on any slot (or removed from), the BIOS will report 0GB.

May I know your model number and BIOS version? Thanks!

 

Did you ever receive your RAM and attempt to install it?

 

Look at his signature. 8GB works well with any BIOS other than R30xx

 

Bump, any more news on this?

 

To start off, I'm running a second gen VGN-Z (bought in an Oceania country). It came with 3GB of Elpida branded sticks from the Sony Style store.

Reading around these forums, people have had issues with RAM where there were 8x chips per side on each card (hence 16x chips per card). Brands having this many chips per card back then and today are most notably Hynix and Samsung; these two back in the day did NOT work.
However, there were confirmed reports of cards with 4x chips per side, working without issue. These were Micron, Crucial, and some Kingston cards.

But that was a few years ago now.
Noting that the prices have dropped alot since then, I thought I'd take a bullet and buy myself some Samsung sticks (two 4GB cards at 1066MHz).

They work on my VGN-Z; BIOS sees 8GB and W7 x64 detects all 8GB of it.
The only explanation for these sticks working is that these Samsungs use different, less power-hungry chips than the older generation, hence being able to be used without issue. And alas, the reason why 4x chipped RAM always worked in the first place (never needed as much power as 8x chipped variants). These Samsungs I have here have that RoHS and green-logo marks next to the serial number. So I would assume these consume less than the RAM that were made back in 2008.

Working proof:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/480610-sony-vaio-z-vgn-591u-w-8gb-ram-3.html#post6930818

@mertd93
On that thread link above, you stated you purchased the Crucial kit. Those should work fine with your current BIOS ( R2169M3 ). I'm personally running on R2170M3 at the moment, though I've noticed that Sony released R2171M3 a few months back.

...Though I usually use this laptop with the motto 'if it ain't broke / an issue, don't upgrade'.
People who know me here would probs be laughing at me reading this, considering the mods I've done and still have planned...

 

Do you plan on using a 64-bit system too? I see in your sig you're using Vista x86 (32-bit)

 

I think the 64-bit OS is on my list in the near future, do you have any suggestions for me as how to go about it?

 

So if it works fine with the R2169M3 BIOS I should leave it alone for now?

 

You'll want to back up important information and then install the OS and delete the Vista files. What happens if you go from Vista to Win7 is that, if you just click through the regular installation, windows saves your vista files on your HDD wasting space. There's a thread about installing Win 7 on the VGN-Z around here.