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    How to make 3rd Z support 8GB (working solution!)

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by sniper_sung, Sep 30, 2009.

  1. cheebee333

    cheebee333 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Sniper sung,

    Do you know if the new bios (for win7) for z1/z2 support 8gb ram?

    Cheers
     
    cheebee333, Oct 24, 2009
    #51
  2. sniper_sung

    sniper_sung Notebook Evangelist

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    That's a good question. I don't even know about my Z3, didn't risk to try
     
    sniper_sung, Oct 24, 2009
    #52
  3. achau

    achau Notebook Geek

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    Don't worry. It should work.

    Worst case is downgrade your bios back to R2168M3. It is no risk...

    I am running R4043M3 with 8G now. No problem at all. I am even mixing Samsung and Hynix Ram.
     
    achau, Oct 24, 2009
    #53
  4. sniper_sung

    sniper_sung Notebook Evangelist

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    You are using z4 so of course this is no concern of yours :) we z3 users have to worry about it
     
    sniper_sung, Oct 24, 2009
    #54
  5. achau

    achau Notebook Geek

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    I firmly believe that all the Zs are capable to support 8G from the hardware point of view. So, Z1 is able to use 8G as long as it won't use R3xxx bios. A Z4 is not able to boot from 8G if it use R3xxx bios. So the key is to avoid R3xxx bios. From the hardware point of view, I think that Z3 and Z4 are almost identical. Sony just change the outlook of chasis, use a new bios and rename the model number.

    Flash Bios is just two minutes. You can try it and know the result right away. If you cannot boot in 8G, you just take out one 4G Ram and flash back to R2168M3. Why do you worry? :)
     
    achau, Oct 24, 2009
    #55
  6. sniper_sung

    sniper_sung Notebook Evangelist

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    I just worry that they might permanently write some bytes which will disable z3 from booting with 8gb even if re-flashed with r2168m3.
     
    sniper_sung, Oct 24, 2009
    #56
  7. cheebee333

    cheebee333 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Go go go! :p
     
    cheebee333, Oct 24, 2009
    #57
  8. sniper_sung

    sniper_sung Notebook Evangelist

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    Latest update:

    Just finished my work and attempted to upgrade R2168M3 to R4043M3.

    EC version is changed from K1280M3 to K1300M3.

    Good news: Z690 still supports 8GB with R4043M3! :)

    However it is still unknown whether they have disabled raid 0 support by R4043M3 for my model. Without the hidden advanced menu I cannot switch to IDE mode to install XP / Windows Server 2003 without integrating SATA drivers. :(
     
    sniper_sung, Oct 24, 2009
    #58
  9. cheebee333

    cheebee333 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Cool I might go and order a 4gb gskill ddr3 stick
     
    cheebee333, Oct 25, 2009
    #59
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