Ram Upgrade on FW

Hey all,

I got the FW139E from Best Buy with 3 gigs of ram. I'd like to remove the 1 gig module in the second slot and replace it with a 2 giger so that I can run the memory in dual channel mode. I was wondering if this is possible or if I have to get two new (2 gig) modules so that the ram matches up in terms of latency, brand, etc. Or is it cool to just get one stick from a high quality brand like crucial or kingston that matches the specs on the pre-installed sony memory? Thanks.

 

From what I've read the overall performance gain of Dual Channel is very small. I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Here's the Dual Channel guide that answers your questions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=167472&highlight=dual+channel

 

That post confirms what I saw on my current laptop. I was running with a single 1GB stick for a long time and CPUZ showed single channel mode. I added another 1GB stick and it showed dual channel mode. Oh, boy, I thought!! But my SiSandra memory benchmark improvement was only about 10%. That is nothing...it might get you 1% overall system performance improvement. Shocking to be honest. I would have figured double the bandwidth. So dual channel really is hype.

 

I think it's hype as well, but I would imagine there is at least some noticeable overall improvement.

Think Positive! If you think it will operate in dual channel mode, it will!

 

Well I just checked the laptop with CPUZ, and it says that its already running in Dual Channel mode, fancy that. I guess you don't have to have ram modules with the same capacity to run in dual channel mode.

 

QQ i just bought 4GB to run in DC mode :\

 

Correct. It will run the first gig of the 2GB stick and the 1GB stick in Dual Channel. When it hits the second gig of the 2GB stick, it downshifts to Single Channel because there's no second gig bank in the slot with the 1GB stick. CPUZ won't show you that....it just sees Dual Channel Mode bit set in the memory controller.