SZ RAM Clocks (Napa)

Dear All,

I'm running SZ370P here, which comes with Napa platform and C2D T7200 inside. As I've started using Lightroom and Photoshop a lot of late, I thought a memory upgrade would give my laptop a bit of a boost in terms of handling large LR libraries and PS files. I looked up my chipset specs and went hunting for RAM, ending up with Kingston HyperX 2x2GB as my primary choice. KHX5300S2LLK2/4G has 4-4-4-12 timings for my setup.
Now the interesting part starts. Before purchasing, I was able to unscrew the RAM from my dad's SR which was capable of running at 800mhz (my memory of choice is capped at 667mhz). After plugging it into my PC and launching Everest, I saw that it was running at 533mhz! ! I expected it to be at 667 all the way.. Does that mean that BIOS (R0096N0 or R112N0, tried both) does not read SPD in the memory itself and has some timings preset that abuses any RAM that is inserted there.
Did anybody care enough to check the timings when upgrading RAM? Any thoughts as to why it happens the way it does? Maybe an option to allow bios to read SPD the same way as AHCI can be enabled via direct bios edit?

 

Napa is limited to 533Mhz

 

It is a known specification that Napa SZ limits memory at 533MHz. Furthermore it would be a waste to install 4GB as 945 chipset only supports 3GB.

 

Thanks for quick response guys! The reason for the question was that Everest under North Bridge tab showed this

It shows both 4GB and DDR2-667 supported.. Maybe I'm missing something?

 

You are not wrong. The specification of Intel 945GM says that it supports 4GB DDR2 667Mhz. But in reality (for Vaio SZ at least), it will never run at 667Mhz and recognize 4GB. I don't know why, but it's the same for the SZ with the Santa Rosa, it blocks at 667Mhz, even when Intel says that it will support 800Mhz.

 

Crestline? The GM965 Express chipset couldn't use 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; the system memory controller only ever supported 533MHz or 667MHz. (yeah, I was disappointed too)

You're probably thinking of the desktop version of the chipset (533/667/800) or confusing the number with the FSB speed?

Anyway, datasheet here if your interested.

@Avor, I have the same memory you purchased in my SZ. The only advantage (aside from capacity) was a small increase in framerate under both the integrated and dedicated graphics (when playing games). Faster memory speeds would certainly have helped but the chipset and GPU were just too gimped to have a meaningful performance boost (imo).

 

You surprise me here. I read the datasheet when I still had my SZ71WN and I remember very well that it says it can support up to 8GB 800MHz (Or I was wrong). Now I read it, and it says 4GB 667Mhz. Maybe Intel modified it later:
http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=37817&tstart=15