motherboard/bios specs

i've searched all over google for this but came up empty handed. i'd like to know the website/documentation that tells you the max limits of the sony sz (any model). for instance the max ram support for my computer would be 2 gigs and ram at a certain max hz and any cpu that can be swapped.

thanks

 

I can't tell you where to find the documentation, but I can tell you that the SZ3xx series will support up to 4GB RAM w/ Vista 64 bit, a little over 3GB for 32 bit OS. Official Sony documentation will tell you that max supported RAM is 2GB.

The fastest processor you can use for your model is the Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz T7600.

 

Well, your computer "supports" 4GB physically, but I'm pretty sure that you'll never see more than 3.5GB or so on the 945PM/GM chipset.

 

You need to add one more qualifier to that: "with a 32 bit OS". The hardware can see al 4gb, but to USE it you need a 64 bit OS.

Gary

 

I'll add one more thing to the other comments, I am not sure if the CPU can be swapped or not. There have been no reports here that I have seen of anyone doing a CPU swap out. The BIOS on the FZ series is so locked down, I am not sure if it could be done on that model. I suspect the same is true on the SZ series as well.

Gary

 

The Intel 945 chipset is a 32-bit chipset. I'm fairly positive that even with a 64-bit OS you'll never have the OS see more than ~3.5GB of RAM. The reason is that while a 32-bit chipset supports up to 4GB of addresses, about 512mb of addresses are resereved for internal use, and can't be assigned to RAM.

 

I thought the SZ models were all SantaRosa enabled? No?

Gary

 

The maximum amount of ram recognized by the SZ1-SZ4 BIOS seems to be 3.2GB, as confirmed in this thread. However, according to the 945 express family chipset datasheet, the 945GM chipset should be capable to support 4GB memory.

 

The CPU definitely can be swapped out (my SZ491 has been upgraded to T7600). In fact, on the SZ models it's not any harder than installing RAM.

Santa Rosa is available on SZ600 series and up.

 

Nope, only the SZ6 is Santa Rosa I'm pretty sure.

The 3.2 sounds right, I only said 3.5GB as that's the max on 32-bit chipsets, it could very well be only 3.2GB on this particularly model.

The chipset does indeed support 4GB of memory addresses, however that includes all addresses in the machine, obviously not all of those can be assigned to sytem RAM, so while it will physically support 4GB of memory, in practice you'll never be able to allocate 4GB of memory addresses to the system RAM.

 

thanks for the info guys. i guess it's just trial and error to get the exact possible specs