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Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series
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LeoB
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Location: Burke, VA

Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#1 Post by LeoB » Mon Jan 21, 2013 12:28 pm

Have an i7 W520 that I've been using daily for 18 months with factory installed 8GB (2x4GB) of memory. I just got a new i7 X230T with 16GB and was amazed at how much faster it seemed, so I thought I would add more memory to the W520 desktop workhorse.

I ordered 16GB from Crucial (2x8GB) that they recommended to give me 24GB total.

I've been researching forums for a while and I'm getting confused about where to place the memory. The factory installed 2x4GB are under the keyboard (slots 0 and 1), and I found information that I should configure it:

Slot 0 (under keyboard) - 8 GB
Slot 1 (under keyboard) - 4 GB
Slot 2 (underneath) - 8 GB
Slot 3 (underneath) - 4 GB

But then some other forum entries suggest putting both the higher capacity sticks under the keyboard and the lower capacity sticks underneath.

Any confirmation from the wizards out there that the first option is correct would be appreciated.

Thanks.

ZaZ
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Re: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#2 Post by ZaZ » Mon Jan 21, 2013 3:41 pm

I don't think it matters much where the memory goes. If your X230t has a SSD and W520 has a hard drive, that could be the reason the X230t seems so much faster.
ThinkPad L14 - 2.1GHz Ryzen 4650U | 16GB | 256GB | 14" FHD | Win11P
ProBook 470 G5 - 1.6GHz Core i5 | 16GB | 2.2TB | 17" FHD | Mint

iThinkSL
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Location: Sittingbourne, United Kingdom

Re: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#3 Post by iThinkSL » Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:36 pm

I have installed 32Gb of RAM on my laptop. No any issues. Well there is no difference how you put those rams but I recommend you to buy memory kit of 2. Where comes two rams in one pack. Like Corsair, Kingston or what ever with same parameters. I have installed: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0076W9Q5A , this will speedup your computer. And yes needs SSD drive.
Thinkpad W520 42844LG: Intel i7 2760QM/32Gb RAM/500Gb HDD/NVidia Quadro Cuda and Intel Graphic/Windows 8 Pro x64
Thinkpad T400 2768EE2: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600/4Gb RAM/160Gb HDD/ATI 3400HD and Intel Graphic card/Windows 8 Pro x64
My old school laptops: Thinkpad T40/T43/T61p/Lenovo 3000 N200/SL510

Synthetickiller
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Location: Slidell, Louisiana
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Re: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#4 Post by Synthetickiller » Mon Jan 28, 2013 1:33 pm

LeoB wrote: Slot 0 (under keyboard) - 8 GB
Slot 1 (under keyboard) - 4 GB
Slot 2 (underneath) - 8 GB
Slot 3 (underneath) - 4 GB

But then some other forum entries suggest putting both the higher capacity sticks under the keyboard and the lower capacity sticks underneath.

Any confirmation from the wizards out there that the first option is correct would be appreciated.

Thanks.

This is right. Only AMD (I can confirm desktop usage, not sure about mobile) uses banks 0,1 for the first channel & 2,3 for the second channel. Intel is staggered. If you were to put both 8gb sticks under the keyboard, you're not running that kit in the same channel. You'll have a little slowdown as the density of the chips (8gb vs 4gb) is not equal and some latency overhead will occur.

You can confirm dual channel vs single channel with a program like CPU-Z.

Will you notice it? Probably not, but why limit your computer in any way?

Unless you need more than 16gb, I'd sell those sticks & get another 16gb kit (same one, obviously). That just ensures everything works a little bit better together.


As iThinkSL & ZaZ stated, get an SSD. The IOPS performance of something like a samsung 840 pro will blow your mind. Your computer will feel 10x as fast if you're using an hdd as an OS drive.

Hope this helps.
Thinkpad: x200 p8600 2.4ghz (probably won't OC) / 2x2gig ddr3 1066 / HDD = ? / WIN 7 (adding OSX & Ubuntu later)

Desktop: MSI K9A2 Plat / PII 945 @ 3.75ghz / G. Skill 2x2gig ddr2 1000 / 120gb ocz agility / gtx260 core 216 / IBM trackpoint keyboard :D

LeoB
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Location: Burke, VA

Re: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#5 Post by LeoB » Mon Jan 28, 2013 1:47 pm

Synthetickiller:

The sticks arrived and I did install them as per the recommendation, although I thought I'd screwed up when it ended up only showing 4GB. But then I found out that I had not seated one stick properly.

Showing all 24GB now and dual-channel, so all seems right. Things do load much faster and quite happy with it.

Next project in a couple months is to reload Windows and clean up a lot of stuff, like a stupid 0 byte file on the desktop that cannot be deleted.

Thanks!

Synthetickiller
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Re: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#6 Post by Synthetickiller » Thu Feb 07, 2013 6:56 pm

No problem. 24gb is awesome isn't it? :D
Thinkpad: x200 p8600 2.4ghz (probably won't OC) / 2x2gig ddr3 1066 / HDD = ? / WIN 7 (adding OSX & Ubuntu later)

Desktop: MSI K9A2 Plat / PII 945 @ 3.75ghz / G. Skill 2x2gig ddr2 1000 / 120gb ocz agility / gtx260 core 216 / IBM trackpoint keyboard :D

LeoB
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Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 5:01 pm
Location: Burke, VA

Re: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#7 Post by LeoB » Thu Feb 07, 2013 7:03 pm

Synthetickiller wrote:No problem. 24gb is awesome isn't it? :D
Well, I considered going to 32GB but an IT friend of mine said my eyes were too old and my brain too slow to notice the difference between 24GB and 32GB. He's probably right.

Synthetickiller
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Re: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#8 Post by Synthetickiller » Fri Feb 08, 2013 1:45 am

I'm not "technically" an IT guy, but if you aren't maxing your ram, there's no need to add more. Check your ram usage. If you never break 16gb, I'd say sell the 8gb sticks while you can still get cash for them.

I have 16gb in my desktop & I've rarely broken 7 gigs. I did install about 8 programs at once and that actually maxed my ram to nearly 16gb, but that's a once a year thing. More ram does not yield higher speeds. You'd do better to either spend that money on a faster SSD or an SSD in general if you don't have one or even a second if you have the need.
Thinkpad: x200 p8600 2.4ghz (probably won't OC) / 2x2gig ddr3 1066 / HDD = ? / WIN 7 (adding OSX & Ubuntu later)

Desktop: MSI K9A2 Plat / PII 945 @ 3.75ghz / G. Skill 2x2gig ddr2 1000 / 120gb ocz agility / gtx260 core 216 / IBM trackpoint keyboard :D

davidhbrown
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Re: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#9 Post by davidhbrown » Fri Feb 08, 2013 2:59 pm

Synthetickiller wrote:...More ram does not yield higher speeds. You'd do better to either spend that money on a faster SSD or an SSD in general if you don't have one or even a second if you have the need.
I think you're probably right in the general case, but once you *do* have a SSD for your OS/Apps, more RAM will be used (if running Windows) by SuperFetch to make applications load more quickly because they're already at least partially in memory. (I've read articles that say Windows will automatically disable SuperFetch with a SSD, but this has not been the case for me.)
W520 (2820QM, Q2000M, FHD, mSATA SSD, dock)
Previous: T61p (died 1m past warranty :-(), Dell 8600, iBook ("Dual USB"), Gateway Millennium, Macintosh G4 , PowerPC Mac clone, Mac Duo 210, iBook (clamshell), Quadra 630, Mac IIsi, C-128, C-64, Vic-20

iThinkSL
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Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:02 pm
Location: Sittingbourne, United Kingdom

RE: Adding memory to W520 - conflicting information?

#10 Post by iThinkSL » Wed Mar 20, 2013 10:21 am

One of best things what you cand do with ram if you have like 32GB, turn it on in RAM Disk. Its really speed up apps like firefox etc. Search google.

Sent from my HTC using Board Express
Thinkpad W520 42844LG: Intel i7 2760QM/32Gb RAM/500Gb HDD/NVidia Quadro Cuda and Intel Graphic/Windows 8 Pro x64
Thinkpad T400 2768EE2: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600/4Gb RAM/160Gb HDD/ATI 3400HD and Intel Graphic card/Windows 8 Pro x64
My old school laptops: Thinkpad T40/T43/T61p/Lenovo 3000 N200/SL510

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