Laptop Memory Upgrade

[Steve2UK]

Taking a break from my ongoing struggles to stop my mega-spec PC from freezing, I looked at the ancient (2001 vintage) laptop of a friend of mine with a view to trying to get it to "run" at a bit better than crawl speed. It's a Sony Vaio PCG-FX109K with XP-Pro loaded. Believe it or not, it manages this with just 128Mb of RAM.

I downloaded and ran the Crucial Memory scan test which confirmed that it has 2 memory slots available and only one occupied. The available options quoted are to add another 128 or 256Mb - or fill both slots with 256Mb to give it a significantly better performance. But - the Crucial scan specified PC133 SDRAM whereas I see from the original review specs

http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/notebo...0000250,00.htm

that "PC100 SDRAM" is installed. The Laptop Memory Upgrade website also quotes "100MHz PC100, 144p SODIMM, 3.3v, Sync"

http://www.laptopmemoryupgrade.com/memory/...109KMemory.html

I'm out of my familiar territory here........ SODIMM or SDRAM? PC100 or PC133? Same difference?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Edited June 2, 2008 by Steve2UK

[jeffer]

If Crucial says it is interchangeable then they would know. It's pretty old memory so they wouldn't suggest PC133 unless it worked otherwise they'd be doing a lot of returns. On a desktop if you put PC133 with a motherboard that has PC100 then it will run at PC100. Crucial have this on their website, don't seem to make PC100 anymore, might not be the easiest memory to find so you're probably looking at seecond hand. If you can't find it where you shop then there is some for sale here and if you poke around that site you might find some more.

[Steve2UK]

If Crucial says it is interchangeable then they would know. It's pretty old memory so they wouldn't suggest PC133 unless it worked otherwise they'd be doing a lot of returns. On a desktop if you put PC133 with a motherboard that has PC100 then it will run at PC100. Crucial have this on their website, don't seem to make PC100 anymore, might not be the easiest memory to find so you're probably looking at seecond hand. If you can't find it where you shop then there is some for sale here and if you poke around that site you might find some more.

Many thanks for the clarification and both links - now I understand.

I'll get my (Thai) friend to look through www.thaisecondhand.com and see what emerges that will boost his laptop. Armed with your info, we can also check in the various computer shops here in Chiang Mai.

[jeffer]

Take the notebook with you when you go looking and if you find something get it installed and tested to make sure it works. Crucial guarantee what they sell based on their scan to work or your money back but there might not be any such guarantee when buying second hand and not all PC133 is backwards compatible with PC100.

The places to find what you want might not be shops selling new hardware but the small repair type shops that recycle everything. It's old memory as you know and not much demand anymore so a notebook repair place would be the type of shop I'd be l searching for. Finding 256MB size might not be easy either. A lot of repair shops have heaps of 32 and 64MB modules from that time period (starting from 50 baht for desktop RAM) but the larger sizes aren't all that common because you could run Win 98 with less than 256MB and many people did.

[Steve2UK]

Take the notebook with you when you go looking and if you find something get it installed and tested to make sure it works. Crucial guarantee what they sell based on their scan to work or your money back but there might not be any such guarantee when buying second hand and not all PC133 is backwards compatible with PC100.

The places to find what you want might not be shops selling new hardware but the small repair type shops that recycle everything. It's old memory as you know and not much demand anymore so a notebook repair place would be the type of shop I'd be l searching for. Finding 256MB size might not be easy either. A lot of repair shops have heaps of 32 and 64MB modules from that time period (starting from 50 baht for desktop RAM) but the larger sizes aren't all that common because you could run Win 98 with less than 256MB and many people did.

Thanks again - more very good points. Here in Chiang Mai, we have quite a few of that kind of shop - but, for sure, I'll want to see the replacement memory work before handing over the baht!