[SGVLUG] Laptop memory question...

[Michael Proctor-Smith]

On 6/4/06, Tom Emerson <osnut at pacbell.net> wrote:
-- snip, snip
> This got me to thinking -- while I remember some time back it seemed
> every laptop manufacturer had their own proprietary memory scheme (thus
> forcing you to buy your upgrades from them), I got this about the time
> when laptops were starting to "standardize" on their memory, and it
> /looks/ like it has 144-pin "SO-DIMM"s.  I checked with the folks I
> bought the laptop from, and they pointed me to a spec page that says the
> max memory for this system is 512, but I wonder about that.  512 may
> certainly have been "the largest" SO-DIMM available at the time, but a
> quick check at Fry's shows that I can get 512 meg modules now (or,
> rather, two for a total of 1 gig)
>
> BUT... the guys who sold the laptop are adamant that the laptop will NOT
> support more than 512 meg -- "that is all it was designed for".  Again,
> I'm thinking that may have been the case when they sold it, but things
> may have improved since then.  The only other factor here is that the
> motherboard uses the bx440 chipset -- can anyone confirm or deny that
> 512 is the max that this chipset will support?  Or can anyone confirm
> these guys are blowing smoke about how much memory it will support? (or
> that perhaps 256 meg modules really are the largest that this system
> might recognize...)

It is not a chipset limitation. It has to do with that the
motherboard, and or bios. But it is a hardware limitation. Think about
it at the time "the PC OS" you know the one from Washington could not
support more then 512MB so there was no reason to spend the money to
build hardware that could support more then 512MB.  I have a 440BX
motherboard that can support 1.5GB.