Hello there!
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I've been having the above amazing machine for several years now. I'm starting to use it professionally; most of its capabilities are quite sufficient, except one thing. The laptop appears to have So-DIMM DDR3 RAM limitation to 8GB per slot (two slots here). Officially DELL, of course,
says that this particular laptop model only supports 8GB total memory max, but I took a risk and installed two modules of Kingston HyperX 1600MHz memory four months ago and never had any problems with them. DELL not recommending 2*8GB RAM was purely because of a specifically sized hibernate partition (as I understand), which I don't even have due to installing Windows 7 on my own with no such partitions. Anyway, my system sees all 16 gigabytes and can do very demanding tasks (I do scene rendering in 3D software).
But sometimes 16Gb is not enough and I started to investigate if 32Gb can be installed. Such an upgrade would be quite expensive, of course, but it's still MUCH cheaper than buying a new laptop (I would want to buy one of
these 16GB modules, test it, and then, if it works, buy another one).
While investigating the issue, I have found a
thread on Intel's website with a question, if 16GB memory modules (with 8Gbit memory chips) can be installed on a laptop with
Intel Core i7-3630QM (I also have it). Judging from the answer of the memory manufacturer's representative, the problem is not with hardware (3rd Gen Intel Core i7 processors DO support up to 32GB DDR3 RAM), but with BIOS not being able to recognize 8Gbit memory chips on a 16GB memory module. They were discussing
this memory, AFAIK.
Quote:Hi all,
Not sure if this is the best place for me to ask, so in case this is the wrong forum, please forgive me.
I like to upgrade my notebook to 32GB RAM using with the 2x new 16GB SODIMM memory from http://www.intelligentmemory.com/ but they claim that intel must release and BIOS upgrade for that to handle MRC address/codes, according to they're reŕesentative:
Our 16GB So-DIMM is compatible for the laptop which using Intel 5th GEN (Broadwell) i3/i5-i5-5xxxU, Intel ATOM C2000, but not support other kind of Intel CPU due to the BIOS limitation, of course, If Intel change the software-code or allow the customers to change it themselves, then it would be working on your platform by a simple BIOS update, you may consult with Phoenix technical support team to ask for details.
...
In fact, we not tested in the same/similar platform, also, due to the Intel BIOS limitation, called MRC (Memory Reference Code), it's able to identify module which assembled by 1,2 and 4 Gbit chips only. Our 16GB memory module are made by 8Gbit chips and the MRC does not yet contain the right software code, it is software issue but Intel is not yet fix
On the other hand Intel specs (ARK | Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz)) says it support up to 32GB RAM but it does not say anything regarding the module chips. Can anyone help me out understand if I can use those memory or not?
Best regards.
Eric
So I'm basically asking if a MOD can be made to add support for 8 Gbit DDR3 RAM chips.
The latest BIOS (version A17, I unpacked it) for my machine can be downloaded from
here, my system has been updated with it a year ago or so.
Please understand me correctly. I'll be immensely grateful to a person who does this MOD (or teaches me to do it myself) if it will work with
the memory by Crucial. It will enable me to take more hardware-demanding projects without buying a new laptop (which I absolutely don't see as necessary), therefore it will save me a LOT of money. READ: I'll donate
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(after testing the MOD with that memory, of course
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P.S. Do I understand correctly that such a mod could in principle be used by other DELL Inspiron 7720 owners? Because that would be just great!
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