Thinkpads Forum

Less costly is my motivation. Just wondering if a pair of 2gb PC3-8500 would work in a T61? I may have read somewhere that RAM often get downclocked to the chipset speeds. Would that be the case with the T61 and 4gb of PC3-8500 or would this not work period?

Thanks!

It won't fit is probably the biggest issue.

lol okay thanks Zaz. I have not physically compared the both against each other recently.

Yeah DDR3 is about half the price of DDR2 nowadays, at least in the laptop world.

I've got a matched pair of Lenovo-issued Samsung 2GB DIMMs that would fit that T61 beautifully...throw me an offer I can't refuse...

DDR3 and DDR2 modules are physically different: different number of pins, notch in different place. This won't work.

In terms of RAM speed, RAM of the correct type should be able to run at a lower speed than its maximum without any problems, and speed detection should be automatic by motherboard BIOS to match the highest supported by both the CPU and RAM.

rjwilmsi wrote:DDR3 and DDR2 modules are physically different: different number of pins, notch in different place. This won't work.

It uses different voltages (1.8V for DDR2 vs 1.5V for DDR3). Let's roast some DDR3

Please review my signature (to see which memory modules I purchased) ...