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W520 with 2820QM CPU - DDR3L "Mac" memory?

W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series
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DiagonalArg
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Joined: Sun May 15, 2011 5:52 am
Location: San Francisco, CA

W520 with 2820QM CPU - DDR3L "Mac" memory?

#1 Post by DiagonalArg » Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:58 pm

Hi all.

I see some discussion of using DDR3L memory in a W520 viewtopic.php?t=118821. From that, it seems like it could work, though there is some question of whether it will run hot. My question is that on ebay I see a lot of DDR3L (1600Mhz) "Mac" SODIMMs, that is a lower price than DDR3 1600Mhz SODIMMs. Here's an example, from Crucial: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Crucial-16GB-2x ... SwULNZg9zP.

So, any thoughts on whether "Mac memory" is any different from any other DDR3L's? Thoughts on why the lower price?

RUNDEN
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Location: Seden, Fyn, Denmark

Re: W520 with 2820QM CPU - DDR3L "Mac" memory?

#2 Post by RUNDEN » Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:47 pm

My W520 is running completely on mixed memory (I brought a kit for Mac memory for the lower price but didn't get all the same modules), two of the modules are DDR3L, 1600Mhz, for 1.35v. The other two are standard DDR3 1330Mhz 1.5v. All the memory is running at 1330Mhz, and I haven't had any issues with heat or stability. I tried removing the standard modules, and using just the DDR3L ones for about 3 hours at 1600mhz, and I found no issues with heat or stability either, so I believe your machine would happily take DDR3L, although I can't promise anything.

I think you should be find in terms of temperature, my W520 only has a piece of cardboard with some tape for a ram door, and it hasn't caught fire in the two months I've had it. (Although after this I'm moving the ddr3l modules to under the keyboard, just to be safe).

I don't think there's any difference between 'Mac' DDR3L modules and normal ones, the only reason I can think of is if they were pulled from a Mac originally, so the seller assumes its meant for Mac only? One of my memory modules does have an apple logo on it, but it looks like standard Kingston memory.
Daily drivers:
T61: Core 2 Duo T7500, 4GB, NVS 140M
W520: Core i7 2670QM, 8GB, Quadro 2000M
T41: Pentium M 745, 1GB, Radeon Mobility 7500

Rest in pieces:
R40e (dead hdd controller)
T43 (Smashed by ex)

DiagonalArg
Freshman Member
Posts: 121
Joined: Sun May 15, 2011 5:52 am
Location: San Francisco, CA

Re: W520 with 2820QM CPU - DDR3L "Mac" memory?

#3 Post by DiagonalArg » Thu Aug 17, 2017 6:16 pm

I think you should be find in terms of temperature, my W520 only has a piece of cardboard with some tape for a ram door, and it hasn't caught fire in the two months I've had it.
Funny guy! :lol:

I found a junked W520 in a surplus store that was running real hot and throwing errors. So I got it (along with 4G RAM, a dock, a battery and tax) for $38. I figured it might take some work, but all I had to do was blow out the fan and the temps dropped by more than 20 degrees C! I've been buying used stuff for a long time, but that's the best deal I've ever found. :D
(Although after this I'm moving the ddr3l modules to under the keyboard, just to be safe).
More seriously, I believe I understand rightly that these modules work fastest in pairs ("dual channel"?). So I believe you should fill the memory slots this way:

(0) under keyboard, slot on top
(1) under ram door (back of machine) closest to the screw holes
(2) under keyboard, slot underneath
(3) under ram door (back of machine) farthest from screw holes
I don't think there's any difference between 'Mac' DDR3L modules and normal ones, the only reason I can think of is if they were pulled from a Mac originally, so the seller assumes its meant for Mac only? One of my memory modules does have an apple logo on it, but it looks like standard Kingston memory.
Apple does sell mac branded memory, so I was leery. After all, you can't be too careful with Apple. You can't even put a standard SATA drive in a mac any longer!

So, thanks for your input.

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