how to pick the right ram memory sticks?

[TSAEB]

hello everyone,
im a newbie and wanted to say great site...and wanted a lil help on my question and if there is a article i apologize and can some one direct me to it.? first i have a ibm thinkpad r40e windows xp home edition 2.00GHZ 368 MB OF RAM....its old but i love it and i want to upgrade it because its pretty slow.....i want to start by upgrading my memory...and thanks to the forums i know exactly what chip will work and small details why.....however thats only because of actually part numbers....so my question is this.....can someone maybe give a lil detail on how or what i need to look out for if i wanted to choose the chips ON MY OWN....so far all i know is that having a total of 2gb is possible however seems to much trouble "upgrade bios" for a newbie like me...so im gonna settle for 1gb (2x512mb).....I need to have a 200 pin and in my r40e case i need to get a stick with only 4 chips on each side....am i right so far and any tips to know how to choose the right memory sticks?

[RealBlackStuff]

Houston, we've g...

Welcome to the Forum.
Your laptop needs 200-pin SODIMMs with PC2100 or PC2700 speed.
Both will work and are compatible with one another.
In our Marketforum or on eBay look for 1GB PC2100 SODIMM or 1GB PC2700 SODIMM.
You can put in 2 of those 1GB modules for a total of 2GB RAM.
Buying 2x 512MB is a waste, get 2x 1GB instead.

[Harryc]

Any of these will work, but I'd stay away from Kingston Value RAM. Crucial is usually my first choice, and G.Skill the second choice. The first link is for 512MB sticks of PC2700, the second link is for 1GB PC2700 sticks.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... %202700%29
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... %202700%29

[TSAEB]

Houston, we've g...

Welcome to the Forum.
Your laptop needs 200-pin SODIMMs with PC2100 or PC2700 speed.
Both will work and are compatible with one another.
In our Marketforum or on eBay look for 1GB PC2100 SODIMM or 1GB PC2700 SODIMM.
You can put in 2 of those 1GB modules for a total of 2GB RAM.
Buying 2x 512MB is a waste, get 2x 1GB instead.

I would love to have 2gb but i heard i had to upgrade the bios....and it seems thats a lil to much for a newbie like me....what do you think? or is this not as hard? i have not found much on how to do this exactly....and thank you everyone for the post.

[Harryc]

These days BIOS upgrades on Thinkpads are no harder that running an exec file in windows.

[TSAEB]

These days BIOS upgrades on Thinkpads are no harder than running an exec file in windows.

sounds good so i guess ill be back after i do some searches on the "bios upgrade"...and im going to order the crucial 1gb sticks from the newegg.com site given.....the gtech has 8 chips on each side and i heard that was not god thing to do the crucial has only 4 chips per side....and ebay is not a good option cus you only save about 15 bucks....might as well get some brandnew good sticks....ill let ya guys know what happens in a few.....anymore info please feel free to give....and great site.

[Harryc]

Good choice on the Crucial RAM. Here's a link to your machines BIOS -
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... .html#bios

There are (2) parts to the update, 'embedded controller' and 'BIOS'. For the latest R40e BIOS do the embedded controller update 'first'.
Note: Don't worry about the 'BIOS Settings Capture/Playback Utility'. It's not needed for what you are after.

[TSAEB]

do you think i should wait till i do the stick upgrade....its ordered but will not be here intill about 4-9 days....could i upgrade the bios and such and still have my labtop functional?

and sorry for the many question but i see alot of downloads as well for like audio , pc doctor, multimedia, etc....are all these updates adn upgrades...im thinking of downloaded all of these? anyreason i should not do it?

[RealBlackStuff]

Yes, it's perfectly alright to do the EC/BIOS updates now.
Rather than downloading/installing all those Windows updates manually, you should install System Update first:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-66956
It requires MS DotNetFramework (read a bit further down on the above link.
Once installed, run System Update, it will do all the work for you.

[TSAEB]

trying to update the bios with the link on top, unistalled what i had to and while updating, the computer restarted and came up with an option (black screen) :

1. update bios
2. update bios/

add a command

i didnt see this in the instructions so what should i choose number one or two, and also i don't know what command to type... don't see any instructions on this... i exited the screen so what should i do to go back and do it right? thanks for any help....

[RealBlackStuff]

How are you trying to update the EC and BIOS, from within Windows, via floppy, or via CD?

[TSAEB]

no floppy or cd.....all i did was save the file from above site....and opened it...it then had an option to udate so i did....and thats when it said in order to finish it would restart...and when it did it ask about the bios.....i was cluelless what to do so i exited out.....it seem as it was trying to update many things at once.

[Harryc]

You should update the EC first. Have you done that?

[TSAEB]

OK been busy at work...read as much as i could and i dont see where i messing up....same thing happen again....ok i went to the link first posted....then downloaded the file and instructions for embedded controller program ( mentioned as ec on the post) ....made sure to disable my start up password....when i restarted i went to start.....run....and found the saved file and selected to run.....it came up and pretty much just kept asking me to press either next or cancel....did its thing and restarted by itself....and here is where i see nothing about this in the instructions.....then screen comes up black and says

(something like thins)

pick from the following

1. kbc - (h8) bios version?
2. kbc - (h8) bios flash?

(someother stuff)

bios verison 1.03

A:/> (THIS IS WHAT I DONT KNOW WHAT TO PUT)


im super lost here.. i dont know what to put for after the a:/>...and by the way i choosed to bios version option one....and i did go to see what version of embedded i had it was 1.03 and bios 1.38...in case this helps.

[Harryc]

Well, you want to flash the EC, so select the flash option.

[RealBlackStuff]

Looks like you need to type the number 2 and hit Enter

[TSAEB]

allright ....got it...did what was mention and choose the flash not version and worked....then did the bios upgrade however it seemed my r40e allready had the latest version and then finally for a lil extra installed the update instead of doing every new update one by one....so thanks guys wasnt to hard just had to read a lil more and ask toooons of question...lol....now im just waiting for the new 1gb sticks(total 70 bucks shipped).......ill be sure to keep posted.....

any thing you guys think i will need to know or is this going to be a simple swap?

[Harryc]

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-46159
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-46161
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-46162

[TSAEB]

WOW...you guys a really helpfull thanks alot.

[TSAEB]

ok well good and bad news ...chips came in today and i could of sworn that in the pictures they had only 4 chips on each side...these are exactlywhat i need but with 8 chips on each side...so i only installed one and sure enough it only reads now 752 ....so im pretty sure that they will not refund me one because it has been installed but atleast i can send the other that i did not open for the right one....and i wont have 2gb but ill settle for 1500 ram or lets see what type of deal if any i can get with the seller....ill keep posted.....and by the way a simple upgrade to 752 made a nice lil upgrade nothing to get excited for but noticable ...so 1gb would be enough for some and 2 gb should be pretty awesome.

[Harryc]

Link to the RAM you ordered please? I am not aware of a chip density requirement for PC2700 in these machines.

[RealBlackStuff]

This 752MB makes no sense!
Normal values are: 64/128/256/384/512/640/768/1024.
This could be caused by an incompatible RAM stick in the other slot.
Have you removed ALL of your 'old' RAM, before you put in the new stick?

[TSAEB]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... %202700%29

this is from the above post that i went to and and i purchased two 1gb crucial sodimm pc2700 ddr..

and no i did not install both chips i left one old one in there because i did not want to install both new chips and not be able to get refunded.....do you think i should take out the old chip (which says on it 128mb pc2100s ddr) and leave the new one in there alone....i really dont want to open the second new chip because i thought right away since it had 8 chips on each side and not like my original 4 chips on each side(also on a few post that only 4 chips on each side work) that it wouldnt work and if i open the box i could not get an exchange.

[Harryc]

Crucial PC2700 should work just fine. Take the old chip out and try it with 1 stick of the Crucial to see if the total installed RAM = 1GB.

[TSAEB]

ok this is what i tried....one new 1gb stick on its own.....reads 496 mb ram.....then 1gb stick with 128 mb stick (original) and i got 624 mb ram.....then i installed 1gb and the other original stick that doesnt say any reading only simpletch on it and got 752 mb..... you dont think its because of the 8 chips on each side(new chips)....and the originals have only 4 chips on each side(one original only has 4 chips on one side only nothing on the other and the other chip has 4 chips on each side)

[Vempele]

This 752MB makes no sense!

Integrated graphics. 752 = 512 + 256 - 16. In the OP, 368 = 256 + 128 - 16.

[Harryc]

Looking at the Crucial memory selector tool at their website, both models of R40e show 1024MB Max RAM (2 x 512MB modules). Conversely, T40's show a max of 2048MB RAM. Some R40's show 1GB Max and some show 2GB Max RAM. All applications call for PC2700. So, now it comes down to...has anyone even installed 2 x 1GB sticks of RAM in an R40e. I had assumed it was possible, but now I am not sure.

[RealBlackStuff]

After checking in IBM's TRWBOOK, it appears that only the R40 2897-xxx and 2723-xxx models allow for 2GB RAM.
All other R40 models, incl. the R40e 2684-xxx, apparently max out at 1GB.
The same was said for the T30 series, yet most (if not all) can handle 2GB.
AFAIK the R40 is a T30 in a different case... (similar to R5x and T4x).

On another note, with PC2100 or PC2700 modules, it is totally unimportant how many chips are on the module.

[TSAEB]

so my r40e may possible more then likely not allow the 2gb...ok thats fine ill settle for 1gb however im still confused why it wont read the memory stick im going to wait till the site above opens this monday and talk to them because regardless there site is false advertisment they showed a picture of a stick and thats the only reason i went whith it so im going to try a new memory stick with only 4 chips(i know guys you said it doesnt matter...but like mentioned above thats what i paid for) and ill let you guys know if it works or not.....and thanks for all the help....worst case ill install both sticks and get around 1gb of ram(even if i was suppose to get 2gb)....so at the end ill atleast triple the ram...thanks again.

[RealBlackStuff]

If you keep the RAM, you could always sidegrade/upgrade to a T40/T41/T42/R50/R51 and use the 2x 1GB in there.