Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

We have a IBM Thinkpad 770X laptop, with Bios IIET42WW and running XP SP2. From my understanding we could expand our memory to 320meg. Currently we have 64meg onboard, and installed 2 128 Meg (01K1150 -AX, 128Meg SODIMM for IBM) in the laptop. When we boot up the machine is only tells us we have the 64Meg. In the Bios it shows us the 320 as installed - but uses only 64Meg.

What is happening, and how do we fix this to read the full 320 meg.

Thanks

Actually, the original IBM documentation was apparently printed before 256MB SODIMMs were invented. You can install up to 512MB. (The hardware will support 768MB, but no one has ever fixed a BIOS bug. )

Make sure your RAM is compatible. It must be "low density". In plain english, that means 16 chips per SODIMM. 8 chip will not work.

langancm wrote:we have 64meg onboard, and installed 2 128 Meg (01K1150 -AX, 128Meg SODIMM for IBM) [...] What is happening, and how do we fix this to read the full 320 meg.

The modules you've identified should work in a standard 770X I think, so I don't know why they aren't showing up. But there a couple quick troubleshooting steps you can start with:

1. Clean the contacts on the RAM module. Some people us a clean pencil eraser to do this. I'm not sure of the best method, but a quick inspection of the contacts may indicate whether this is even necessary.

2. Start by trying just a single RAM module, and try it in each slot separately (booting each time to see if it shows up).

It is possible that one slot is bad, or that one or both modules are bad, or that one or both modules have been mislabelled.

Oh yes, make sure that you are running the 770X using its original processor (a PII 300 or 366 I think).