Adding more RAM to a Sony Vaio.

December 17, 2004 12:33 PM

I've been thinking of upgrading the memory in my Sony Vaio PCG-GR370 laptop for some time now, but recently it came to my attention that there may be issues with some vaios that do not recognize memory above 256Mb (which is what I currently have in it). I attempted a google for issues with it, but, well... Just try search for "sony vaio memory 512" on google and you'll see how useful it is.

Which brings me to my question: Does anyone know anything about said issues with vaios? If so, do they apply to me?
posted by ChrisR to computers & internet (4 comments total)

It looks like you can upgrade to 512MB. Hopefully you've only got one 256MB chip in there instead of two 128s.

BTW, if you have a specific model number, include it in your searches. It works wonders!
posted by stopgap at 1:05 PM on December 17, 2004

I haven't been looking for purchase info or part numbers, but for user experiences with it, given the single bad story I heard about upgrade results. As such, google has been (uncharacteristically) useless in this instance.

Anyone here have a testimonial?
posted by ChrisR at 2:11 PM on December 17, 2004

I've found the memory selector on Crucial's website seems to work good. Plus, they make decent RAM.

As for your question, if the memory controller in the chipset does not support high-density SDRAM chips then you will not be able to shoe-horn any single memory modules above 256MB in there (unless you get really lucky and find a low-density 512MB DIMM). You can tell the density of a DIMM by looking at the chip configuration (on regular SDRAM DIMMs and such it'd be marked like 64x8 or 32x16 or whatever). The list that Crucial gives you can be cross-matched to whatever cheap RAM you want.

So, if you can find out what kind of chipset your machine has (try WCPUID or CPU-Z if you can't find it through googling) you can find out what kind of RAM the chipset supports. Worst case is, if you buy a high-density DIMM and your VAIO doesn't support it, it'll just not show up, or show up as half the capacity it should be.

Crucial's website will tell you, though, exactly what you need - if you don't want to buy it from them you can get the specs off the RAM they're trying to sell you and go find some elsewhere (they're right there on the page).
posted by mrg at 4:34 PM on December 17, 2004

Thanks!
posted by ChrisR at 9:31 AM on December 18, 2004