I have a Toshiba Satellite L635-3010 with 2 DDR3 slots. It came out of the box with 2 SODIMM DDR3 PC3-10600 2GB RAMs. I recently bought two DDR3 4GB PC3L-12800 modules and I want to know if its still possible to use them in my laptop. I was thinking about something like limit the frecuency of the modules using the BIOS so they can work with my motherboard. Does that make sense or should I buy other modules?
23 Answers
- DDR3 or PC3 is the Standard Voltage memory module which operates at 1.5V.
- DDR3L or PC3L is actually dual voltage(including L - low) memory SoDIMM, which supports operation at both 1.5V and 1.35V
Toshiba Satellite L635-3010 has HM55 chipset, so it uses 1'st generation of intel processors. Intel 4th Generation processors require a new type of memory SoDIMM known as DDR3-Low Voltage or "DDR3L.
From the point of the voltage it should work. From the point of frequency there might be a problem. Intel P6000 which is standard processor in L635-3010 might not work with PC3L-12800 (this is my experience with similar laptop on HM55 chipset)
You can try put memory into slots and see if it will work properly. If there will be no blue screen and operating system will work smoothly than you can use it.
You can find out more at:Dell Support Website about DDR3
1There are three issues here:
- Does the laptop support SoDIMMS of this size?
- SoDIMM speed
- SoDIMM voltage
Regarding 1:
Not all laptops support any size memory. Both chip format, ranks used, etc can all make it incompatible. However 4GiB is pretty common for DDR3, so I am not going to delve futher into it.
Re 2 speed:
The speed is a up to speed. PC3-12800 works just fine as PC3-10600 speeds.
Think of it as a car capable of going up to 120kmph on a 100kmph highway. It will work just fine.
re 3: -l
Regular DDR3 DIMMs are designed to work at 1.5 volt. You can feed then a little more or a little less and they often still work. But 1.5v is spec.
DDR3L is designed to work at either 1.35v or 1.5v.
DDR3-L should work in a system which also accepts regular DDR3, but it will not bring any power savings. Vice versa regular DDR3 usually does not work on a -l only chipset. You are lucky this time, but please do research the specs of your system before buying memory.
The answer is yes. I'm running 12GB of PC3L-12800S RAM in place of PC3-10600 in my Latitude E6420 that supposedly maxes out at 8GB.
