Yeah that info link is newly added, when I ordered my laptop and months before there was never an info link for that model on laptopsdirect site. I also rang to ask whether the RAM was DDR2 and the speed, but all they said was "we only know whatever it says on the website, if its not on there we don't know".

Kieran - please keep us informed if you hear anything from Laptops Direct.

Buzz

Kieran, mine also has 400 MHz modules, and I didn't buy from Laptops Direct but rather from a local shop here in Spain, so it may be Fujitsu who's giving incorrect of contradictory information.

Would changing the RAM from 400MHz to 533MHz require a new, complete Windows XP re-install?

Will the Bios auto-detect the new RAM configuration? (seeing as we can't access the related Bios settings?)

Wish I had 533Mhz... but no, just the plain 400 here as well.

I guess I’m the lucky one. I bought mine a couple of weeks ago and it has a speed of 533 mhz.

No reinstall needed, the bios should automatically detect the speed of the modules and set the divider properly.

I doubt the real life performance difference (not synthetic benchmarks like Sisoft sandra) between the two types of ram is that much, the DDR2-400 usually has better timings and the Pentium-m only has a 133Mhz FSB, the 533Mhz is running a 1:2 divider, 400Mhz means you're still running well above the FSB.

John

Hi, where did you get yours from?

Hi John, thanks for the info.

The stuff I'm doing is heavily synthetic and CPU/RAM intensive, not gaming or anything. High definition audio sample libraries and software synthesisers for music production are huge and very demanding these days, which is what I'm using the laptop for.

I thought that, because the chipset and CPU are clocked globally at 533MHz, the RAM would benefit being clocked at that freq too.

Cheers

The chipset isn't clocked at 533Mhz, it's a quad pumped 133MHz FSB so with 533Mhz ram you're running a 1:2 divider whereas with 400Mhz ram you're running a 2:3 divider.

John

Interesting. So, which are you saying is better? The 400Mhz?

PS > How did you get those figures? 400/133 = 3, while 533/133 = 4.
Using this, I'd have thought 533MHz RAM would be better, as the quad 4 x 133 busses of the CPU/chipset could be allocated/addressed to all of the RAM at the same time (4 x 133 = 533)? Whereas only 3 x 133 busses can be allocated/addressed by the RAM running at 400MHz at any one time (3 x 133 = 400), therefore there'd be a delay as the last 1 x 133 (of the CPU/Chipset) can only be allocated to the 400MHz RAM after the other 3 x 133 are finished, meaning it's less efficient?

Straight from the horse's mouth:





The actual ram speed is 266Mhz for 533Mhz and 200Mhz for DDR2-400, since it's DDR the effective memory speed is double that.

As for the second part, it doesn't work like that, there are not four 133FSB buses and also bear in mind that DDR2-400 usually has tighter timings than DDR2-533.

Aside from the performance though, F-S should be shipping DDR2-533 memory as in the specs, it's a bit concerning that they are not.

John