Compaq Presario 700 memory upgrade

[Ivans]

I am trying to upgrade the memory beyond the specs max of 384MB
Has any body had success with 512MB or 1GB?
My first try at 512MB failed and resulted in an eratic behavior
Any suggestions please?

[Chaky]

You will have to settle with 384 MB RAM.
(256 MB stixk for your system is ~ $50)

[Ivans]

Thank you Can you explain where is the 384MB limitation comes from?

[Chaky]

It's a motherboard thing. It just can't handle more than 256 MB in expansion slot. If there were fix for that (downgrading, if I may add) limit it would come in a form of bios upgrade. The upgrades offered on compaq site do not mention anything about memory capacity.

Only advice I can give you is don't use xp but win98. It's less memory-consuming system.

P.S. Post exact model (ex: 700a) for there are many presario 700 submodels. Maybe I was looking up the wrong one.

[linkco]

It's a motherboard thing. It just can't handle more than 256 MB in expansion slot. If there were fix for that (downgrading, if I may add) limit it would come in a form of bios upgrade. The upgrades offered on compaq site do not mention anything about memory capacity. Only advice I can give you is don't use xp but win98. It's less memory-consuming system. P.S. Post exact model (ex: 700a) for there are many presario 700 submodels. Maybe I was looking up the wrong one.

Hi, i own a "Presario 700" (just 700) and now has 768 Mb, the one that is the soldered on Motherboard 256 MB + a 512 MB upgrade that i have installed. and runs windows XP(sp2) and Linux Mandrake 10.2 with no problem.

Sometimes you have to use the right Memory, this machine has PC-133 Infineon memory installed, so try to get one from same brand, if not, i suggest using Kingston Memory configurator, it tells you the exact model and amount of memory from this brand, that you machine support
ex: http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/modelsinfo.asp?SysID=11224&mfr=HP%2FCompaq&model=Presario+Notebook+700US%2F701US&root=us&LinkBack=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kingston.com&Sys=11224-HP%2FCompaq-Presario+Notebook+700US%2F701US&distributor=0&submit1=Search

as Chaky said, there are many submodels from 700 model, so try to be accurate on this.

my machine still some times slow, may be because the HD is only 4200 RPM PATA, against my Desktop Machine wich has a 10,000 RPM SATA HD and 2 Gb of RAM so when i use this Presario Laptop feel slower.

Jose

[yajirobeus]

He's correct I have a 700 compaq (722US Version) and just installed a 512MB stick of Ram in it and seems to be running great. I am Running XP home w/ SP2 and everything seems fine. My only question is can I change my interal 128MB to 256MB instead? I would rather be running 768MB instead of 640MB. Thanks

[coolsystems]

If yours is like mine,the 128MB that came with the system is soldered to the motherboard.
at least yours works,Mine been giving me trouble,&I have been running test on my 128MB onboard ram,& it is bad. I don't know what I am gonna do?(Even if it can be replaced

[dcc]

You may be able to add RAM beyond the recommended amount, but it will make you computer run slower...if it works at all. Machine as old as you people are talking about are picky about what RAM they will run on which become another consideration.

For those of you in doubt here is a little lite reading to enhance your understanding.

[samito]

Dear Jose

I like to know how exactly did for your upgrade,, becuase my Presario 700 is pretty pretty slow,,, on XP

could you tell me details for upgrade,, how did you replace the on board RAM?

please replay back to [email][e-mail][/email]

thanks

Hi, i own a "Presario 700" (just 700) and now has 768 Mb, the one that is the soldered on Motherboard 256 MB + a 512 MB upgrade that i have installed. and runs windows XP(sp2) and Linux Mandrake 10.2 with no problem.

Sometimes you have to use the right Memory, this machine has PC-133 Infineon memory installed, so try to get one from same brand, if not, i suggest using Kingston Memory configurator, it tells you the exact model and amount of memory from this brand, that you machine support ex: http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/modelsinfo.asp?SysID=11224&mfr=HP%2FCompaq&model=Presario+Notebook+700US%2F701US&root=us&LinkBack=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kingston.com&Sys=11224-HP%2FCompaq-Presario+Notebook+700US%2F701US&distributor=0&submit1=Search

as Chaky said, there are many submodels from 700 model, so try to be accurate on this.

my machine still some times slow, may be because the HD is only 4200 RPM PATA, against my Desktop Machine wich has a 10,000 RPM SATA HD and 2 Gb of RAM so when i use this Presario Laptop feel slower.

Jose

[linkco]

Hi, the RAM soldered on the motherboard, cannot be replaced, Since is soldered, what i did is, replace the 128 Extra that had on the RAM socket, for a brand new 512 MB Kingston module, and then upgraded to 640 MB, i was wrong on my last post, i said i had 768. but this machine has 256 MB from factory 128 Soldered and 128 replaceable

Jose

[alewis63]

Hello all...MEMtest reports address 000000004a4 failed, apparently 2 bits at that address are hung high. Is that address on the hard-wired motherboard RAM or the expansion module? The low number of the address leads me to believe that it is NOT the expansion stick :(

Thanks for your help!

Allen

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi alewis63 and welcome to Daniweb,
You have hijacked an old thread (Aug 13th, 2007)
I don't know the answer to your question but you stand a better chance of someone assisting you if start your own thread and supply a lot more information about your machine, OS and problem.

[alewis63]

Thanks for the tip Bob...I was so engrossed in the informaton contained within the posts that I neglected to check the dates!

[RedWar]

I am running my Compaq Presario 700 on Linux Mint right now. Its my new laptop lol but it was a free laptop. I left XP operating system on board just in case, but the the hard drive is awfully limited, which makes me wonder if I am just going to get rid of XP altogether. I can say this though, that the laptop is running as fast as my 6 Gig of ram pc, on just the 323 mb of available memory it has. However, I am looking to expand the ram myself, and i am wondering if there are any 1 gb sticks available. Otherwise, I'll just push it to 512. I wanted to also ask if anyone has any ideas regarding what types of games could be put into this little guy, although, in truth, I am only using it for typing, browsing the net, seeing some videos, and programming in GCC or Python. (not sure if I am going to install Java compiler yet, but I am looking to for my my 120 gb pocket drive, or I ll maybe install an 8gb ramdrive.) By the way, for an old computer, it really has great keys. ergonomically, perfect for typing, so don't ever raise your nose at it, especially if its free or at a real low price.

[Chaky]

640 MB is the max. amount of RAM that little guy can take. You have one slot that can take 512 MB DDR max. 128 MB is soldered (for no good reason).

Games, you ask? Anything newer than the laptop in question would have hard time running.

[RedWar]

Hey Chaky, thanks for the quick response. Well, I guess its good that I cannot play EveOnline on this baby, cause that would make my scores drop in class lol. EIther which way, I guess if I really want to have a diversion, there are always linux games that I can play. I guess I will be going with the PC133 at 512k and with linux as the OS, that really should do the trick. Flash works well here, but h264 is better, and with HTML5 and other things going down, I would not be too worried about the flash.

[Chaky]

Don't forget about silverlight. Something tells me that it will become a new HTML.

Anyway, to get back to the topic, previously I've digged out some info on Presario 700, and that info says that expansion slot for RAM takes up to 256 MB, but lincko here claims that his took 512, so don't hold my word on it. All I can tell you is what's in manual, and manual says 256.

You might consider streamlined and slimmed down version of XP. I'm not sure, but I think that if you own a legit copy of XP, you would not be in breach of copyright if you downloaded something like TinyXP torrent (don't know for sure, though).

[RedWar]

Don't forget about silverlight. Something tells me that it will become a new HTML.

Anyway, to get back to the topic, previously I've digged out some info on Presario 700, and that info says that expansion slot for RAM takes up to 256 MB, but lincko here claims that his took 512, so don't hold my word on it. All I can tell you is what's in manual, and manual says 256.

You might consider streamlined and slimmed down version of XP. I'm not sure, but I think that if you own a legit copy of XP, you would not be in breach of copyright if you downloaded something like TinyXP torrent (don't know for sure, though).

Not sure, but I think we are at 384 mb already, is that not the max really that this baby could go.

The xp that was on this machine was extremly slim lined. I will definitely look into silverlight when working with Xp, but being that I am more comfortable on unix/linux environs, does not seem to be too much of a big deal. Windows is left to the big guy on my desk, who loads the os into ram and has oodles of space to mess around.

So it was not confirmed if the 512 is an actual reality? That is too bad. I was thinking it might have been the OS, though. On the xp designed machines, there were restrictions put in, but I thought that LInux would at least go by max on the motherboard and BIOS. What was the deal about upgrading BIOS by the way, does that really exist, or is that some site that you end downloading malware and you get shot to heck?

[Chaky]

BIOS upgrades come exclusively either from manufacturer of the whole machine (in your case DELL) or, unlikely, but possibly, from the BIOS makers (as in BIOS being a piece of software, usually programmed by Phoenix, AMI and such).
Malware in BIOS is always possible, but not in manner of BIOS upgrade. Rather the "usual"way through the normal every-day use, but those viruses would need to be highly specialized for certain types of BIOSes. I think that kind of malware is a thing of a past, with windows security leaking all over the place. I mean, why hustle with the BIOSes, if hacking XP is easier?

For the XP memory limit, it's 4 Gb for 32bit XP and 128 Gb for 64bit XP. (And yours is 32bit)

[Arif786]

Hi all, I need to do a upgrade myself my current memory is the onboard 256mb I wanna upgrade to 768 as Linkco did but i need to know what memory to look for PC133 or PC100 ??

Greets,

Arif