Upgrading RAM after changing CPU

[giancmt]

My HP Elitebook 8470p is limited to 16gb of RAM by the manual. It runs the Intel i5 3320m. I’m upgrading to i7 3820qm. May I install 32gb of RAM or 16gb is a motherboard limit?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

The processor supports 32 GB of memory, but I believe that would be in a notebook that has 4 memory slots such as the 8570w has.

2 x 16 GB of DDR3L-1600 memory would be very hard to find and very expensive.

Installing 2 x 16 GB of memory would be a risky experiment on your part.

The only suggestion I can offer would be to run this command and see what Windows reports:

1. In the search box, search for cmd and click Run as administrator.

This will open the command prompt.

2. Once command prompt is opened, type wmic memphysical get maxcapacityEx and press the enter key.

There, it will show the maximum RAM capacity your PC's motherboard can support.

The capacity is shown as Kilobytes, so you have to convert it to Gigabytes by dividing the number provided in the report by 1,048,576.

[giancmt]

"I proceeded as instructed, 16Gb is the max capacity, Thanks a lot!"

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.