Satellite P100-324: 4 GB RAM Solution

Question

Hello,
I have been happily using my P100-324 for a couple of months now. Last week it turned out that I need 4 GB of RAM to work, so I bought the extra modules. Since the official specification states the support for that amount of RAM, I didn't expect any problems.
So, right now my situation looks like this:
- P100-324 with 4 GB RAM installed,
- 3072M System Memory Passed - in BIOS,
- BIOS updated to 4.00 (1),
- KB929777 installed,
- ~3 GB RAM usable in different OSes (2),
- ~2500 EUR spent on notebook, warranty extension and extra memory.
My question: is there any way to use 4 GB RAM with this notebook - as stated in the official specification?
If not: which Toshiba company is responsible for disributing this machine in Poland? I understand that Toshiba has many different branches dedicated to different product lines. I talked to my lawyer and she said I should sue the distributor for the money spent. So basically, I need the confirmation that it is definiately impossible to use 4 GB RAM on P100-324.
Should somebody have any useful information for me, I'd be very happy to hear them.
Regards,
(1) - It was supposed to help, as stated [here|http://support.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/TSB7601WE0007R01.htm]. However, it seems like blaming 32-bit OSes for the lack of memory remapping support in BIOS (required by 945PM) is not the way to go.
(2) - I tested the configuration on the following OSes, without any success:
a: Vista Ultimate 32-bit (with PAE explicitly enabled),
b: Vista Ultimate 64-bit,
C: Debian 64-bit,
d: Sabayon Linux 64-bit,
e: FreeBSD 6.2 (64-bit custom built kernel).
Message was edited by: Admin

Answer 1

ENABLING 4GB RAM / STAGE 2
Changes since the stage 1 (first post):
1) BIOS updated to 4.20-WIN.
Actually, this was done twice. First time, when the BIOS patch was not linked on the official drivers download site yet (I found it manually browsing Toshiba's drivers repo). Later on, I patched the BIOS once again, to make sure there were no changes in officially-enabled files. To make sure I didn't break anything with the first update, I compared the checkums of the two bios upgrade files and they were exactly the same.<br />
<br />
In fact, I didn't notice any visible changes between versions 4.00 and 4.20. It turns out that blaming 4.20 for the hot-GPU issue was a mistake (explained in the next point). Both versions of the BIOS act exactly the same, reporting 4096 MB RAM in the BIOS setup, and later on "3072 M System Memory Passed" during the BIOS phase of the bootup.
2) GPU Temperature issue in Vista x64.<br />
After several days of workin with 64-bit Vista installation I noticed that the bottom of the notebook is becoming incredibly hot. I installed Nvidia's MonitorView and I was shocked to discover that the idle temperature of my GPU is over 90 C! The heavy-load temperature oscillated around 105 C. The strange thing is that when the computer is booting, or when in BIOS, or when working with non-Windows OS, one of the fans works loudly and cools down the GPU. However, at the moment I launch Vista, that fan stops running and the temperature starts increasing.<br />
<br />
My small investigation the way my computer acts (described above) shows that it's the GPU driver that may be responsible. As one of this forum gurus stated, +this is the reason why we should only use the official drivers released by Toshiba+. It seems that those drivers are able to fully access the graphical chipset and control the fan (generic nvidia drivers cannot read/control fan's state with my notebook). That brings us to the next point:<br />
3) 4 GB Ram issue
Many people (even on this forum) state, that in order to use 4 GB RAM one has to use 64-bit Operating System. Even one of the Toshiba's official support pages confirms this point of view. So please help me find an error in this way of thinking (cause maybe all of this mess is because of me):<br />
<br />
working with P100-324, I will be able to use 4 GB RAM, as stated in the official specs
it's not possible to use more than 3 GB RAM with 32-bit OS (even though I disagree with that), so I buy 64-bit Vista Ultimate Box) and install it on my notebook,<br />
The notebook has Designed for Windows XP Windows Vista Capable sticker, so I don't expect any problems (the sticker doesn't say "Vista 32-bit capable),<br />
Later on I find out that 64-bit systems are not supported by Toshiba, because of the fact that they're not
What do you guys suggest?
A couple of screenshots:
<a href="http://tesserakt.eu/p100_324_4gb_vista64_bios420.png" target="_newWindow" class="jive-link-external">Control Panel -&gt; System</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://tesserakt.eu/p100_324_mini_2.png" target="_newWindow" class="jive-link-external">Nvidia MonitorView (Polish)</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://tesserakt.eu/p100_324_mini_3.png" target="_newWindow" class="jive-link-external">Toshiba's Official P100-324 Specs</a><br />
<br />
<em>Regards!</em>
</p>
Message was edited by: admin