Predator Helios 500: upgrading RAM for 32GB total

2

Answers

  • I do not think your memory is 1250mv, but 1200mv! I do not think there is a blockage regarding this setting!
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  • PredatorHelios500
    PredatorHelios500 Member Posts: 74 Devotee WiFi Icon
    I do not think your memory is 1250mv, but 1200mv!

    Why? It's what Windows reports. In the absence of any spec sheet, what makes you think that? Why shouldn't I go by the output of wmic?
    Cheers,
    H500 Owner
  • Your memory is 1.2v! However the notebook's chipset supports a power range of 1.14v to 1.26v for overclocking!
    Look this:

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  • PredatorHelios500
    PredatorHelios500 Member Posts: 74 Devotee WiFi Icon
    edited September 2018
    Your memory is 1.2v! However the notebook's chipset supports a power range of 1.14v to 1.26v for overclocking!

    Hi, egydiocoelho. I think there is some confusion. The screengrab you posted is not my memory. My memory is ACR26D4S9D8MD-16, which is a 260-pin SODIMM at 2666HHz. The KVR21R15D4/16 memory you posted is 288-pin at 2133MHz. I do not see why the voltage specifications of the later should apply to the former. You keep saying my memory is 1200mV. I know my memory is running at 1200mV. The question is why the configured voltage is under the 1250mV minimum voltage the manufacturer recommends. Is it because Acer undervolted the RAM? It appears they did.

    Cheers,
    H500 Owner

    PS You keep using exclamation marks instead of periods which makes me feel like you are yelling at me even though I know you are trying to help. You may wish to reconsider that.

  • The ddr4 ram memory, both the 288-pin (desktop) and the 260-pin (notebook) memory, comes with a 1.2v voltage regardless of its speed! What I understand is that its chipset supports a variation of 1.14va 1.26v, and this is used for anyone who likes to do undervolting in memory, which means lowering the voltage of the ram and thus achieving the same performance with a lower voltage, or raise the ram memory voltage to a maximum of 1.26v!
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  • I use the exclamation point as a way to draw attention to my answer! But do not worry about it, because I'm not yelling at you  :):)
    I'm just trying to help you!
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  • PredatorHelios500
    PredatorHelios500 Member Posts: 74 Devotee WiFi Icon
    edited September 2018
    I use the exclamation point as a way to draw attention to my answer! But do not worry about it, because I'm not yelling at you  :):)
    I'm just trying to help you!
    :3

    Based on your answer, I think Kingston KVR26S19D8/16 is the closest match to my system. However, it looks like my ram is  2400Mhz modules overclocked to 2666Hz which means I can narrow the Kingston part number down to all but three characters: KVR24S??D?/16. Kingston doesn't seem to have 2400MHz 16Gb SODIMM RAM publicly available though.

    I suppose I could use native 2666Mhz RAM rather than 2400MHz RAM overclocked to 2666MHz but I'd worry about the timings not matching and ending up with non-maximal performance.

    EDIT: I looks like there might exist

    KVR24S17D8/16 Investigating now...


    Cheers,
    H500 Owner


  • In fact, your model seems to support a ram ddr4 with 2666mhz! Take a look at the fru list of this model:

    Confirm this by taking a look at aida64:

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
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  • Red-Sand
    Red-Sand ACE Posts: 1,892 Pathfinder
    edited September 2018
    Hi, everybody. Thank you for your replies.

    Here are stock parts that came with my PH517-51:
    • Intel Core i9-8950HK 2.90GHz
    • 32 Gb RAM = 2x16Gb Kingston DDR4 2667MHz (ACR26D4S9D8MD-16)
    • Toshiba 512Gb M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD THNSN5512GPU7
    • Western Digital Blue Mobile 1Tb HDD WDC WD10SPZX
    • NVIDIA GTX 1070 8Gb DDR5
    • Killer Wireless-AC 1550i Adapter 9560NGW
    • Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
    • 17.3-inch 1080p HD display
    The part I'm still puzzled about is why the ram is running at 1200mV which is lower than the 1250mV minimum recommended by the RAM itself. Did Acer purposely undervolt the RAM to keep thermals under control?

    wmic MEMORYCHIP get<br>Attributes  BankLabel  Capacity     Caption          ConfiguredClockSpeed  ConfiguredVoltage  CreationClassName     DataWidth  Description      DeviceLocator   FormFactor  HotSwappable  InstallDate  InterleaveDataDepth  InterleavePosition  Manufacturer  MaxVoltage  MemoryType  MinVoltage  Model  Name             OtherIdentifyingInfo  PartNumber        PositionInRow  PoweredOn  Removable  Replaceable  SerialNumber  SKU  SMBIOSMemoryType  Speed  Status  Tag                TotalWidth  TypeDetail  Version  <br>2           BANK 1     17179869184  Physical Memory  2667                  1200               Win32_PhysicalMemory  64         Physical Memory  ChannelA-DIMM1  12                                                                              Kingston      1500        0           1250               Physical Memory                        ACR26D4S9D8MD-16                                                    2336D9ED           26                8400           Physical Memory 1  64          128                  <br>2           BANK 3     17179869184  Physical Memory  2667                  1200               Win32_PhysicalMemory  64         Physical Memory  ChannelB-DIMM1  12                                                                              Kingston      1500        0           1250               Physical Memory                        ACR26D4S9D8MD-16                                                    2236DAED           26                8400           Physical Memory 3  64          128                  <br><br>

    It's a fantastic machine as is but I want to beef it up in the coming months. And after tinkering with Windows games for a while I'm going to install Linux and it will become my main machine for coding... hopefully it will be good enough to last ten years or so. I'm old and my strategy with laptops has been to buy the top of the line consumer laptop every 10 years or so rather than a lower tier laptop which needs to be replaced every 3 or 4 years. So far I'm extremely happy with the Helios 500. It's the best designed laptop I've ever had. Acer has a real winner here. It seems like it would be very easy for Acer to support Linux on it. If I found a magic lamp, that's what I'd wish for.

    Pretty much the only issue I've had is that the black case makes dust very visible so I often find myself cleaning the surface. Hopefully the look keeps its luster as the years go by. I'd also recommend a sliding door for the web cam. I HATE a web cam staring me in the face. I don't want anybody seeing me without my explicit choice and there are just too many ways for crackers to access the webcam. Seems no big OEM puts these on their laptops though... so sticker over the web cam yet again.

    Cheers,
    Helios 500 Owner

    PS Why does Acer even want to keep the service manual secret? I can't imagine service makes them that much money to make this practice a good










    It could be a voltage tuning due to Predator Senses built in overclocking (which not only overclocks the GPU but RAM as well). 
    You might wanna try setting Predator Sense to "Turbo" then recheck RAM specs.

    I doubt Acer would undervolt RAM to lower its temps since a laptops RAM doesn't overclock like a desktops and therefore doesn't really overheat.

    One of the members of this forum created a "How To" for installing Linux found here: 
    https://octoperf.com/blog/2018/09/02/acer-predator-helios-500-mods/

    As far as the webcam goes it does have two features to let you know when the camera is turned on.. one is a light next to the camera lights up when signals are being recieved.. also theres a on display pop up that says "Camera On" when its activated.
    As far as I know, no hacker can bypass the little light turning on so no worries there.

    Service manual includes detailed lists of part numbers, and general overviews on replacement tutorials as well as other advanced reading.
    In my opinion it's better to keep this guide hidden from general use so that someone who doesn't know much can't attempt something beyond their skill level.
    At least this way an ACE can share the manual in snippets based on specific questions asked.. that way you know the person asking at least has a general understanding of whats going on.

    - Hotel Hero
  • PredatorHelios500
    PredatorHelios500 Member Posts: 74 Devotee WiFi Icon
    edited September 2018
    Thanks egydiocoelho and Hotel Hero. Both your replies are very helpful.

    Hotel Hero, I tried Turbo as you suggested, Hotel Hero and the result was very strange. Before doing turning on TURBO (both CPU and GPU), I had
    <div>>wmic MemoryChip get ConfiguredClockSpeed,speed<br>ConfiguredClockSpeed  Speed<br>2667                  8400<br>2667                  8400<br></div><div></div>
    during TURBO I had
    >wmic MemoryChip get ConfiguredClockSpeed,speed<br>ConfiguredClockSpeed  Speed<br>2400                  2667<br>2400                  2667
    and then after going back to NORMAL it stayed as
    >wmic MemoryChip get ConfiguredClockSpeed,speed<br>ConfiguredClockSpeed  Speed<br>2400                  2667<br>2400                  2667
    I can't make sense of these numbers. Everything is acting very counter-intuitively.

    I just rebooted and it stayed at
    >wmic MemoryChip get ConfiguredClockSpeed,speed<br>ConfiguredClockSpeed  Speed<br>2400                  2667<br>2400                  2667
    For what it's worth, I had never switched away from NORMAL on CPU or GPU since I received the machine. This was the first time.

    Cheers,
    H500 Owner

    EDIT: The RAM voltage stayed the same (1200mV) for NORMAL, FASTER, and TURBO.


  • Not sure why voltage is tuned down.. also very strange that the clock speed had been reading 8400! I know thats not right lol.

    Ill check mine with HWMonitor in a bit
    - Hotel Hero
  • Thanks @Red-Sand for helping this user with more correct answers! About the service guide, I agree with you, because even the service guides sometimes offer incomplete information of the model and this mainly occurs because of hardware that may be slightly different between versions of the same model! But I saw that I had the need to show that his model supports 2666mhz, because, in the same service guide, in a part of the document, shows that this model only "supports" the memory of 2400mhz, which in fact is not truth!
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  • PredatorHelios500
    PredatorHelios500 Member Posts: 74 Devotee WiFi Icon
    edited September 2018
    My system is now always reporting 2400MHz as the ConfiguredClockSpeed and 2667MHz as the Speed for the RAM.

    It appears that I have 2667MHz modules but they are running at 2400MHz and until today the output of wmic was giving incorrect values of 2667MHz for ConfiguredClockSpeed and 8000MHz as the Speed. I don't know why that would be. I found a file I made using Powershell over a week ago with
    Get-WmiObject win32_physicalmemory
    and I now notice it was saying 2400MHz for the RAM which was a direct contradiction with wmic's output in Command Prompt. SOMETHING was behavior strangely and causing wmic to report erronous values but using Predator Sense's TURBO seems to have changed (fixed?) it. Acer may wish to look into that if they are reading this.

    As for the RAM, for sure the i9 can handle 2667MHz RAM and perhaps this chipset/motherboard can too but it now looks like I'm "stuck" in 2400MHz and there's no way from the BIOS to change it. So while it appears I have 2667MHz RAM, I'm not using it at full speed.

    While it's up, Windows 10 task manager is still reporting 2667MHz as the RAM speed even though wmic and Get-WmiObject now both agree it's 2400MHz. So apparently Windows reports RAM's max speed and not the actual configured speed, which may be a Windows bug.

    Cheers,
    H500 owner


  • You check the speed that the ram is working here in the task manager: 

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
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  • PredatorHelios500
    PredatorHelios500 Member Posts: 74 Devotee WiFi Icon
    edited September 2018
    You check the speed that the ram is working here in the task manager:
    I wrote in my previous post that
    While it's up, Windows 10 task manager is still reporting 2667MHz as the RAM speed even though wmic and Get-WmiObject now both agree it's 2400MHz. So apparently Windows reports RAM's max speed and not the actual configured speed, which may be a Windows bug.
    To reiterate, the speed that task manager is reporting does not appear to be the actual configured speed but the max speed of the ram.

    Cheers,
    H500 Owner
  • To confirm at what speed ram is working, use aida64:

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  • _albie_
    _albie_ Member Posts: 44 Devotee WiFi Icon
    edited September 2018
    it's a bit annoying for me that @PredatorHelios500 system shipped with DDR4-2667MHz RAM, and mine shipped with DDR4-2400MHz RAM
    (model # of my system is PH517-51-98Y7)

    but it shows that each user has to check their own system before buying additional RAM
  • @_albie_! In this case, I would contact support again to find out how to proceed: 
    Send a private message to @Acer-Manny!
    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
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  • PredatorHelios500
    PredatorHelios500 Member Posts: 74 Devotee WiFi Icon

    _albie_ said:
    it's a bit annoying for me that @PredatorHelios500 system shipped with DDR4-2667MHz RAM, and mine shipped with DDR4-2400MHz RAM
    (model # of my system is PH517-51-98Y7)

    but it shows that each user has to check their own system before buying additional RAM

    You shouldn't be annoyed. 1) the price from country to country and promotion to promotion so maybe I paid more. 2) The Helios 500 bios seems to be set to have 2400MHz. To get the 2667MHz level I would have to hack the BIOS, which I'm unprepared to do at this time since the machine is still feeling "fresh" to me. So at the moment, your machine and mine both run at 2400MHz RAM and will continue to do so in the future. Your CAS latencies might even be smaller for all we know, so it's possible your RAM is actually quicker. (Post your RAM part number)

    As for Acer support, I was just referred to their "parts store" when I inquired about RAM. The "store" is really just Acer's locale small affiliates. And for the affiliates didn't even have the RAM for the Helios 500 yet. (Hopefully they will!)

    Cheers,
    H500 Owner


  • _albie_
    _albie_ Member Posts: 44 Devotee WiFi Icon
    according to CPU-Z, I have the following memory installed:
    https://www.cnet.com/products/hynix-ddr4-8-gb-so-dimm-260-pin/specs/

    to upgrade with another 16GB (for 32GB total), two days ago I bought:
    https://www.amazon.com/Timetec-PC4-19200-Unbuffered-Notebook-Computer/dp/B07B4NYZLJ?th=1