17 R5, 64GB of RAM?

"The CPU and chipset support it but without a BIOS update, it would not work. It would be up to Dell as to when if ever the update is released."

No idea when they might be releasing an update? I guess I can contact their technical support.

"That is quite a bit of RAM. Can I assume that you are doing graphic design or running extremely large data bases? I ask because not a game on the market uses 32 GB let alone 64 GB. But if you are future proofing, then that is another story."

Well, I run Alibre Design and I usually have Firefox open with quite a few tabs. In addition to that, I use the Xilinx Vivado Design Suite tools. I also run Ableton Live Suite 9 with Omnisphere 2 and other VSTs running at the same time. I also use Primocache and that uses up about 12GB of RAM. Plus, there's X-Plane 11 which uses up a huge amount of RAM. Future proofing would apply as well, but I really want the extra RAM for things like RAM disks/caches which run at the same time as RAM hogs such as X-Plane.

Thanks,

jdb2

The CPU and chipset support it but without a BIOS update, it would not work. It would be up to Dell as to when if ever the update is released. That is quite a bit of RAM. Can I assume that you are doing graphic design or running extremely large data bases? I ask because not a game on the market uses 32 GB let alone 64 GB. But if you are future proofing, then that is another story.

I get it now...you are a prime candidate for running as much RAM as you can. I was curious and you certainly made it a lot clearer. I would contact Dell tech support as BIOS updates are released on a pretty regular basis. It is possible the specs and compatibility for RAM have already changed.

Thanks for the reply :) I forgot to mention that I also use VMware a lot. My desktop system, which ate itself, was running an Intel X79 motherboard with a 3970X overclocked to 4.8GHz and I had 64GiB of DDR3 installed, which I needed.

I'll send a message to Dell tech support and see if they know anything about the compatibility with these new Samsung 32GiBx2 64GiB RAM kits.

Regards,

jdb2

Well, I contact Dell support and I received this message :

"

Well, I contacted Dell support and got this message :

"
Thank you for your reply, and we understand the Coffee lake series may support 64 GB

The Mobile Intel® CM246 Chipset installed with a stable configuration, and as per advertised in our website support up to 32 GB.

You can the SO-DIMMS up to 64 and may work, but do not guarantee it may be as stable with 32 GB, and you may not need to do a BIOS update.
"

So it looks like an Alienware 17 R5, even without a BIOS update, may support a 2x32GiB 64GiB RAM config. I know you can now buy the kits on various on-line stores but they're very expensive.

FYI. Just did an online chat with DELL technical support and she said there is some hardware limitation that limit the maximum memory size to 32GB, although she didn't want to elaborate (or didn't know) what the real issue is. 

Just an update.

I tried to install the Samsung 64GB (32GBx2) memory to my  Alienware 17 R5 today and it didn't work. The bios can see the 64GB memory if I go into the bios setup screen, but unfortunately it won't boot and hangs with Alienware logo being displayed. I also tried 48GB combination (32 + 16), didn't work either.

I can put a single 32GB in the RAM slot and I can boot just fine though. So it looks like DELL has somehow locked the maximum memory to 32 GB or something like that. I have the latest bios installed (1.6.2).

Hopefully this can be solved with a BIOS update in the future.

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@aj8888 wrote:

FYI. Just did an online chat with DELL technical support and she said there is some hardware limitation that limit the maximum memory size to 32GB, although she didn't want to elaborate (or didn't know) what the real issue is. 

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Well, "Dell technical support" usually connects you with some "support rep" in a call center in the far east and from my experience, they usually have very limited knowledge and don't know what they're talking about, as they use a flow-chart and read from what's essentially a script. Dell isn't alone in this practice though; most of the major tech companies have outsourced their human support.

According to all that I've read and heard the Alienware 17 R5 should support 64GiB of RAM.

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@aj8888 wrote:

Just an update.

I tried to install the Samsung 64GB (32GBx2) memory to my  Alienware 17 R5 today and it didn't work. The bios can see the 64GB memory if I go into the bios setup screen, but unfortunately it won't boot and hangs with Alienware logo being displayed.

Well the UEFI BIOS is like a small OS unto itself, so if the BIOS sees the memory correctly, then I think it's more likely there's something going on with Windows. Which version of Windows are you running? I'm betting that if you created a small bootable Linux live-USB USB stick that it would successfully boot off of that.

I also tried 48GB combination (32 + 16), didn't work either.

Well, a processors IMC is usually very picky when it comes to mis-matched memory modules, and I wouldn't expect 32GiB + 16GiB to work in the first place.

I can put a single 32GB in the RAM slot and I can boot just fine though. So it looks like DELL has somehow locked the maximum memory to 32 GB or something like that. I have the latest bios installed (1.6.2).

Well, I have been talking to various people and I have contacted several retail outlets that sell matched 32GiBx2 64GiB Samsung SO-DIMM kits and they said that they've received no complaints about any compatibility with their 64GiB kits and Dell laptops.

Did you buy your 64GiB upgrade as a matched kit or did you buy two individual 32GiB SO-DIMMs from different batches? If the latter is the case, that might be contributing to the problem.

Hopefully this can be solved with a BIOS update in the future.

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Have you also considered the possibility that your memory modules are bad? Try one 32GiB module in one slot and then in another and repeat with the 2nd module. If there's no change, then I'd suggest trying to get Memtest86+ running on boot. Failing that, there may be a problem with how the BIOS is interpreting the SPD data on the modules but you'd need to mod your BIOS to fix that.

I mentioned that everyone I had talked to and what I had read indicated that there should be no problem upgrading Dell laptops whose CPU's supported 64GiB of RAM. Well, here's confirmation :

https://old.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/antbu2/xps15_9560_upgraded_to_64gb_ram/

The above Dell XPS 15 9560 has a 7th generation Intel CPU but its CPU supports up to 64GiB of RAM ( see here ) in a 32GiB x2 dual channel configuration.

My Alienware 17 R5 laptop has an Intel Core i9-8950HK and I don't see any reason why 64GiB of memory wouldn't work.

If Dell has imposed some type of software lockout, then that's a legal grey area.

@jdb2 Thanks for the detailed information. I did the test again and both memory modules are good, either one of the single 32GB module works on either memory slot just fine (tried all combinations).

With one single 32GB installed, I immediately see the spinning icon underneath the Alienware logo when the Windows load. But if I put two 32GB modules in, then there is no spinning icon under the Alienware logo and it won't boot, just sitting there doing nothing.

My OS is Windows 10 Enterprise 64 bit. I still suspect it is the BIOS, since you mentioned XPS 15 supports 64 GB memory, I think the UEFI are the same, but BIOS is different from Alienware. 

Thanks again!

I also encountered the same problem, 64G can't boot the system.