Hi,
TL;DR - Has anybody either successfully used 16GB DDR3 modules on SandyBridge, can rule it out, or has ideas about how to dig deeper?
I recently bought 2 crucial 16GB DDR3 SODIMM modules to upgrade my T520 (2630QM CPU) to 32 GB. As it didn't work I did some research and found a couple of postings blaming the problem on Intel not providing proper memory reference code (e.g. http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/upgrading-ram.756463/page-2) preventing the BIOS from initializing the RAM.
When I looked for alternative BIOSes I came across coreboot. Compiled and installed it - works fine with 2*8GB modules. With one or two 16GB modules I still saw the SeaBIOS info but then it crashed. Adding memtest as a secondary payload and starting it worked, but memtest crashes instantly when it starts testing.
So I got a beaglebone for EHCI debugging. Please find the logs for 2*8GB modules and 1*16GB + 1*8GB module at http://www.tricnet.de/t520/
There is already a related issue in the tracker - https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/56 but I do not understand how there could be a pin missing (as suggested in the comment)? According to http://www.anandtech.com/show/7742/im-intelligent-memory-to-release-16gb-unr... the column address needs one more line (A11) for the 8gbit chips, which is provided anyways because it is needed for regular row addressing.
I can afford to spend a bit more time on the issue but I'm not sure how to continue. Beside that I just found out, that Intel states 16GB max RAM for the 2630QM but 32GB for the 2720QM
http://ark.intel.com/de/products/52219/Intel-Core-i7-2630QM-Processor-6M-Cac... https://ark.intel.com/de/products/50067/Intel-Core-i7-2720QM-Processor-6M-Ca...
So, do you have any ideas about how to continue?
Best,
Thomas