This week, updated ram in a 5 year old lenovo gaming laptop to run some recent games. Is an i7, 4 core 8 thread system.

The instructions for getting to the memory are on ifixit!

One added twist: That laptop’s official docs have maximum supported ram at 16G (which what was in the system). But since long out of warranty, and ram is cheap, and fairly standard, got 32G to put into it.

on reboot, the system immediately detected the upgrade, no extra config required, didn’t even have to go into bios

Now running some larger steam games, that used the swap file too much with 16G.

Here’s to serviceable and up-gradable systems, that have online service manuals!

I would recommend lenovo laptops, especially if you can catch their “super savings”, where they put their older models on sale, sometimes less than half price! Since many of them are very up-gradable, the older models can be excellent. The Thinkpad line is very well documented, especially for Linux. And if you get the “bare bones” versions (ram, HDD) you may be able to upgrade in the future, when HDD and RAM are even cheaper. Check the docs…

Also liked the fact that the power supplies across some Thinkpad and gaming machines were standardized on the connectors. (obviously larger ones need more power, but could use the big power supply with the smaller ones, so only need the largest one in the room)

The newer models now use USB3

p.s. anyone want some old lenovo laptop ram?

p.p.s:
update: in case anyone has a similar system: the memory I have working is below
full spec, from the website I where got it:

Manufacturer Crucial
Manufacturer Part # CT16G4SFD8213.C16FAD1
Memory Type DDR4 SDRAM
Capacity 16GB
Data Transfer Rate 2133Mhz
Pins 288 Pin
Bus Type PC-17000
Error Correction Non-ECC
Cycle Time 0.93ns
Cas CL15
Memory Clock 266Mhz
Rank Rank 2
Voltage 1.2