Here is a cute way of checking how many sticks of ram exist in your laptop without having to take it apart. I decided to upgrade this lovely Lenovo Thinkpad L390 to 32GB.

But does it have one slot of 16GB, are two slots of 8GB? Am pretty sure the latter is likely to be the case!

Run this simple command :

sudo dmidecode -t memory

You should get output back like this:

Handle 0x0004, DMI type 17, 40 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0002
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8 GB
Form Factor: SODIMM
Set: None
Locator: ChannelB-DIMM0
Bank Locator: BANK 2
Type: DDR4
Type Detail: Synchronous
Speed: 2667 MT/s
Manufacturer: Samsung
Serial Number: 3324FFE1
Asset Tag: None
Part Number: M471A1K43CB1-CTD
Rank: 1
Configured Memory Speed: 2400 MT/s
Minimum Voltage: Unknown
Maximum Voltage: Unknown
Configured Voltage: 1.2 V

This command dmidecode is usually installed on most major Linux distributions.

Sadly my laptop currently has two sticks 8GB so I’d have to replace both with two lots of 16GB. A cost over £200!

Damn those AI guys!