Does x220 (i7) support 1600/1866MHz RAM?

I found this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/629961-x220-8gb-1600mhz-1866mhz.html

which seems to suggest the x220 can run at 1600 or 1866MHz RAM. I didnt want to bring up an old thread- so could someone please confirm whether the x220 would be able to run this Crucial 1866MHz RAM:

16GB kit (8GBx2), Ballistix 204-pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3-14900 upgrades for Lenovo ThinkPad X230 Laptop/Notebook, CT4477383 from Crucial.com

and at what speed it would run?

 

it supports 1333 mhz as the maximum ram speed. You can get 1600 or 1866 mhz ram, but they will just downclock.

 

This is from the thread I pointed to:

 

If you are talking about Sandy Bridge I7 (2630QM and above) then RAM works at 1600MHz at least. Speaking about 1866Mhz I don't know because it also depends on BIOS. Sony VAIO for example oftenly tries to cut perfrmance of their machines.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...m-full-speed-help-screenshots-appreciate.html

Speaking about Crucial, I saw many times that Crucial for some reason just do not work in laptop. At all. Maybe you try another brand if you want to use 1866MHz RAM?
IMO, 1600MHZ RAM is current mainstream choice. If you use 1866MHz then you really need snappiest machine with every half of percent squeezed of it.

I personally will get 2133MHz RAM But I know that working with SSD most likely I will not see much difference in comparison with 1600 in snappiness. I am sure though that I will in comparison with 1333
Faster RAM is very useful for iGPU and is useful for Archieving and other processing job.

 

that is interesting did he have a screen shot of this? I couldn't get this to work with the 1600 mhz ram i put in the X220.

 

I have 1600mhz Kingston HyperX RAM in my X220 (it was branded as being Sandy Bridge compatible), and when I installed them my system reported it was running at that speed and not 1333mhz. I believe I read on this forum that newer BIOS updates removed the ability for RAM to run at this speed (off the top of my head, version 1.29 and above? could be wrong), but I don't have the time right now to find which thread/post that was. Hopefully this helps in some way.

I'm still on version 1.22, typically don't install BIOS updates.

 

If it's true then it is very valuable info.

 

I am running 1866 on my X220 i5-2520m, you need bios 1.28 or below, and if you google around you can find a version which will flash a whitelist 1.28 bios onto your laptop. Otherwise 1.29 and above limits the ram to 1333.

 

Could you show a screenshot of CPU-z? Or please, validate it using CPU-z. Thank you!

 

Here you go. First shot shows it's an X220 and my BIOS version, second shot shows the ram running at 800mhz (2 sticks=1600mhz)



I would recommend finding a way to downgrade to the 1.28 BIOS. Let me know if you would like me to provide anything else.

 

The bios file is here. Not sure whether downgrade is possible.

BIOS Update Utility for Windows 8 (32-bit, 64-bit), 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad X220, X220i, X220 Tablet, X220i Tablet

 

CPU-Z Validator 4.0