I recently opened up my Lenovo ThinkPad T490 out of curiosity and found that there's only one RAM slot available, which has an 8GB stick installed. I'm puzzled because my system shows that I have 16GB of RAM. Can someone explain why that is? Is there more RAM somewhere that I can't see?
3 Answers
Yeah, some laptops, like yours, have one upgradeable RAM slot, while the other stick is permanently attached to the motherboard. If you want to check exactly how your RAM is set up, a screenshot from the task manager showing the memory details can help clear things up.
Just did a quick lookup, and it confirms that the T490 has just one accessible RAM slot. The other 8GB is indeed soldered in, so it’s not something you can upgrade. That’s pretty common in many laptops now.
It sounds like your laptop has 8GB of RAM soldered onto the motherboard, plus the 8GB stick you found in the slot. So all together, that's how you end up with 16GB. Unfortunately, this means you can only upgrade the removable stick and not the soldered one.
I figured that might be the case. Soldered components can be such a hassle for upgrades!
That’s a bummer! Other models allow for both sticks to be replaced easily.