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Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
"Jonathan" wrote in message ups.com... SNIP Hi, It is anything but unknown for ebuyer own brand memory to have a high DOA (dead on arrival rate). Often one or more sticks will be duff. I am not sure if you system demands matched pairs or pairs at all. But I would suggest just trying one 1gb stick at a time (i.e. literally just one of your new 1 GB ebuyer memory sticks). Try this with each stick to see if you can identify one as faulty. (Likewise, if you system does require matched pairs you can always see if you can borrow a known good stick form a friend and try one of yours with that, etc. - or vice versa [if the system requires matched pairs the likelihood of this working is going to be very low - also if your system does require matched pairs I would be surprised if that is what you are getting from ebuyer - they never used to do own brand matched pairs). Anyhow - hope that helps and good luck. Best wishes, News Reader P.s. Their is every likelihood that one or more of the sticks is faulty but it would be a shame if it turns out that they are not. |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Jonathan wrote:
In my Medion 8083, there are 2 sticks of Samsung and 2 of Elixir memory, 256Mb each. 1Gb simply isn't enough these days, so I did lots of research, found various configurators and read this page: http://md8083.hertsinternet.com/memory.shtml which led me to believe that this product should suit: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/63128 - bought 2x1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184pin non-ECC ram, exactly as should work, and as you can see from the other page, 1Gb sticks should work. [snip] On the front is a sticker with just the number 178873 and there are 8 chips marked 128xDDR, also the numbers 0710 400 on each chip. So, I'm guessing that'll be 400Mhz and 128*8 is 1024, so it looks sort of right. Apparently the motherboard in that PC has the Intel 865PE chipset. These only support chip densities up to 512mbit, so 8-chip 1GB sticks will not work. Those cheap 16-chip "high density" sticks they sell on eBay won't work either, but for a different reason. Branded 16-chip 1GB sticks should work fine, but these will be more expensive. -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
On 15 Jun, 20:36, John Jordan wrote:
Apparently the motherboard in that PC has the Intel 865PE chipset. These only support chip densities up to 512mbit, so 8-chip 1GB sticks will not work. Those cheap 16-chip "high density" sticks they sell on eBay won't work either, but for a different reason. Branded 16-chip 1GB sticks should work fine, but these will be more expensive. Ah - now that's a good answer, just not one I wanted to hear! OK - how do I find out whether a stick has 8 or 16 chips? All the crucial sticks say 128x64, so if each chip is 128Mb, then there can only be 1024Mb. I found the Crucial Scanner thing http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/index.asp but it only wanted to recommend Ballistix sticks, or kits with parts that ebuyer didn't have. Bearing in mind the memory is going to have to go back to ebuyer, can you please let me know what to search on? I used the memory finder tool at http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...x?model=MD8083 which recommended a CT434183 stick, but ebuyer don't have that part. There's this, though: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/65719/rb/0 - but again, it doesn't say how many chips, just that it's called CRUCIAL 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184-PIN UNBUFF 128MX64 Memory Sigh. This business with 8-chip and high-density non-working chips is a whole new world to me. I foolishly thought that one thing called a 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184pin non-ECC stick of RAM would be the same as another stick of RAM with the same name. |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
"Jonathan" wrote in message oups.com... On 15 Jun, 20:36, John Jordan wrote: Apparently the motherboard in that PC has the Intel 865PE chipset. These only support chip densities up to 512mbit, so 8-chip 1GB sticks will not work. Those cheap 16-chip "high density" sticks they sell on eBay won't work either, but for a different reason. Branded 16-chip 1GB sticks should work fine, but these will be more expensive. Ah - now that's a good answer, just not one I wanted to hear! OK - how do I find out whether a stick has 8 or 16 chips? All the crucial sticks say 128x64, so if each chip is 128Mb, then there can only be 1024Mb. I found the Crucial Scanner thing http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/index.asp but it only wanted to recommend Ballistix sticks, or kits with parts that ebuyer didn't have. Bearing in mind the memory is going to have to go back to ebuyer, can you please let me know what to search on? I used the memory finder tool at http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...x?model=MD8083 which recommended a CT434183 stick, but ebuyer don't have that part. I may be oversimplifying things here, but can't you just buy the Crucial stuff? |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
In article .com,
Jonathan says... I found the Crucial Scanner thing http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/index.asp but it only wanted to recommend Ballistix sticks, or kits with parts that ebuyer didn't have. Bearing in mind the memory is going to have to go back to ebuyer, can you please let me know what to search on? I used the memory finder tool at http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...x?model=MD8083 which recommended a CT434183 stick, but ebuyer don't have that part. There's this, though: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/65719/rb/0 - but again, it doesn't say how many chips, just that it's called CRUCIAL 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184-PIN UNBUFF 128MX64 Memory Buy your memory from Crucial. Get the stuff the scanner recommends. It is a no quibble money back guarantee if it doesn't work and it also has a lifetime guarantee. As an example of Crucials excellent service, I had cause to suspect a 5 year old DIMM was defective. Even though I didn't have a receipt, they traced the order from the e-mail address I used and the serial number of the DIMM and gave me a RMA number on the spot saying they'd ship new RAM as soon as they got the old, even before testing. -- Conor Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak......... |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Jonathan wrote:
Ah - now that's a good answer, just not one I wanted to hear! OK - how do I find out whether a stick has 8 or 16 chips? Unfortunately, this is one thing that Crucial are very bad at. Unless you buy through their memory advisor, there's no guarantee that the sticks will have the right chip density. I'd be surprised if any of their 1GB DDR sticks weren't 16-chip as they tend to use low-density chips for compatibility, but it's not definite. There's a related issue where memory controllers will often run better with 8-chip (single sided) sticks, but with Crucial you have no way of knowing what you're going to get. Some other manufacturers such as Kingston will specify more precise details for sticks if you know what you're looking for. -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
Bitstring , from the
wonderful person Conor said In article .com, Jonathan says... I found the Crucial Scanner thing http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/index.asp but it only wanted to recommend Ballistix sticks, or kits with parts that ebuyer didn't have. Bearing in mind the memory is going to have to go back to ebuyer, can you please let me know what to search on? I used the memory finder tool at http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...x?model=MD8083 which recommended a CT434183 stick, but ebuyer don't have that part. There's this, though: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/65719/rb/0 - but again, it doesn't say how many chips, just that it's called CRUCIAL 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184-PIN UNBUFF 128MX64 Memory Buy your memory from Crucial. Get the stuff the scanner recommends. It is a no quibble money back guarantee if it doesn't work and it also has a lifetime guarantee. As an example of Crucials excellent service, I had cause to suspect a 5 year old DIMM was defective. Even though I didn't have a receipt, they traced the order from the e-mail address I used and the serial number of the DIMM and gave me a RMA number on the spot saying they'd ship new RAM as soon as they got the old, even before testing. They must have hated you, often they (used to?) cross ship (i.e. the new goes out before the old gets back), although they may need a CC number for that. But yeah, for the benefit of the OP, buy RAM from Crucial. Not sure exactly WHAT I'd recommend buying from ebuyer - something that can't go wrong, I guess .. carpet tiles, maybe. -- GSV Three Minds in a Can 8,963 Km walked. 1,746Km PROWs surveyed. 31.7% complete. |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
In article , John Jordan says...
but with Crucial you have no way of knowing what you're going to get. Pick up the phone and ring the 0800 number... -- Conor Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak......... |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Conor wrote:
In article , John Jordan says... but with Crucial you have no way of knowing what you're going to get. Pick up the phone and ring the 0800 number... I guess that might be useful if you were trying to get single-sided sticks in preference to double sided, but it's still ridiculous that they don't put the information on their online specs. Doesn't help if you're not buying through their site, because they give sticks with different chip counts exactly the same ID code. -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Jonathan wrote:
However, what arrived in the envelope was non only unbranded (which I expected - when 2Gb of RAM is £66 inc postage with the google discount, I wasn't worried at first!). On the back of the RAM is "Middle East Memory Ltd" and the email address Memory is the only thing I never buy cheap. Buy the stuff from Crucial that they recommend. I regard my time (even leisure time) as valuable; wasting hours fiddling around with dodgy memory for the sake of 10 or 20 pounds isn't worth it. ebuyer are happy to take them back as faulty, but is it something I'm doing wrong? Yes - buying Ebuyer memory. Get your money back and start again. I went through exactly what you're doing - never again :) Another Dave. -- change nospam to f2s in e-mail |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
In article , John Jordan says...
Conor wrote: In article , John Jordan says... but with Crucial you have no way of knowing what you're going to get. Pick up the phone and ring the 0800 number... I guess that might be useful if you were trying to get single-sided sticks in preference to double sided, but it's still ridiculous that they don't put the information on their online specs. Shouldn't matter as the aim of the game is compatibility and if you use the selector tool, that's what you'll get. -- Conor Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak......... |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know Ihave the right stick?
Another Dave wrote:
Memory is the only thing I never buy cheap. Buy the stuff from Crucial that they recommend. I regard my time (even leisure time) as valuable; wasting hours fiddling around with dodgy memory for the sake of 10 or 20 pounds isn't worth it. Dave, I would agree, except I'd want to go further. If you have dodgy memory in a PC, and you use an operating system that writes to media (which is sort of common), then it's quite possible for the dodgy memory to make the OS write nonsense over anything on that media. If you have data on a PC, and it's not backed up, you don't really have it. You certainly don't if the memory is dodgy. So even if your time isn't worth £20, is your data worth that much? Been there, done that, found out how good my backups were¹. I've now got ECC memory from Crucial... James. ¹ With the exception of three downloaded files (I couldn't remember what they were, so I couldn't download them), Good Enough. -- E-mail: james@ | ... and watched Richard Stallman ask one of the waiting aprilcottage.co.uk | staff whether the spring rolls did indeed spring and | whether they would bounce. | -- Telsa Gwynne |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Conor wrote:
In article , John Jordan says... I guess that might be useful if you were trying to get single-sided sticks in preference to double sided, but it's still ridiculous that they don't put the information on their online specs. Shouldn't matter as the aim of the game is compatibility and if you use the selector tool, that's what you'll get. I don't think they take account of the DS/SS issue - I can recall a case where they sent Johannes a pair of double-sided 512MB sticks when single-sided sticks may well have worked. -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:01:27 +0100, Conor wrote:
In article .com, Jonathan says... I found the Crucial Scanner thing http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/index.asp but it only wanted to recommend Ballistix sticks, or kits with parts that ebuyer didn't have. Bearing in mind the memory is going to have to go back to ebuyer, can you please let me know what to search on? I used the memory finder tool at http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...x?model=MD8083 which recommended a CT434183 stick, but ebuyer don't have that part. There's this, though: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/65719/rb/0 - but again, it doesn't say how many chips, just that it's called CRUCIAL 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184-PIN UNBUFF 128MX64 Memory Buy your memory from Crucial. Get the stuff the scanner recommends. It is a no quibble money back guarantee if it doesn't work and it also has a lifetime guarantee. I recently bought the recommended memory for a Shuttle SN41G2 from Crucial using the selector. It looks to be the same spec as above. Whilst it worked fine I had the reassurance of the guarantee. Downside is it cost £98. I'm sure with more research I'd could have purchased suitable RAM for less than £50. I'm still trying to convince myself it was worth paying double for the no quibble guarantee. |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
In article , John Jordan says...
Conor wrote: In article , John Jordan says... I guess that might be useful if you were trying to get single-sided sticks in preference to double sided, but it's still ridiculous that they don't put the information on their online specs. Shouldn't matter as the aim of the game is compatibility and if you use the selector tool, that's what you'll get. I don't think they take account of the DS/SS issue - I can recall a case where they sent Johannes a pair of double-sided 512MB sticks when single-sided sticks may well have worked. Yes they do take account of the DS/SS issue. Why do you think Johannes would benefit from having SS over DS? Do you think it makes any difference? I think you're trying to find a problem with something above your technical competency. -- Conor Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak......... |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
In article , Dean
says... I recently bought the recommended memory for a Shuttle SN41G2 from Crucial using the selector. It looks to be the same spec as above. Whilst it worked fine I had the reassurance of the guarantee. Downside is it cost £98. I'm sure with more research I'd could have purchased suitable RAM for less than £50. I'm still trying to convince myself it was worth paying double for the no quibble guarantee. Well when you're building systems, you only need to build a handful and have all the problems generic RAM from Scan/Aria/et al seem to always have and you'll buy Crucial every time. Generic RAM either doesn't work or fails within 12-18 months - most of that is because the cheaper stuff uses chips recovered from faulty DIMMS in manufacture. Crucial RAM is NOT that much more than generic. It's certainly within a couple of quid and if you're just buying RAM, then the lack of a £6.95 +VAT postage charge makes it cheaper. I have yet in 8 years of commercial building to have any problems with Crucial RAM whatsoever. For me, that's worth the extra money. -- Conor Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak......... |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Conor wrote:
Yes they do take account of the DS/SS issue. Why do you think Johannes would benefit from having SS over DS? Do you think it makes any difference? For DDR400 at least, the more sides or ranks you have in a channel, the less likely it is to work at SPD speeds and timings. This is explicitly stated in AMD's Athlon 64 technical specs, and is also true for other memory controllers. DDR400 was always a borderline technology. Because all recent DDR chipsets support 512mbit chip density, the 512MB PC3200 sticks with the best overall compatibility are single sided, 8-chip. Crucial just sent me 8 or 16 chip sticks at random, as far as I can tell. -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Conor wrote:
Well when you're building systems, you only need to build a handful and have all the problems generic RAM from Scan/Aria/et al seem to always have and you'll buy Crucial every time. Generic RAM either doesn't work or fails within 12-18 months - most of that is because the cheaper stuff uses chips recovered from faulty DIMMS in manufacture. Crucial RAM is NOT that much more than generic. It's certainly within a couple of quid and if you're just buying RAM, then the lack of a £6.95 +VAT postage charge makes it cheaper. Crucial charge 50 quid atm for a 1GB PC3200 stick compared to ~35 quid for an unbranded stick, so I guess it's tempting. I've been through the generic RAM business though, and I agree that it's not worth it. Other branded memory at least doesn't have the cell and PCB faults of generic memory, but Crucial has better single-stick compatibility IME than Corsair, Kingston or OCZ. -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
On 2007-06-17, John Jordan wrote:
Conor wrote: Yes they do take account of the DS/SS issue. Why do you think Johannes would benefit from having SS over DS? Do you think it makes any difference? For DDR400 at least, the more sides or ranks you have in a channel, the less likely it is to work at SPD speeds and timings. This is explicitly stated in AMD's Athlon 64 technical specs, and is also true for other memory controllers. DDR400 was always a borderline technology. Because all recent DDR chipsets support 512mbit chip density, the 512MB PC3200 sticks with the best overall compatibility are single sided, 8-chip. Crucial just sent me 8 or 16 chip sticks at random, as far as I can tell. I think sides != ranks. Rank is the important thing. Sides is not so relevant. Happy to be corrected. Lordy |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
On 2007-06-17, John Jordan wrote:
Conor wrote: Well when you're building systems, you only need to build a handful and have all the problems generic RAM from Scan/Aria/et al seem to always have and you'll buy Crucial every time. Generic RAM either doesn't work or fails within 12-18 months - most of that is because the cheaper stuff uses chips recovered from faulty DIMMS in manufacture. Crucial RAM is NOT that much more than generic. It's certainly within a couple of quid and if you're just buying RAM, then the lack of a £6.95 +VAT postage charge makes it cheaper. Crucial charge 50 quid atm for a 1GB PC3200 stick compared to ~35 quid for an unbranded stick, so I guess it's tempting. I've been through the generic RAM business though, and I agree that it's not worth it. Other branded memory at least doesn't have the cell and PCB faults of generic memory, but Crucial has better single-stick compatibility IME than Corsair, Kingston or OCZ. I picked some up for 42 new from funkygiraffe on ebay. Also got some second hand ones fine. As long as you look for Low Density in the description or get a full Chip/Stick code and look it up yourself. Then do a FULL memtest (1G sticks tend to be CL3) before booting your real OS. Then if thats OK run prime95 Torture Test for about 30 minutes. Lordy |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
lordy wrote:
I think sides != ranks. Rank is the important thing. Sides is not so relevant. Happy to be corrected. Ranks is the least ambiguous, but then most people don't seem to know what it means. The AMD docs use ranks, but the motherboard manual writers translate this to sides. The Intel docs use ranks, sides and banks interchangeably, which is bizarre because "banks" has another meaning for SDRAM. Usually sides == ranks, with the main exception being those cheap "high density" sticks on eBay. These have chips on both sides but only one rank. Registered memory usually has the same organisation. A chunk of AMD's S939 table for completeness: max speed slot1 slot2 1T 2T single rank none 400 400 double rank none 400 400 single rank single rank 333 400 single rank double rank 200 400 double rank single rank 200 400 double rank double rank 200 333 -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
On Jun 17, 5:19 pm, John Jordan wrote:
Usually sides == ranks, with the main exception being those cheap "high density" sticks on eBay. These have chips on both sides but only one rank. Registered memory usually has the same organisation. Phew! My head aches! I got a reply from the generic manufacturer.They say: Dear Jonathan, Regarding the sticker, It is not our label and looks like applied by one of the buyers/distributors. You should be aware and see the motherboard guide, that I865 chipsed geometry has been designed, when 1Gbit technology (128x8 dies in our case) hasn't present in the market. For this reason, A13 addres just doesn't layed out in this motherboard and such modules can be wrong recognized by I865 chipset as 512Mb modules only. Next I915 generation working fine with 1Gb/400 modules, populated with 128x8 dies. May I suggest you to renew the motherboard to enjoy for the better performance of 1Gbit generation or to replace this modules to the 16 chips 64x8 populated. Thank you, |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Jonathan wrote:
Phew! My head aches! I got a reply from the generic manufacturer.They say: [snip] I'm almost shocked that they a) replied to you and b) know what they're talking about. If you're still confused, the key point is that there are two common ways to construct a 1GB stick - you can use 16 512Mbit chips or 8 1Gbit chips (1 byte = 8 bits). Your board only supports 512Mbit, 256Mbit and 128Mbit chips. There are other compatibility issues, but they only apply if you're using multiple sticks per channel or buying unbranded memory. -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
In article , John Jordan says...
Conor wrote: Yes they do take account of the DS/SS issue. Why do you think Johannes would benefit from having SS over DS? Do you think it makes any difference? For DDR400 at least, the more sides or ranks you have in a channel, the less likely it is to work at SPD speeds and timings. This is explicitly stated in AMD's Athlon 64 technical specs, and is also true for other memory controllers. DDR400 was always a borderline technology. Rubbish. Because all recent DDR chipsets support 512mbit chip density, the 512MB PC3200 sticks with the best overall compatibility are single sided, 8-chip. Crucial just sent me 8 or 16 chip sticks at random, as far as I can tell. They didn't. -- Conor Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak......... |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I have the right stick?
I found an answer and if anyone's got the inclination, there now
follows a LONG posting which details everything I found out about the perils of trying to save £8! To summarize: I made two separate orders of Ebuyer 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184pin Extra Value Ram which is located at http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/63128 According to the information I had available, this is the correct memory for my Medion MD8083. When it arrived, it didn't work and I contacted the memory manufacturer listed on the back of the chip and also asked Medion, and they said that this is because it is "high density RAM" which isn't compatible with a lot of boards. On 17 Jun, 21:31, John Jordan wrote: Apparently the motherboard in that PC has the Intel 865PE chipset. These only support chip densities up to 512mbit, so 8-chip 1GB sticks will not work. Even though I'd been building and fixing systems for myself, friends, family and colleagues for 9 years, I never realised this or came across this issue before. I must have just got lucky! Those cheap 16-chip "high density" sticks they sell on eBay won't work either, but for a different reason. Yes, I think I might have found something about that! http://www.ev4.org/wordpress/2007/04...plot-thickens/ http://www.ev4.org/wordpress/categor...memorymanscam/ Branded 16-chip 1GB sticks should work fine, but these will be more expensive. If you're still confused, the key point is that there are two common ways to construct a 1GB stick - you can use 16 512Mbit chips or 8 1Gbit chips (1 byte = 8 bits). Your board only supports 512Mbit, 256Mbit and 128Mbit chips. Well, eBuyer customer services said they'd mark the RAM as faulty and I could upgrade to some Crucial memory. I used both the crucial configurator and crucial scanner and it gave different results, all showing as compatible: System Scanner CT495852 - DDR PC2700 · CL=2.5 CT495874 - DDR PC3200 · CL=3 Memory Advisor CT434198 DDR PC3200 · CL=3 CT434186 DDR PC2700 · CL=2.5 I believe what I have in there already is non-ecc RAM and my idea is to keep the CL=2.5 memory in there so I have 1Gb256Mb1Gb256Mb in the slots in order to make 2.5Gb. Am I correct in assuming that CL2.5 is faster because of the reduced clock cycles to get data in and out? But then, the 2700 always seems to be cl3 and what I have already is pc3200 - should I stick to 3200? At this point I got befuddled again and decided to follow some good advice: On 15 Jun, 22:31, Conor wrote: Pick up the phone and ring the 0800 number... So, I called Crucial on 0800 013 0330 and spoke to a very helpful man who answered the phone instantly and cleared up my confusion: He said that ALL Crucial 1Gb sticks are 16 chip, and the fact that the configurator picked different model numbers for what looked like the same chip is because it IS the same chip, but the differing CT numbers are because the system generates differing numbers depending on whether you drilled down by motherboard, chipset, system or used the scanner. So, at last, after a long weekend and a chat with Crucial, I found a part number that was both compatible AND stocked by eBuyer - CT12864Z40B. Great! I phoned to check whether I could merge the two orders into one, so I could pay the difference for the better memory, just because they seem to be doing free postage over £50, so I'd save a bit and they'd save on shipping and handling. I wasn't particularly expecting it to be possible, but what I definitely wasn't expecting was to find that they cannot change any item ordered via Google Checkout! Yes, you read it right. So, I lose the free shipping and the Google Checkout discount (because the items have to be refunded) so in all it will cost me £24.40 extra (plus the cost of the RAM). So, by buying cheap RAM to save £8 over the cost of 2Gb, I've ended up costing myself a large part of the weekend and nearly £25. To be fair, I've been buying generic stuff for about 8 years and never run into a problem like this before. I'm happy that I bought a generic 1Gb USB stick a year ago for £10; Dell were charging £50 for a 256Mb stick with the word "Dell" on it. Had I realised the Crucial stuff was only £8 more, I'd have bought it anyway. And I've learnt a lot about memory, thanks in particular to the very knowledgeable John Jordan. Now, have I got the inclination to start the whole process again?! |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Jonathan wrote:
.... Pick up the phone and ring the 0800 number... So, I called Crucial on 0800 013 0330 and spoke to a very helpful man who answered the phone instantly and cleared up my confusion: He said that ALL Crucial 1Gb sticks are 16 chip, and the fact that the Then he was wrong. I've just rma'd a 1G stick of 8-chip memory which Crucial sold me for a C7/CN700-based board, which only saw 512Mb of it. And the replacement doesn't work at full speed either (two sticks of it) because the timing's wrong somewhere.... the subject of another thread in u.c.h. And I thought Crucial were reliable :-) -- Mike Scott (unet at scottsonline.org.uk) Harlow Essex England |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havethe right stick?
Mike Scott wrote:
Jonathan wrote: .... Pick up the phone and ring the 0800 number... So, I called Crucial on 0800 013 0330 and spoke to a very helpful man who answered the phone instantly and cleared up my confusion: He said that ALL Crucial 1Gb sticks are 16 chip, and the fact that the Then he was wrong. I've just rma'd a 1G stick of 8-chip memory which Crucial sold me for a C7/CN700-based board, which only saw 512Mb of it. I suspect he meant all 1GB DDR sticks. 1Gbit chips are mainstream for DDR2, and would probably work in any chipset except the CN700 :-) I believe the CN800 supports 1Gbit chips, although VIA's "documentation" is so minimal that it's hard to be sure without trying it. They claim 4GB maximum as against 2GB for the CN700, which does suggest 1Gbit support. -- John Jordan |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know I havetheright stick?
John Jordan wrote: Conor wrote: In article , John Jordan says... I guess that might be useful if you were trying to get single-sided sticks in preference to double sided, but it's still ridiculous that they don't put the information on their online specs. Shouldn't matter as the aim of the game is compatibility and if you use the selector tool, that's what you'll get. I don't think they take account of the DS/SS issue - I can recall a case where they sent Johannes a pair of double-sided 512MB sticks when single-sided sticks may well have worked. -- John Jordan The problem I had was a flaky memory performance when using 4 slots. It didn't matter whether the new memory were in 3,4 or in 1,2 . However, using 2 slots alone always worked whether new or old memory. Hence I put the problem down to the motherboard. (Yet another dimension of trouble). Searching newsgroups, I found another case of a similar experience. In the end, I ordered 2x1GB Kingston instead. |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know Ihave the right stick?
"James Wilkinson" wrote in message ... Another Dave wrote: Memory is the only thing I never buy cheap. Buy the stuff from Crucial that they recommend. I regard my time (even leisure time) as valuable; wasting hours fiddling around with dodgy memory for the sake of 10 or 20 pounds isn't worth it. Dave, I would agree, except I'd want to go further. If you have dodgy memory in a PC, and you use an operating system that writes to media (which is sort of common), then it's quite possible for the dodgy memory to make the OS write nonsense over anything on that media. If you have data on a PC, and it's not backed up, you don't really have it. You certainly don't if the memory is dodgy. So even if your time isn't worth £20, is your data worth that much? Been there, done that, found out how good my backups were¹. I've now got ECC memory from Crucial... James. ¹ With the exception of three downloaded files (I couldn't remember what they were, so I couldn't download them), Good Enough. -- E-mail: james@ | ... and watched Richard Stallman ask one of the waiting aprilcottage.co.uk | staff whether the spring rolls did indeed spring and | whether they would bounce. | -- Telsa Gwynne Your post arived here dated the 16 th Your a very sloe typer :¬)) |
Ebuyer unbranded memory doesn't work - how do I even know Ihave the right stick?
"Trev" trevbowdenAT.dsl.pipex.COM wrote in message ... Your post arived here dated the 16 th Your a very sloe typer :¬)) must be the gin ;-) |
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