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?!