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Another RAM replacement question...

post #1 of 10
4/5/05 at 6:03pm
Thread Starter 
Okay y'all...I'm counting on you once again to guide me through this decision. A month ago I bought a 1GB stick of Corsair that has caused nothing but headaches for me. I get blue screens at random times - can go for days without one and other days have so many that I want to rip the memory out completely.

I have decided to do one of the following, please tell me what is wisest:

A) Return the Corsair and exchange for Kingston, or;

B) Remove internal RAM and hope that the Corsair does fine by itself

OR...is it really worth it to have 1.25 GB of ram on this lappy?

Please, be honest - I'm just tired of the upgrade frustration.
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post #2 of 10
4/5/05 at 6:09pm
If the errors are that random, it sounds more like a software problem? Have you run http://www.memtest.org ? See how the RAM run under a few loops of the complete test. If it passes several loops of the complete test, it is almost definately software. If you get any errors in memtest, then maybe try taking the internal out and seeing what kind of results you get. In response to your last question, I doubt you will see any difference between 1GB and 1.25GB.
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post #3 of 10
4/5/05 at 8:43pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I ran memtest for about nine solid hours...with no errors. Corsair says that it sounds like their stick disagress with the internal stick. I guess my question is this: Is it worth risking voiding the warranty by taking out the internal stick? I am a bit worried that the Corsair stick will still present problems by itself.
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post #4 of 10
4/5/05 at 10:07pm
Try this: take out the memory (Corsair) and run it with just the internal ram for a while. if it runs good like that then it is a mismatch issue. So taking out the internal ram would not help.
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post #5 of 10
4/5/05 at 10:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by notewriter
Yeah, I ran memtest for about nine solid hours...with no errors. Corsair says that it sounds like their stick disagress with the internal stick. I guess my question is this: Is it worth risking voiding the warranty by taking out the internal stick? I am a bit worried that the Corsair stick will still present problems by itself.
If memtest made it rhough multiple passes with no errors, it is an extremely high possibilty that it is a software issue. Especially since the problem is so random. I have yet to ever see a single bad stick or compatibility problem (mix'n'match brands) that passed a complete memtest. If you choose to go the route of removing the internal stick, just be very careful and clean, and you shouldn't have any warranty issues.

FWIW, what error is the BSOD giving?
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post #6 of 10
4/5/05 at 11:07pm
Thread Starter 
I guess a better question would be what error is the BSOD NOT giving! I have seen every error imaginable from printer driver (no printer hooked up right now) to filesys....etc....I have yet to see the same one twice. How is THAT for frustrating?
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post #7 of 10
4/6/05 at 8:53am
Yikes. that does sound pretty ugly. Do you still have the original 256 you took out or can you live with just 256 in it for a couple days to test if everything runs ok without the stick?
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post #8 of 10
4/6/05 at 5:03pm
Thread Starter 
Actually I did put the original stick back in and didn't encounter any problems. SO. I went back to the original recommendation of Kingston. Ordered it last night at around 11:00 p.m. and lo and behold, Outpost had it on my doorstep at 8:30 am this morning. It is now on it's second pass of memtest and I'll put it through the paces later today.

Bah! So much trouble just to get that extra gb!
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post #9 of 10
4/6/05 at 6:48pm
good deal ... I hope it works out better for you!
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post #10 of 10
4/7/05 at 9:31pm
Thread Starter 
Day two...first real day of overexposing my new RAM to various open programs and some memory hogs. So far, so good. I reluctantly have hope...reluctantly because the Corsair did just fine until day four. We'll see. But so far, Kingston seems to be happily seated in my machine.
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