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Discussion on: How to upgrade RAM on your laptop

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alchermd profile image
John Alcher

I actually just upgraded mine a couple weeks back! One gotcha, which I'm not 100% sure if it's just me, is that I removed the factory RAM before I installed the new one and then swapped their slots (IDK, I thought it's fine to do it). So basically, the factory RAM is at slot_a which I moved to slot_b and installed the new one at slot_a. This crashed my laptop after half an hour of usage in which no peripheral worked (even the display) even if the power displays are on. I tried swapping them back to their original slots and it worked fine ever since!

So.... am I crazy or is what goes where matters when installing RAM?

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

I think you got lucky, I wouldn't use two different types of RAM at once. The reason being they might have different timings, latencies and voltage.

It's a gamble :-)

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alchermd profile image
John Alcher

Err, but they're the same memory size and frequency though? Just different vendors. I wonder what went wrong.

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rhymes profile image
rhymes • Edited

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough :-) They should be the same exact model of RAM, vendor included.

Different models and brands can have different CAS latency, slightly different voltages and so on.

They might be identical in manufacturing, they might not. That's why I said you got lucky and that's why people suggest to have 2 exactly identical memory sticks.

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alchermd profile image
John Alcher

Oh yeah I see, that's the reason why (some) RAM sticks are sold as pairs, right? I'll keep in mind next time!

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Yeah I think it's exactly for that reason...