Dodgy Memory?

[The Mole]

A friend and I shared an order from Komplett (http://www.komplett.co.uk) recently, he got a stick of 256mb SDRAM PC133 and I got a new CDRW.

His PC is quite old, it's got a motherboard that can handle memory at PC100, but I assumed it would work because I have used PC133 memory on my other PC which was made for PC100 memory.

When he installed the new memory it would not detect it, so he handed it over to me to try it out. I've just tried it on my other PC, but it only detected it at 128mb :eek:

This has gotten me rather confused now, I'm not sure what to do... is the memory borked or what :confused:

He said he might have touched the chips on the side with his bare hands, he wasn't aware that would affect it... could that have done it?

[saphalline]

Time to count the chips! :D

Is the memory stick double-sided? How many chips are on each side (the big ones)? Is there a sticker on the RAM that has two multiplied numbers on it (like "64M x 32" or something similar)?

You can be reasonably certain that if it's a double-sided stick of RAM with 8 chips on each side that it's around 256MB. If the numbers on the sticker multiplied together, and then divided by 8, turns out to be 256 then it's definitely a 256MB module.

If it is, that RAM is broken! RMA it and get a new one! You could try calling back Komplett, but sometimes they'll tell you to call the RAM manufacturer. Depends on how Komplett handles RAM warranties so call them first.

Your friend might have shocked the RAM stick with static electricity. Was he careful/aware of static damage? Was he standing on carpet when he installed the RAM? Static damage is about the only thing that can kill RAM, but I don't know if it could be killed on only one side. I had one side of a stick of RAM die on me, but that was after a few months of use so it was a bad stick to start with.