Faulty RAM socket?

mordeith

As the title implies I'm having difficulty with a stick of RAM in a friends laptop. Basically they brought it to me cos the laptop woudn't boot. I removed one RAM stick and hey presto away it goes. I ordered a replacement stick and installed it but again no boot. The laptop will only boot is there is a stick in the lower RAM socket. If I try to boot with two sticks or with only a stick in the upper socket I get nothing. Can a slot go faulty or is there another reason for the issue?

chin_grin

Well sounds to me like it's the socket.

I mean you tried to boot with ram in it, didn't work.

You replaced that stick with a new one and tried to boot again, didn't work.

You tested it without the stick of ram, worked.

You've tried all combinations and the only common denominator seems to be the slot.

holcus

Yes, it's quite common actually. It could also be your northbridge chip on MOBO failing. I heard it could be CPU too but never seen a case like this.

As you can never be sure if RAM you bought is working. Have you tried swapping laptops original, good stick to a suspected socket and leaving nothing in good socket?

Try applying some pressure onto faulty RAM socket with good memory stick in it and turn it on. If it works you have a winner if it doesn't it means nothing.

Finally try replacing CPU if you have a spare one

mordeith

holcus wrote: »

Yes, it's quite common actually. It could also be your northbridge chip on MOBO failing. I heard it could be CPU too but never seen a case like this.

As you can never be sure if RAM you bought is working. Have you tried swapping laptops original, good stick to a suspected socket and leaving nothing in good socket?

Yeah tried the old and new stick in good socket and boots fine. Fails to boot if either stick is in the faulty socket

holcus wrote: »

Try applying some pressure onto faulty RAM socket with good memory stick in it and turn it on. If it works you have a winner if it doesn't it means nothing.

Yeah, tried that as well but no luck I'm afraid. Guess they'll have to get by on 2 gigs.

Hijpo

How old is the laptop?
If its new and has a sandy bridge cpu the northbridge functions are integrated onto the CPU doing away with northbridge chips so you might not have to worry about that. Also what OS are they running? might be worth turning off a few features so they dont experience to much a drop in perfromance like turning off Windows Aero from Vista upwards.

mordeith

Laptop is old enough. Its an Acer Aspire with a T4300 processor

Hijpo

right so, forget about my last post

unkel

mordeith wrote: »

Can a slot go faulty or is there another reason for the issue?

A slot going faulty is of course possible, but it is far more likely the combinations of memory you are throwing at the slots are the issue here

Many a computer doesn't like working with multiple memory modules that are not identical clones of each other. Many a computer doesn't like you just using one slot of your choice. It would have to be either in slot 0 and not in slot 1 or in both, or something like that. Many a computer has issues with modules that are not exactly the speed rated for the motherboard

Try and get your hands on two identical modules that are compatible with the motherboard and take it from there!

mordeith

unkel wrote: »

A slot going faulty is of course possible, but it is far more likely the combinations of memory you are throwing at the slots are the issue here

Many a computer doesn't like working with multiple memory modules that are not identical clones of each other. Many a computer doesn't like you just using one slot of your choice. It would have to be either in slot 0 and not in slot 1 or in both, or something like that. Many a computer has issues with modules that are not exactly the speed rated for the motherboard

Try and get your hands on two identical modules that are compatible with the motherboard and take it from there!

Well the initial problem started with the two original matched sticks which is why I though one stick was faulty. However the laptop will boot with either the older stick or the new stick in one of the sockets. I hear what you're saying about compatabilty issues but surely that would crop up in a bios error message or it may not register one of the sticks on booting, but for it to not boot at all? Plus I matched the sticks as close as I could. They're both PC3 8500. May not have the exact latency or speed though.

PapaSierra

I had exactly same problem last week but in a desktop PC. First I thought it's faulty RAM but swaping modules didn't resolve it so I thought this may only be caused by problem with a motherboard or a bad electrical connection between processor and motherboard.
It was the second.
I took out the processor blowed out dust from CPU socket and as I was going to put the processor back into the socket I noticed that one of the CPU pins is bend.I straighten it and everything worked!
The strange thing about it is that no one touched this pc since it was new, yet it was working perfectly all this time until last week

mordeith

PapaSierra wrote: »

I had exactly same problem last week but in a desktop PC. First I thought it's faulty RAM but swaping modules didn't resolve it so I thought this may only be caused by problem with a motherboard or a bad electrical connection between processor and motherboard.
It was the second.
I took out the processor blowed out dust from CPU socket and as I was going to put the processor back into the socket I noticed that one of the CPU pins is bend.I straighten it and everything worked!
The strange thing about it is that no one touched this pc since it was new, yet it was working perfectly all this time until last week

Interesting. I've only every built/upgraded desktops so not sure about accessing a CPU on a laptop. Can they be accessed easily?

Hijpo

mordeith wrote: »

PapaSierra wrote: »

I had exactly same problem last week but in a desktop PC. First I thought it's faulty RAM but swaping modules didn't resolve it so I thought this may only be caused by problem with a motherboard or a bad electrical connection between processor and motherboard.
It was the second.
I took out the processor blowed out dust from CPU socket and as I was going to put the processor back into the socket I noticed that one of the CPU pins is bend.I straighten it and everything worked!
The strange thing about it is that no one touched this pc since it was new, yet it was working perfectly all this time until last week

Interesting. I've only every built/upgraded desktops so not sure about accessing a CPU on a laptop. Can they be accessed easily?

You mave have to strip it pretty bare. Remove all sorts of bezells and the keyboard, fan, heat sink etc. pretty finicky stuff.

mordeith

Hijpo wrote: »

You mave have to strip it pretty bare. Remove all sorts of bezells and the keyboard, fan, heat sink etc. pretty finicky stuff.

To hell with that!

Nothingbetter2d

the motheboard may not support such a high amount of ram.

the laptop sounds old and may not support using two 1gb or 2gb ram sticks at a time

what is the exact name and model of the laptop? If we knew that we might be able to look up the motherboard specs to see it's max ram capablity. Also how much is each ram chip? 1gb, 2gb, 4gb?