Thinkpads Forum

I am thinking of going to 2G of memory in my T42 and I'm wondering where I might get the best deal on two 1G sticks. Also, what specific kind of memory do I need for the T42? And what are the best (cheapest?) sites for getting the memory.

Ran PC Doc and came up with this. What I've got now is 1G of
DDR-SDRAM PC2700 333MHz. I thought it had 2 512 sticks, but I opened the back and there's an empty slot there.

So all I have to do is find a good, cheap 1G stick and I'm golden.

Thanks,

Silo

Best? Go for OEM.

Cheapest? Check thisfrom our very own.

you can find 1GB PNY sticks from time to time at circuity city, best buy, compusa for $70'ish (how I upgraded my T42p from 1GB to 2GB)

spotter wrote:you can find 1GB PNY sticks from time to time at circuity city, best buy, compusa for $70'ish (how I upgraded my T42p from 1GB to 2GB)

This is not meant as a threadcrap, just an FYI.


Comparing PNY memory to IBM OEM memory is like putting a Yugo and a Mercedes SL600 side by side.

You get what you pay for.

eh, from my experience, as long as you don't plan to overclock the ram, the regular retail brands are fine. They will stand behind their warranty and they work fine at what they are designed for.

brentpresley wrote:Comparing PNY memory to IBM OEM memory is like putting a Yugo and a Mercedes SL600 side by side.

You get what you pay for.

Alleluia brother Brent. I am in full agreement, and that's why when I can't find a new stick of quality RAM at a reasonible price I put out the BRENT light and you save my buttocks with the good stuff cheap. It just takes experience to learn this. Guys like us can try to pass it on but in the end a lot of people can't resist the "savings" and succomb. I'm not saying the good stuff can't fail, and that the cheap stuff can't work well for a long time (and I have "sinned" and bought cheap myself... please forgive me!), but there is a reason why some RAM is always cheaper than others. You know, most people think 99.9% up time is just fine until they learn that they'll be down a whole day each year. Will that be the day they have to have that research completed? Who knows? I'd pay a little more for 99.999%, but just like 99.9%, cheap, off-brand RAM that's usually only 10-33% less looks way too tempting to the average person. Of course others far smarter may have their own opinions on this, and that's why there are so many companies making and selling so many different (yet similar) products.

RAM ain't RAM.

- Yak

brentpresley wrote: Comparing PNY memory to IBM OEM memory is like putting a Yugo and a Mercedes SL600 side by side.

Well said ... IBM memory is expensive, because it is well tested and 100% compatible with thinkpads (barring a very few outliers). I have seen so many PNY-related failures with (student) dells, and I always suggest getting a good brand of memory like Crucial, even if it is slightly expensive.

Bad RAM leads to some BSODs that even probably M$ will have trouble figuring out!

gator wrote:

brentpresley wrote: Comparing PNY memory to IBM OEM memory is like putting a Yugo and a Mercedes SL600 side by side.

Well said ... IBM memory is expensive, because it is well tested and 100% compatible with thinkpads (barring a very few outliers). I have seen so many PNY-related failures with (student) dells, and I always suggest getting a good brand of memory like Crucial, even if it is slightly expensive.

Bad RAM leads to some BSODs that even probably M$ will have trouble figuring out!

I took a flyer and bought this Crucial at newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145068

I'm hoping it works out. If it's the wrong piece for some reason, pls alert me and I won't unpack it.

Thanks.

(Gator--Did I tell you that it turned out that T42 I got off eBay has a year warranty remaining? I was very pleased.)

bontistic wrote:Best? Go for OEM.

Cheapest? Check thisfrom our very own.

Well, wish I'd seen that before buying. Thx.

It's always a nice idea to look around before buying. You will always end up will all your choices sorted out and probably get some good advice along the way.

Brent gives out a nice warranty plan with more than enough time for you to really test the items bought from him. Crucial is a well made brand as well and it should work well plus the lifetime limited warranty is great and they do have guaranteed compatibilityfor the T42. I also believe they make some OEM chips for Lenovo and other companies as well.

Someone please let me know if my recollection is correct.
Let us know how your installation went as soon as you try it out.

to each his own. Whenever I buy ram, I put it through a day or two testing w/ memtest86. If it passes, I'm fairly confident in it. The thing that generally kills ram is static, and there isn't going to be static in the middle of my machine. Generally, it's very easy to get a warranty replacement from a retail brand if you tell them that memtest86 shows the errors and you tried it in different dimm slots or tried a different dimm and it didn't show up.

Personally I'm fond of crucial as well, but if price is a concern, pny's handled carefully and installed carefully have served me well. I wonder how many PNY problems can be attributed to people not knowing what they are doing and killing part of the memory via static vs. PNY itself shipping bad parts.

spotter wrote:to each his own. Whenever I buy ram, I put it through a day or two testing w/ memtest86. If it passes, I'm fairly confident in it. The thing that generally kills ram is static, and there isn't going to be static in the middle of my machine. Generally, it's very easy to get a warranty replacement from a retail brand if you tell them that memtest86 shows the errors and you tried it in different dimm slots or tried a different dimm and it didn't show up.

Personally I'm fond of crucial as well, but if price is a concern, pny's handled carefully and installed carefully have served me well. I wonder how many PNY problems can be attributed to people not knowing what they are doing and killing part of the memory via static vs. PNY itself shipping bad parts.

Well, I can say 100% for sure that I have handled and used probably 10-100X more memory than just about anyone else here (except for maybe 1-2 others), and that includes a LOT of sticks of PNY. PNY memory is JUNK. Plain and simple.

However, we need to clear something up first:

PNY is NOT a memory MANUFACTURER, they are a memory PACKAGER.

What is the difference?

MANUFACTURER - makes the actual chips on the memory DIMM, and often the DIMM itself. Manufacturers include Elpida, Micron, Samsung, Hynix, Nanya, and Infineon (and that is an EXHAUSTIVE list, there are no more).

PACKAGER - buy memory chips from one or more of the above manufacturers and solder them on to their own PCB. The quality of memory from these guys varies GREATLY. At one end of the spectrum you have companies like OCZ and Kingston which do extensive testing and quality control from batch to batch. At the other end are PNY, Simpletech, etc. Except for OCZ and sometimes Kingston, these companies use 4 layer PCB designs instead of the more robust 6 layer variety that the manufacturers recommend. This is an IMPORTANT difference because 4-layer designs have higher noise to signal ratios and are far more prone to electrical failure over prolonged use.

If you look at what ships in laptops, it is ALWAYS manufacturer RAM, and not packager RAM. I have NEVER seen IBM ship a single laptop with a stick of packager RAM. And there is a good reason for that. Quality Control and LONG TERM reliability.


No son, there are HUGE differences in RAM quality. And that is the reason I only trust my TP to the same stuff that IBM/Lenovo uses.

"uncle, uncle".

spotter wrote:you can find 1GB PNY sticks from time to time at circuity city, best buy, compusa for $70'ish (how I upgraded my T42p from 1GB to 2GB)

I bet these require mail-in rebates, which don't always work. Brent is the single most trusted seller on this forum and is far more reliable than mail-in rebates!

memory seems cheaper than I remember it

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hm ... ia=BA22966

less than $40 for a 1GB a 667mhz kingston sodimm.

spotter wrote:less than $40 for a 1GB a 667mhz kingston sodimm.

PC2700 is much more expensive than PC2-5300.

pianowizard wrote:I bet these require mail-in rebates, which don't always work. Brent is the single most trusted seller on this forum and is far more reliable than mail-in rebates!

I'd rather buy RAM from Brent too - just see the +ve feedbacks thread, you'll see Brent's name all over it.

I wish they ban mail in rebates. I hate them so much.

Hey guys, enough with the hating on spotter.

No hatred of any sort towards spotter whatsoever from anyone, this topic has come up before and we still see people posting problems in the T6x and T4x area because of babd memory. The importance of buying memory could nt be stressed enough - you might save a few dollars buying cheap, but you buy trouble as well for free - which is what is being said here.

To be fair, Lenovo memory also has its own share of problems.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=26326

Speaking as a memory test engineer for the last several decades (ROM, SRAM, DRAM, Flash), I can back up the assertion that cheap memory is usually the result of minimal testing and/or shortcuts in printed circuit board design.

Note that I said minimal testing. Each time a memory manufacturer or module assembler (what Brent has referred to as "packager") inserts the memory/module into a tester, it costs them money. In the last several years, test costs have become a major factor because of the increased memory capacity. Larger memory = longer test times = more cost.

Depending upon how/where the module assembler receives their raw material and what kind of final test/quality assurance procedures are in place by the assembler, you can have essentially the same product sold at widely different prices. Such is the nature of OCZ and their brethren who appear to go through great lengths in the testing and the design of their modules. While I would not specifically characterize PNY as "junk", I don't doubt that there might be problems with using that brand. But the same goes for any other module maker.

One can only assume that the module assembler is receiving the individual memory chips from the aforementioned manufacturers (Elpida, et al) that have been tested and guaranteed to some sort of published standard specification. It is possible that some module makers are using "seconds" or "marginal" product, but I don't have any personal information to say that this is the case. I would say that most assemblers will also not be using the multi-million dollar automated test equipment (ATE) that the manufacturers have (Advantest, Teradyne, and the like). Instead, they will be using bench-top testers costing only a couple of thousands of dollars. In most cases these testers are basically just modified PCs or interfaces which connect to PCs. They do not have the timing and voltage accuracies that ATE does.

There can be some very specific conditions which can induce a "soft" failure in the memory, again, what Brent calls the "noise to signal ratio". If the design of the printed circuit board and the quality of the bypass capacitors is not up to snuff, you can have intermittent functional failures due to narrow voltage spikes on the power or data lines. This does NOT destroy the memory, it only presents the wrong data during the time when it's supposed to be read or written correctly. This generally presents itself as intermittent lock ups and BSODs.

IBM, as well as others, has a qualification routine which must be followed in order for a manufacturer to be placed on an "approved vendor list". The big players (Micron, Elpida...) can afford to jump through the hoops to be considered "qual'ed". The smaller players can't do this for a number of reasons. Any change to the memory chips (new design, slight revision, maker) or PC board will require a re-qualification procedure.

Having said all of this, I generally prefer buying "name-brand" modules. This includes all of the ones mentioned by Brent, along with ProMos (nee Mosel Vitelic; full disclosure - I'm an employee of MV, which in turn is owned by ProMos). I would not mind using an "off-brand", even PNY, as long as I could run some diagnostics (memtest86+) and be able to return it if I found a problem. I've probably bought about 40 modules off of eBay over the years and have only had to return one because it failed my testing. I'm pretty sure it was a generic module; not one from a major memory manufacturer or assembler.

I've said it before... Being in the industry, I absolutely HATE buying any memory, but for my older systems I can't tap into the company stockroom anymore. Should have had some foresight to hoard some old EDO and SDRAM modules years ago... Actually since MV has gotten out of the DRAM market, I can't even get any of the newer stuff either .

qviri wrote:Hey guys, enough with the hating on spotter.

No "hating".

Just a stern talking.

I used "hating" figuratively. Maybe it's a bit strong of a word. Sorry if it offended anyone.

this topic has come up before and we still see people posting problems in the T6x and T4x area because of babd memory.

How many of these people ran memtest86 before encountering the issues? If it's bad, send it back.

I agree with spotter on some points. Cheap RAM is just that. I see PNY declared to be "junk" (though I suppose that depends on your definition of "junk"), but something like what? 20% of this supposed "junk" dies during its useful lifetime. To some, the money saved may be worth taking the chance that their memory is not in the unfortunate 20%. Add to that the fact that probably only 20% of that 20% would pass 24 hours of memtest86 at first installation, and these are some very nice odds.

I do like the comparison between the Zastava and the Mercedes. When it works, Zastava gets you to your destination, just as the Mercedes does. Of course, with memtest86, you're able to determine with 80% accuracy whether the Zastava won't start one day. Is the gamble worth it? Only the person paying for the car can decide.


By the way, Ray -- spectacular post. Deepest respect.


The percent values in this post are guesstimates pulled out of a cavity. If they're way off, call me out.