Thinkpads Forum

Hi..

I just ordered my T60..2623D4U, and I wanna upgrade its memory to 2GB (2 x 1GB).
What memory brand.. and model. should I use?
Thanks for your attention and patience

You can't go wrong with memory from crucial.com . They even have a memory finder where you tell it what brand make/model you're using and they'll tell you what memory to buy. It's awesome!!

Pricing has always been reasonable as well. I get a little additional discount as a reseller but even without it, it's still good pricing.

I ordered Crucial for my T60 and the price was fair, the person on the phone was courteous and quite educated, and it shipped same day. Installation was easy and I'm very happy with the result.

I would avoid the crucial. Too expensive. Check out this page and buy from newegg as I always have for RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... GB&Ntk=all

Crucial RULES!

Have used it on my last 4 new ThinkPads and never had a problem. Install is not near as easy on the T60p as my T43p, but with care and a little extra time, all is perfect.

I have to agree with dfumento...Crucial (along with some of the other big brands) is kind of expensive.
There are plenty of reliable brands that don't cost near as much. Go to newegg and read reviews; they usually give you a good idea regarding quality if it's a brand name you don't recognize.

For those who like Crucial, what's the advantage? It looks like Newegg also has a 30 day return policy (unless I'm understanding their site wrong). And there are many many reviews from users on the site attesting to the quality of the RAM at Newegg. The Cruical RAM, for 1Gb, is $149 vs. $89 at Newegg. What justifies the extra $60?

donking! wrote:The Cruical RAM, for 1Gb, is $149 vs. $89 at Newegg. What justifies the extra $60?

you mean the corsair for $89? I'm too trying to understand the $60 difference.....

notice all the MacBook people getting blue screens with the $89 corsair? could be that $60!

hoya wrote:notice all the MacBook people getting blue screens with the $89 corsair? could be that $60!

I have friend with MBP and having the exact same experience, so far no solution.

I use Crucial, & Newegg, as I find they have better prices on Crucial (my fav) than buying direct from crucial. I suspect that the other brands of memory are probably just as good as Crucial. However I have had friends using brand x, that have experienced (memory not recognized, etc) problems. It's more important for me to go through the install process once (w/no problems), and be done with it.

There are several modules on Newegg for $89. I wasn't referring to one in particular. There's Patriot, Gigaram, and Corsair. Also a few modules for even a little cheaper (around $80).

In the reviews it does look like some people on the MacBook are having trouble with the Corsair. But the Gigaram gets pretty good reviews. There aren't enough reviews (only 4) on Newegg of the Crucial memory to draw much in the way on conclusions. (By the way, the Crucial module currently sells for the same price on Newegg as on Crucial's own site.)

So I'm still wondering what the difference between Crucial and Gigaram or Patriot are? It is possible to find bad reviews of Crucial, including RAM modules that fail and cause crashing (look at resellerratings.com and sort for people who gave low ratings--although in general Crucial gets a very high rating there). Anyway, I don't doubt the quality of Crucial's product. I'm just wondering what the difference is (if any) from other well rated products that sell for $60 less.

Is it just some small risk that I might have to send my module back for another one?

donking! wrote: So I'm still wondering what the difference between Crucial and Gigaram or Patriot are? It is possible to find bad reviews of Crucial, including RAM modules that fail and cause crashing (look at resellerratings.com and sort for people who gave low ratings--although in general Crucial gets a very high rating there). Anyway, I don't doubt the quality of Crucial's product. I'm just wondering what the difference is (if any) from other well rated products that sell for $60 less.

Is it just some small risk that I might have to send my module back for another one?

I feel exactly the same way. I would like to know the differences in the various brands myself. Also I try to remind myself that reviews are written by individuals that may have an adjenda against a particular company. I would love to save $60 if I knew I would get high quality, reliable ram. It's my very busy schedule (like everyone else) that has influenced me to stay with what my personal experience has proved to be a great product. Having to return a defective product, and essentially doing the job twice costs me more than $60.

Thanks for the feedback and enjoy your day.
Archer

archer6 wrote:Also I try to remind myself that reviews are written by individuals that may have an adjenda against a particular company.

It's true that reviews are written by individuals. But on Newegg the Patriot memory has 21 reviews, Corsair has 15, and Gigaram has 32. I figure if a module has 32 reviews which are almost all very positive, that's a pretty good sign (there will always be a couple people with bad experiences, this is even true, as I pointed out, with Crucial memory). So I read reviews as groups of reviews.

On that basis, it does seem like there's something up with the quality on the Corsair modules. But I'm not convinced yet that there's anything better about Crucial than Gigaram.

Well.. I am from Brazil...so RMA is a kinda of problematic
Just waiting my Crucial Modules
Thanks everyone!

I tried Corsair about two laptops ago and it did not work. Back to Crucilal for me and everyone I know that has used it has had zero problems.

That is worth the extra bucks for me.

It's curious that Corsair seems to be the preferred alternative here, after Crucial. Again, on Newegg, out of quite a few customer reviews, overall Patriot and Gigram are distinctly higher rated (in terms of problems) than Corsair.

donking! wrote:It's curious that Corsair seems to be the preferred alternative here, after Crucial. Again, on Newegg, out of quite a few customer reviews, overall Patriot and Gigram are distinctly higher rated (in terms of problems) than Corsair.

This thread has peaked my interest, as I have not paid that much attention to the subject once I became a Crucial customer quite some time ago. Kind of like if it's not broken, don't fix it. I always order my ThinkPads in the standard configuration so as to not delay the shipping time. Then I purchase the Crucial ram from the online company that has the best prices.

Interestingly when my T60 arrived about 45 days ago, I shopped Newegg only to find out that their price was $40 less than the Crucial site itself. However that only lasted for a week, as a friend went online to get his and the price went back up to the same as Crucials site.

That said, I've been asking around since this thread was started. Here are the results of my "poll" of around 25 ThinkPad T series users. Certainly not scientific. 12 using Crucial, 5 using Giga, 4 using Corsair, 4 using Transcend.

Here are the ones that had a problem/return situation: 3 Corsair, 2 Transcend.

So what does this prove? ...nothing as far as I'm concerned but it was certainly quite interesting listening to users opinions, and what they based their decisions on.

Between your casual poll and the reviews on the Newegg site, I do think there's enough information to conclude that Gigaram and probably Patriot have less problems than Corsair. I don't think there's enough information in these two sources to conclude anything about Transcend.

I forgot to mention in my prior post here that of the people that use Gigaram, every one of them had more than one ThinkPad and absolutely no problems with the brand. So, I think that if I was to try an alternative other than Crucial, it would be Gigaram. IMHO

I've dealt with Crucial for years and will continue to do so.

As for price, there is a saying that you don't always get what you pay for but you never get what you don't pay for.

i took 2 sticks of memory out of a macbook pro (hynix brand) and stuck em in a t60 and have not had any issues.

BudC wrote:I've dealt with Crucial for years and will continue to do so.

As for price, there is a saying that you don't always get what you pay for but you never get what you don't pay for.

I understand that Crucial is probably (probably, I repeat) more reliable than Gigaram and the best of the less expensive memory. But I still don't understand how it justifies a price that's almost twice the cost. $89 vs. $156.

Newegg also has a 30 day return policy. So it's no more difficult to return then Gigaram than the Crucial if there's a problem. Is the 2% risk that I'll have to return the Gigaram vs 1% risk with Crucial really worth $66? (I'm making up those % numbers, but it's my impression from what I've read in user reviews of the different modules that it is that kind of small difference we're talking about.)

I'd also like to point out again, that I was able to find complaints about Crucial memory on resellerratings.com. People did have experiences having to return Crucial memory and having it not work. So nothing's perfect. It's all just a question of rationally assessing risk.

So again, really worth $66 more?

Even crazier, A-DATA 1GB for only $72!

I think I'll go for Gigaram, based on so many reviews. I had Crucial on my dead Inspiron 8000. No problems. But you're right, if I'm not buying genuine IBM memory, might as well get a decent third party with good reviews.

And, it's only $83.99 as of 5/8/2006 11pm PST.

Newegg has some pretty good prices and services. I have purchased a number of items from there. I will be getting my 1gig stick from them soon.

I find it rediculous that we have this whole thread arguing on if it is worth paying the extra for crucial ram vs another brand. If it works and you want to save money get the cheapest you can find.

Does it matter if it's PC2 4200 vs. PC2 5300? The Gigaram DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) is only $76. The DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) is $84. If I won't really notice the performance difference, I might as well save another $8 (10%!).

GoofyG28 wrote:Does it matter if it's PC2 4200 vs. PC2 5300? The Gigaram DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) is only $76. The DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) is $84. If I won't really notice the performance difference, I might as well save another $8 (10%!).

you will if you do things that are memory intensive. Your computer supports 5300, so that is what you should get. Also, if your other stick of memory is 1gb as well, you will need 5300 so that your sticks can run in dual channel mode. if you get a 4200 stick, your other stick (even though it is 5300) will drop down to 4200 to match the new stick.

so yes, you should spend that extra $8 and get the pc5300

I was THIS close to buying the Gigaram from NewEgg, when I stumbled on this:

Patriot 1GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Notebook Memory Model PSD21G6672S - Retail

Only $76.49 from ChiefValue

3-day Shipping is only $4.99 ($0.18 more than NewEgg!). For me, living in CA, I have to pay tax for either site, but the same memory is $85.99 on NewEgg. I do love shopping there, but I'll give ChiefValue a try.

Edit: ChiefValue has an excellent rating, at least according to ResellerRatings.com - a whopping 9.72!

I had never heard of this site Goofy, thanks!

markgreene wrote:I had never heard of this site Goofy, thanks!

They are great! Just made my purchase last night. Their automated system could've verify my shipping (work) address on my credit card, so I had to call in. They were very responsive and courteous, both on the phone and via e-mail. Excellent service!!! Highly recommended.