Thinkpads Forum

I've installed 8GB Kit (4GBx2) of ram (CT1194150) into a Thinkpad W510 laptop. I now get a delay (black screen) of 20 seconds before the Bios post screen appears.

The laptop has the original Samsung 8GB kit installed as well.

Here are some screen shots from CPUz for more details.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

I don't have a W510 but typically when there's an additional delay on boot, it's due to the BIOS option for an "extended memory test" being enabled.

Thanks for replying.

This delay is before the BIOS post screen starts. Extended memory test is turned off.

In some BIOSes, a change in the installed RAM or other hardware can result in extended testing, but this should go away after first boot. Unless perhaps there is a problem with the RAM such that it can't mark it as passing tests? Maybe you should run some yourself.

Just being paranoid, but bad RAM can cause all sorts of hard-to-track errors to which you don't want to subject yourself. When my W520 was new, I kept getting errors about the NTFS driver. They went away when I reseated the factory RAM (about 6 frustrating weeks later).

Farhaddad,

you might want to tell about your troubles over at the Lenovo forum:

http://forums.lenovo.com/

I have seen Lenovo provide BIOS updates that resolve problems of incompatible memory.

davidhbrown,

Thanks for replying.
The delay isn't caused by the extended memory test, It's prior to the load of the bios. The delay doesn't happen if either of the kits are installed alone.

The usual delay was about 5 to 10 seconds and now it's 20 to 25 seconds. I'm not sure if this delay is considered normal when using 16GB of ram in these machines. It would be helpful to hear from people who have 16gb+ of ram installed in their laptops.

Crucial claims that I shouldn't mix brands! However, I've always done that by installing kits (2 x brand + 2 x another brand) in all my machines without any problem. Now they're suggesting that I should buy another kit to replace the Samsung kit. If that's the case, I would rather return the Crucial kit and pay the extra money for Lenovo's / Samsung ram instead.


TTY,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try that and see what happens.