Crucial Memory for T-Series Price Drop!

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verktyg · #31 Post by **verktyg** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 11:38 pm

chacha wrote:Can somone who has the t43p let me know if i should get the kingston or the crucial mem There is about a 20$ difference crucial is more Thank you

Kingston designed their ValuRam line on memory for mass marketers like CompUSA, Office Depot and so on. It's much lower quality than top of the line Kingston memory. It is subjected to less stringent testing.

Crucial is part of Micron a memory chip maker. Only a few of the 25 or so memory chip manufacturers produce and market finished memory products. All the remaining memory is made by fabricators who buy memory chips and assemble them onto small printed circuit boards.

Memory comes in different quality levels. The best memory is made with matched premium quality chips.

Less expensive memory may work for years without any problems... On the other hand intermittent memory problems are hard to trace and can drive you nuts.

You buys yer ticket an you takes yer chances!

ddutta · #32 Post by **ddutta** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 3:23 am

How is Kingmax compared to Kingston and Crucial? I have bought 1GB for a T42 and I plan to buy another one.

-D

verktyg · #33 Post by **verktyg** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 12:30 pm

ddutta wrote:How is Kingmax compared to Kingston and Crucial? I have bought 1GB for a T42 and I plan to buy another one.

-D

I'm not familiar with Kingmax so I can't comment on it.

My comments are based on over 25 years of first hand experience as a consultant and manufacturing engineer based out of the Silicon Valley. At one time or another I've been involved in all phases of chip manufacturing; I worked for a company that sold all of the perishable products used to make silicon wafers. I used to call on printed circuit board manufacturers including those who made memory modules and so on.

I've been to Micron's facility in Idaho as well as a number of Intel plants. Over the past 15 years, manufacturing in the Silicon Valley changed from making chips and components to building the automated equipment used in these processes so I have insight into a lot of manufacturing problems.

Kingston, Corsair, Viking, Samsung, Siemens (Infineon), Micron (Crucial) Mushkin and a number of other memory makers produce premium quality memory that uses matched chips and undergoes rigorous testing.

Kingston and Corsair and others have economy lines of memory that they sell under their own brand name which confuses consumers: Kingston ValuRam for example.

I've had problems on at least 4 occasions with the lower quality line of memory from both of these manufacturers. Note, their premium memory should be first class, I'm talking about the stuff that is sold at bargain prices.

I got a deal that was too good to pass up on a bunch of Kingston ValuRam at an Office Depot: PC100, PC133 and DDR266. I bought it for upgrading friend PCs and to trow into several of my non critical systems.

I had problems with half of this memory. In several cases, the density was wrong and it didn't work in systems Kingston said it would, in others, it was just plain bad memory!

When I install memory in a system, I test it with Memtest386 and DocMem software. I let Memtest386 run all night. I was surprised at the bad memory and gave it the benefit of the doubt by trying it in at least 1 other system with the same results.

Kingston was good at replacing the defective memory but it was a waste of my time. Now I only use memory that I know to be premium quality. I've been using Micron's Crucial brand of memory since they first started marketing it. I've been completely satisfied with it.

The brand name on the chips on a memory module mean nothing. All memory chipmakers produce chips in several quality levels.

Samsung, Siemens (Infineon), Micron (Crucial) are chip makers who also produce finished memory. Most other memory modules are made by independent fabricators who buy memory chips and mount them on the small printed circuit boards.

Intermittent memory problems are hard to diagnose and can drive you nuts. I can never fathom folks who spend a small fortune on a computer and want to save a few bucks on one of the most crucial (play on words) component in their system.

chacha · #34 Post by **chacha** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:03 pm

I Cslled newegg they said it was just plain kingston ram but i recieved it today and it says value ram i hope this wont be one of the sticks that gives errors

emorphien · #35 Post by **emorphien** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:14 pm

I ended up ordering 2 1GB sticks of Crucial DDR2-533 from mwave today.

verktyg · #36 Post by **verktyg** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 2:35 am

chacha wrote:I Cslled newegg they said it was just plain kingston ram but i recieved it today and it says value ram i hope this wont be one of the sticks that gives errors

Hey it might be great but it may cause problems... now or later.

If in doubt, D/L Memtest386 and DocMem and run some tests.

The real point that I wanted to make was that there are different quality levels among some brand name memory products and most consumers are not made aware of this. Also, there is very little that most users can do to tell what quality memory they are buying except going with a brand name with a solid reputation.

Cheap memory modules are made with the lowest quality memory chips. Many of these fabricator fudge the programing of the Eproms on the modules to make the memory appear to perform better than it is capable of doing.

The best memory is made with premium quality chips that are used in matched sets and are tested to insure that they perform as specified. Kingston ValuRam is probably somewhere in between. I had problems with at least half of the ValuRam that I tried. A Kingston engineer told me that ValuRam uses "average" quality chips but undergoes minimal testing. YMMV.

Good luck

hershey · #37 Post by **hershey** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:39 pm

Will upgrading the memory on my T42 invalidate my warranty?

wolfman · #38 Post by **wolfman** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 2:24 pm

No, you can upgrade your RAM without invalidating your warranty.

Also, I have 2 1 gig sticks of Kingmax RAM in my laptop and it works as well as the 2 512 meg Crucial sticks it replaced.

chacha · #39 Post by **chacha** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:49 am

I ran memtest it ran 13 hours 6 passes and found 15 errors is that bad ?

sugo · #40 Post by **sugo** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 5:02 pm

chacha wrote:I ran memtest it ran 13 hours 6 passes and found 15 errors is that bad ?

I don't think you want any error for a 14 hours test, not even 1.

chacha · #41 Post by **chacha** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:10 pm

I got the crucial mem for the machine and ran the memtest386 for 4 days no errors Crucial is the winner !!! and it's made in USA:) the kingston value ram was error city

Crucial Memory for T-Series Price Drop!

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