If you’re like me and like to push the life of your technology just that little bit more, chances are that the time to upgrade will eventually come and you’ll be considering whether it’s worth buying new or buying refurbished. After all, occasionally, there are actually worthwhile refurbished computer deals.
One issue with them, however, is that they frequently are listed with small RAM and storage capacities which necessitates an upgrade. If you buy the upgraded unit, you often get taken for a ride as the markup is beyond reasonable. However, if you shop on your own, you could fall victim to compatibility issues.
I recently managed to obtain a Lenovo M700 Tiny with just 8GB of RAM which isn’t exactly enough for a modern user. As it was in just one module, I figured I’d add another 8GB to it. I could have just gone and bought a Crucial stick on sale, but I came across this thread where similar units were switching off after a RAM upgrade. This made me somewhat cautious.
As a result, I decided to buy the cheapest stick I could find on Amazon that had “decent” specs. That turned out to be the Patriot Signature 8GB 3200MHz CL22 DDR4 SODIMM for a reasonable AU$27. Would these have Micron/Spectek dies and the same issue?
Unboxing
Being at the low end of the market, it’s no surprise the RAM stick comes inside a plastic blister – no fancy box or anything. The stick is visible from outside – nothing special about it either, except perhaps a black PCB whereas OEM stuff frequently is green.
On the back of the insert card, the product has a model code of 9DS00217-PSD48G320081S with a barcode number 0814914027196. Key contact information is provided along with social media handles. The packaging claims the RAM is Made in Taiwan.
The front side is mostly covered by the label.
Looking at the rear gives some cause for concern. The chips themselves are the same specification (K4A8G045WC-BCRC) which seems to be officially stated to be 2400MHz chips on Samsung’s site, perhaps they are specifically binned for speed. But more concerning is the fact that every chip seems to be from a different batch with different textures on the packages and laser markings. I’ve never had RAM sticks with such mismatched-looking ICs, to the point I wonder if these are somehow recovered, recycled, or counterfeited devices.
Testing
The stick was tested in the Lenovo Tiny M700 with no trouble at all under Memtest86. However, it was running the RAM at 2133MHz to match its other stick and because of the “stock” speed limitations of the i5-6500T CPU. As a result, I can’t comment on how well it might do at 3200MHz.
The SPD information from CPU-Z is as follows:
Memory SPD ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIMM # 1 SMBus address 0x50 Memory type DDR4 Module format SO-DIMM Module Manufacturer(ID) Patriot Memory (7F7F7F7F7F020000000000000000) SDRAM Manufacturer (ID) Samsung (CE00000000000000000000000000) Size 8192 MBytes Max bandwidth DDR4-3200 (1600 MHz) Part number PSD48G320081S Serial number 03210155 Manufacturing date Week 12/Year 23 Nominal Voltage 1.20 Volts EPP no XMP no AMP no EXPO no JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency JEDEC #1 10.0-11-11-24-34 @ 733 MHz JEDEC #2 11.0-11-11-26-37 @ 800 MHz JEDEC #3 12.0-12-12-28-40 @ 866 MHz JEDEC #4 13.0-13-13-30-43 @ 933 MHz JEDEC #5 14.0-15-15-34-48 @ 1033 MHz JEDEC #6 15.0-16-16-36-51 @ 1100 MHz JEDEC #7 16.0-17-17-38-54 @ 1166 MHz JEDEC #8 17.0-17-17-40-57 @ 1233 MHz JEDEC #9 18.0-18-18-42-60 @ 1300 MHz JEDEC #10 19.0-19-19-44-63 @ 1366 MHz JEDEC #11 20.0-21-21-47-68 @ 1466 MHz JEDEC #12 21.0-22-22-50-71 @ 1533 MHz JEDEC #13 22.0-22-22-52-74 @ 1600 MHz JEDEC #14 23.0-22-22-52-74 @ 1600 MHz JEDEC #15 24.0-22-22-52-74 @ 1600 MHz DIMM # 1 SPD registers 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 00 23 11 0C 03 85 21 00 08 00 00 00 03 01 03 00 00 10 00 00 05 0D F8 FF 2B 00 6E 6E 6E 11 00 6E F0 0A 20 20 08 00 05 00 A8 14 28 28 00 78 00 14 3C 00 00 30 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 2B 2D 04 40 16 35 23 0D 00 00 2C 0B 03 24 35 0C 03 2D 00 00 50 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 70 00 00 00 00 00 00 9C 00 00 00 00 00 E7 00 D7 5B 80 0F 11 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 90 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 A0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 B0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 E0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 EF 55 100 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 110 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 120 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 130 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 140 85 02 02 23 12 03 21 01 55 50 53 44 34 38 47 33 150 32 30 30 38 31 53 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 80 CE 160 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 170 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 180 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 190 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1A0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1B0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1E0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1F0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Conclusion
In the end, RAM is RAM is RAM ideally speaking, thanks to JEDEC standardisation and what I needed for a refurbished old Lenovo Tiny M700 was nothing special. It just had to work with the existing 8GB DDR4 2133MHz stick, be well-priced to match a cheap refurbished PC and it did just fine at that. The price was decent and it helps eke just a little more out of the machine. Had it not been for the mismatched-looking chips, I wouldn’t have even posted about it – I wonder if this is perhaps more normal than I think.
