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Toshiba Recalls Notebook RAM

Posted by samzenpus on from the bad-memory dept.

TheSync writes "The Register is reporting that Toshiba is recalling notebook RAM blaiming third-party DIMMs. This follows on HP's bad notebook RAM in June. Which raises the question, is there a vast sea of bad DIMMs out there?"

8 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. A Vast Sea by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, and it's found using Pricewatch, Google, and other product search engines. Not all cheap RAM is bad, but you're a lot more likely to get something crappy if you go with the lowest bidder. Those prices are low for a lot of reasons, including support, warranty, and quality. I've bought my share of low-priced memory through Pricewatch, and I've also had to return several of them. Never buy memory that doesn't have a lifetime warranty.

    I'm sure Toshiba and Dell didn't buy their memory through Pricewatch (that'd be a hell of an order) but they probably sacrifice in the same way to get their internal costs down. Note that you'll pay a nice premium for ordering memory upgrades through the notebook manufacturer.

    1. Re:A Vast Sea by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Those prices are low for a lot of reasons, including support, warranty, and quality. I've bought my share of low-priced memory through Pricewatch, and I've also had to return several of them. Never buy memory that doesn't have a lifetime warranty.

      There was a story a year or two back with a disconcerting phrase 'Acceptable Rate of Failure'. The context was CD ROM drives, IIRC, which are manufactured at such a volume that 15% failure is acceptable ... which should worry you a bit about how good, really, are the drives that actually passed Q/A.

      The profit goes out of doing business this way when you (as a manufacturer) have to foot the bill for replacement parts, manuals, shipping and logistics.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:A Vast Sea by mordors9 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Let's face it, as long as consumers keep looking for and buying strictly based upon price, the situation is going to continue. The company I work for has to replace hard drives in large numbers every year. But they bought cheap PCs to start with (lowest bid). So they got what they paid for.

    3. Re:A Vast Sea by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That is a fairly common practice. It's difficult to guarantee 100%, so you accept a certain threshhold of failing parts or units. They do it in cars, electronics, etc. You save money by manufacturing an engine in Mexico, but you accept that there will be a higher rate of failure. If you do the math and it's still cheaper, you go with it.

      Outside of the manufacturing world, we all accept failure as a reasonable part of our lives. It's usually not a calculated, profit/pleasure-maximizing decision, but it's certainly part of life. You learn from mistakes, you grow from them, and you're better for it. If we're lucky, Toshiba will learn from its mistakes and we won't have these problems in the future. From what I've seen, they've got some great notebooks at some decent prices. If it weren't for stories like this (oh, and my lack of disposable income) I'd probably buy one.

  2. As for me by Judg3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Except for a bad 32mb SIMM I had in 1997, I've never ever had ram go bad on me, but then again I always use Crucial - I've seen some of the prices for ram you can find on Pricewatch and all, but remember 'if it sounds to good to be a deal, it probably isnt'.
    Besides, with everything else then can go wrong with PCs these days, I like to be reasonably assured my ram is fine.

    --
    Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
  3. Re:bad ram a common problem by ch-chuck · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've had RAM which could pass all day long on a so-called memory tester, put it into a PC and the thing couldn't even finish POST.

    I used to use gcc linux kernel compile to thrash-test memory - start enough of 'em so it just starts to swap and let it run in a loop overnight. If no signal-11's in the morning it'll probably survive anything else.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  4. Like war, DDR is hard by LOTHAR,+of+the+Hill · · Score: 4, Interesting

    DDR is a very high speed multipoint parallel interface with very little tolerance in the drivers and recievers. Designing DDR motherboards and DIMM modules is difficult. The capacitive load of the DDR bus varies depending on how many DIMMs are loaded and the DIMM architeture (#chips on DIMM). DDR drivers dont vary the buffer strength based on loading so you will have too much overshoot with one DIMM with 5 chips (x16) and too overdamped with 4 DIMMS with 36 chips (stacked x4) on each DIMM. This is why most motherboards are more relable when all DDR slots are full.

    Motherboard manufactures must qualify each DIMM combination separately. You should always use the DIMM modules recommended by the motherboard manufacturer. This is a problem that will only get worse.

  5. Patched DRAM by Dielectric · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I learned something interesting just yesterday about making DIMMs. There are companies out there that specialize in recovering failed DRAM chips. They buy them as factory rejects for pennies, and use some trickery to mask off the bad bits and re-use the recovered DRAM as a smaller density. I know Micron buys lots of this stuff for their value line. Maybe the patching isn't as good as we'd hope?

    Eh, blame it on alpha particles. Those buggers are causing all sorts of problems with bit-flips in memory cells. Buy ECC!