Toshiba Recalls Notebook RAM

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?"

Comments

DIMMness

[ackthpt]

blaiming [sic]

is there a vast sea of bad DIMMs out there?

Maybe so, the HP Compaq laptop I'm typing on had 1G of RAM replaced several months back.

As for slashdot editting, though, the memory isn't the only thing DIMM.

A Vast Sea

[lukewarmfusion]

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.

Re:A Vast Sea

[ackthpt]

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.

Re:A Vast Sea

[mordors9]

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.

Re:A Vast Sea

[lukewarmfusion]

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.

Re:blaiming

[lukewarmfusion]

It's the distant, and not-so-shiny cousin of 'bling.' Blaim was discovered by a scientist that accidentally blew up his lab by mixing certain combustible chemicals. As the smoke cleared, the lab supervisor came running to find out what happened. Luckily, nobody was hurt. When he asked the scientist how the explosion happened, he was told that one of the janitors must have knocked over a beaker...or something...

And blaim, or 'blame' as we call it in English, was born.

bad ram a common problem

[cats-paw]

like a lot of slashdot readers I build my own computers.

my #1 problem has always been RAM.

I remember an interview with Larry Augustin of VALinux (remember them ?) when they were still building Linux PC's.

And he said the number one thing they had problems with was RAM.

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.

Re:bad ram a common problem

[ch-chuck]

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.

Re:bad ram a common problem

[skt]

There are some good, free memory testing utilities out there like memtest86. They probably still have an ISO image on their website that can be used to create a bootable CD-ROM with the utility configured to start automatically.

As for me

[Judg3]

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.

Like war, DDR is hard

[LOTHAR, of the Hill]

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.