- Jan 2, 2015
- 5
- 0
- 4,510
Hi! The story:
- My 3-year-old Lenovo G575 laptop was PERFECTLY healthy (it has NEVER crashed or hung), but terribly slow. Obviously time for a RAM upgrade.
- It has Win7 64bit, uses DDR3 memory, but only has one RAM slot. EDIT: the manual lists its "Platform" as "Intel Huron River" and "AMD Brazos." That's the only specs on the motherboard/CPU I can find in the manual....
- I bought this RAM for it: 8GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 1.35v G.SKILL Ripjaws.
- After a week of use, a few minor glitches happened, and one abrupt hardware hang.
- I've had bad RAM before, so I ran a 2012 memtest86 boot CD on it. Memtest86 hung in the first 4 minutes. It just stopped. I restarted; same thing.
- So I made a new USB boot version of the latest memtest86+, ran it...and got a horrible hardware crash within minutes: the screen just turned...plaid. Restarted, tried memtest86+ again...another hardware crash: this time the screen looked like baseball pinstripes.
- Convinced the new 8GB RAM was evil, I removed it, and put back in the original 2GB stick. And with that...the computer died. It only beeps on startup, no visual, no BIOS, nothing. The beeps I got:
LONG short short...LONG LONG LONG short short...LONG LONG LONG short short
- Called Lenovo, asked them what the beep codes meant. Bad news...they said it meant the system board, the LCD display, and the memory module were ALL dead. And they had all been working perfectly fine before...!
What went wrong? I thought I did everything right!
- I was responsible about static. I grounded myself (touched metal) before installing the RAM. I wore shoes on a carpeted floor, but I've done several computer part replacements before without issue. (And besides, the damage was too catastrophic to be explained by static!)
- I installed the RAM correctly. I didn't put it in jaunty or anything. It connected, parallel to the connector, and both restraining pins were clicked, holding the new RAM in its proper place.
- I'm 99.9% sure I removed the battery before replacing the RAM...it's just this damage was so sudden, I'm starting to doubt myself, I don't know what else could explain such rapid damage....
- I did NOT read the motherboard manual about whether this specific model of RAM was compatible. [EDIT: I did read all the documentation included with the laptop, which I saved, and nowhere does it say anything except "ground yourself" and "uses DDR3".] But I did check the RAM had:
a) the correct type of DDR (DDR3)
b) compatible with the operating system (Win7 64bit)
c) safely low voltage (1.35v)
Who is responsible for the damage?
Did the RAM destroy my laptop? Should I hold the manufacturer accountable?
Or is my laptop just badly made? It was a special Black Friday model of Lenovo G575, only $190, but slightly watered-down compared to the standard G575 (e.g. the original has two RAM slots, mine only has one...maybe it had a crappy motherboard too?).
Or did I screw something up? Before I added RAM, it had never crashed once; after I installed it, massive hardware failure. Did I cause some unseen electrical damage?
So yeah, crazy frustrating. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
- My 3-year-old Lenovo G575 laptop was PERFECTLY healthy (it has NEVER crashed or hung), but terribly slow. Obviously time for a RAM upgrade.
- It has Win7 64bit, uses DDR3 memory, but only has one RAM slot. EDIT: the manual lists its "Platform" as "Intel Huron River" and "AMD Brazos." That's the only specs on the motherboard/CPU I can find in the manual....
- I bought this RAM for it: 8GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 1.35v G.SKILL Ripjaws.
- After a week of use, a few minor glitches happened, and one abrupt hardware hang.
- I've had bad RAM before, so I ran a 2012 memtest86 boot CD on it. Memtest86 hung in the first 4 minutes. It just stopped. I restarted; same thing.
- So I made a new USB boot version of the latest memtest86+, ran it...and got a horrible hardware crash within minutes: the screen just turned...plaid. Restarted, tried memtest86+ again...another hardware crash: this time the screen looked like baseball pinstripes.
- Convinced the new 8GB RAM was evil, I removed it, and put back in the original 2GB stick. And with that...the computer died. It only beeps on startup, no visual, no BIOS, nothing. The beeps I got:
LONG short short...LONG LONG LONG short short...LONG LONG LONG short short
- Called Lenovo, asked them what the beep codes meant. Bad news...they said it meant the system board, the LCD display, and the memory module were ALL dead. And they had all been working perfectly fine before...!
What went wrong? I thought I did everything right!
- I was responsible about static. I grounded myself (touched metal) before installing the RAM. I wore shoes on a carpeted floor, but I've done several computer part replacements before without issue. (And besides, the damage was too catastrophic to be explained by static!)
- I installed the RAM correctly. I didn't put it in jaunty or anything. It connected, parallel to the connector, and both restraining pins were clicked, holding the new RAM in its proper place.
- I'm 99.9% sure I removed the battery before replacing the RAM...it's just this damage was so sudden, I'm starting to doubt myself, I don't know what else could explain such rapid damage....
- I did NOT read the motherboard manual about whether this specific model of RAM was compatible. [EDIT: I did read all the documentation included with the laptop, which I saved, and nowhere does it say anything except "ground yourself" and "uses DDR3".] But I did check the RAM had:
a) the correct type of DDR (DDR3)
b) compatible with the operating system (Win7 64bit)
c) safely low voltage (1.35v)
Who is responsible for the damage?
Did the RAM destroy my laptop? Should I hold the manufacturer accountable?
Or is my laptop just badly made? It was a special Black Friday model of Lenovo G575, only $190, but slightly watered-down compared to the standard G575 (e.g. the original has two RAM slots, mine only has one...maybe it had a crappy motherboard too?).
Or did I screw something up? Before I added RAM, it had never crashed once; after I installed it, massive hardware failure. Did I cause some unseen electrical damage?
So yeah, crazy frustrating. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
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