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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, eachpasses individually, together they fail
As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical
sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail, and the PC won't boot with a stick only in Slot 2, behind a cover on the base of the laptop. A Google search didn't find much that was useful. Any suggestions as to what may be wrong? TIA |
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#2
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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, eachpasses individually, together they fail
On 07/27/2018 09:25 AM, Java Jive wrote:
As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail, and the PC won't boot with a stick only in Slot 2, behind a cover on the base of the laptop. A Google search didn't find much that was useful.Â* Any suggestions as to what may be wrong? TIA It looks like both sticks are OK, but that second memory slot is defective. -- Mark Lloyd http://notstupid.us/ "Micro$oft, the company that makes spreading malware easy." |
#3
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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, eachpasses individually, together they fail
Java Jive wrote:
As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail, and the PC won't boot with a stick only in Slot 2, behind a cover on the base of the laptop. A Google search didn't find much that was useful.Â* Any suggestions as to what may be wrong? TIA Like Mark said, you have something wrong with the slot. Look closely at the contacts for bent or damaged ones. If no damage is seen, clean the contacts with alcohol and see if that doesn't help. |
#4
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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, eachpasses individually, together they fail
Java Jive wrote:
As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail, and the PC won't boot with a stick only in Slot 2, behind a cover on the base of the laptop. A Google search didn't find much that was useful. Any suggestions as to what may be wrong? TIA There was a problem with the bottom slot here as well. https://www.dell.com/community/Lapto...d/td-p/4150560 ******* See if the BIOS has any setting for clearing DMI/ESCD. The BIOS "remembers" the DIMM inventory and other hardware items. Any time the hardware installation changes, the DMI/ESCD is rewritten. There used to be some kind of problem with that years ago. It's not a common problem today, as it doesn't come up in conversations any more. Tools like DMIExplorer could be used to dump or review the information. From a technical perspective, it's not critical to system operation, but it's part of the POST sequence. The DMI/ESCD is normally a "one-shot" thing. You set it, and the next time the machine starts, the POST clears the request. Normally the process is fully automated, but sometimes it gets into an update loop (updates each and every time the machine starts). Then, perhaps, the one-shot BIOS request feature, might knock it out of that loop. In some cases, the problem isn't exactly what you'd think. There can be a bug in the preparation of the memory map. On one chipset, this involved some register for USB ports, versus the Top_Of_RAM definition. The screen of the computer would report "USB Overcurrent". Reducing the quantity of RAM would make the problem go away. If testing such a thing in your lab, you'd try a mismatched pair (a 1GB and a 2GB stick) and see what happens. If memtest passes, the system behaves normally, it would then be telling you there might not be a problem with the slot after all. Dual channel problems show up with older AMD processor designs. Two DIMMs had to be "put across from one another", and the DIMM busses worked like tandem locomotives. One slot is considered the master on the AMD design, the other is a slave, and two DIMMs work like a 128 bit or a 144 bit wide DIMM in a sense. Filling the wrong slot first, doesn't work and the system doesn't start. Mis-matched DIMMs might start up in single channel mode. These issues were caused by minimalist memory controller designs on the first processors of that generation, and gradually over time, AMD became as good at dual channel design, as Intel Flex Memory. Today, nobody thinks twice before filling an AMD memory slot. (My AMD laptop has mis-matched DIMMs.) https://www.dell.com/support/home/ca...iverid=R207161 "Dell Precision M4300 System BIOS, A13 4. Fixed Wi-Fi sniffer function with 4GB memory and Dell wireless. " That's the first release I could find, which mentions amount of memory, and a failure condition. ******* https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewto...p?f=9&t=106411 "The Dell Upgrades website claims the Precision M4300 will support up to 8 GB of ram but my machine refuses to boot with 2 4GB sticks. It just sits there for hours at the Dell boot screen with less than half an inch to go on the progress bar. If I replace one of the 4GB sticks with one of the original 1GB stick, it will boot right up and show all 5GB in the bios and windows. " "BIOS revision is A10 and currently Dell shows an update to A12" "Edit: Woohoo!! continuum gets a cookie!" Too bad the images attached, aren't available for review. This could be solved by another version of BIOS, at a guess. I don't normally recommend BIOS flashing, as there's a risk you could always brick the thing. Brickage wouldn't happen, if the BIOS designers followed the rules on "boot block". But a number of commercial BIOS zap boot block and main BIOS block, and if the refill of the main BIOS block fails, with the erased boot block, it can no longer bootstrap itself. If it does brick, then the issue is whether the BIOS chip is socketed or there is a programming header next to it. PLCC or DIP flash chips, some are socketed. Those have no programming header next to the socket. Newer designs use 8 pin (serial) Flash chips, for which a 7 pin programming header might be adjacent. A programmer dongle tied to USB bus on the Technician computer, allows flashing up the broken chip and fixing a brickage incident. Paul |
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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, eachpasses individually, together they fail
On 7/27/2018 7:25 AM, Java Jive wrote:
As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail, and the PC won't boot with a stick only in Slot 2, behind a cover on the base of the laptop. A Google search didn't find much that was useful. Any suggestions as to what may be wrong? TIA I assume that your laptop claims that it will work with 4GB ram? I once had an issue with a bad bit in the high memory area of a ram stick. Turned out that the bad section was used for display frame buffer and memory test didn't test it. |
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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, eachpasses individually, together they fail
On 27/07/2018 15:25, Java Jive wrote:
As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail, and the PC won't boot with a stick only in Slot 2, behind a cover on the base of the laptop. A Google search didn't find much that was useful.Â* Any suggestions as to what may be wrong? TIA Thanks for all the replies, this is a 'put on hold' post because, tentatively, touching every bit of wood within reach including my head, I think I've solved it. Will report fully on that when I'm sure either way. Meanwhile, I can tell what it wasn't. I'd already concluded, in agreement with the suggestions made here, that the second socket might be faulty, so, although I'd cleaned it out already with the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner, I thought I'd take a x10 lens to it, and, lo and behold, spider silk, completely with remains of microscopically small spider. You, like me, might be surprised that the silk and the corpse had survived the vacuum cleaner (it's a powerful one, too, near deafeningly so), but man is that stuff sticky?! I applied the nozzle again, but it was still there afterwards. Next I got an old, but clean, toothbrush, dipped it an IPA* 1 in 4 solution that I used to use to clean LPs, and cleaned up the socket and the RAM with that. That got rid of most, but not quite all, of it. So there followed several cycles of IPA toothbrush, vacuum cleaner, clean dry toothbruch, vacuum cleaner until finally after about an hour I was satisfied that there were no threads of silk lying across the terminals. I replaced the RAM, replaced the battery, connected the power, and ... nothing, it still wouldn't boot! But at least now I know how to clean spider silk from electronic equipment. * BTW, that's IsoPropyl Alcohol, not Indian Pale Ale! |
#7
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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, eachpasses individually, together they fail
On 28/07/2018 16:36, Java Jive wrote:
On 27/07/2018 15:25, Java Jive wrote: As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail, and the PC won't boot with a stick only in Slot 2, behind a cover on the base of the laptop. Thanks for all the replies, this is a 'put on hold' post because, tentatively, touching every bit of wood within reach including my head, I think I've solved it.Â* Will report fully on that when I'm sure either way. B*gger, and I think you can guess what that means! B*stard got to 99% of second pass before it froze. A while ago, I installed a 4G WLAN card, and, although I hadn't noticed RAM-type problems beginning around that time, since the PC had passed a RAM test with both sockets populated when I first acquired it, that was the only thing that I could think of that had changed since. So I tried removing the card, and lo, it booted with its full compliment of RAM. Encouraged, I let it run for a while, and wrote the above after it had completed one successful pass, but, as already described it froze right at the end of the second. I'm now thinking temperature is part of the problem. The PC seems much more likely to fail when it's hot. The RAM test flogs it continuously, but when started from cold succeeds initially, only to fail once the thing gets really hot. Then if you immediately restart, it fails more or less immediately, if it will even boot at all. Presumably there is something like a poorly soldered joint or hairline crack in a track on the mainboard, and, as it heats up, eventually a gap opens and it fails. Short of replacing the mainboard, a serious fag, as well as being somewhat intricate and error prone, I think it's just going to have to run with one stick for the foreseeable future. Bloody nuisance, as that was my development PC, the one that has been doing all the hard work, compiling, etc. It's like lame duck with only half the RAM. |
#8
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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, eachpasses individually, together they fail
Java Jive wrote:
On 28/07/2018 16:36, Java Jive wrote: On 27/07/2018 15:25, Java Jive wrote: As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail, and the PC won't boot with a stick only in Slot 2, behind a cover on the base of the laptop. Thanks for all the replies, this is a 'put on hold' post because, tentatively, touching every bit of wood within reach including my head, I think I've solved it. Will report fully on that when I'm sure either way. B*gger, and I think you can guess what that means! B*stard got to 99% of second pass before it froze. A while ago, I installed a 4G WLAN card, and, although I hadn't noticed RAM-type problems beginning around that time, since the PC had passed a RAM test with both sockets populated when I first acquired it, that was the only thing that I could think of that had changed since. So I tried removing the card, and lo, it booted with its full compliment of RAM. Encouraged, I let it run for a while, and wrote the above after it had completed one successful pass, but, as already described it froze right at the end of the second. I'm now thinking temperature is part of the problem. The PC seems much more likely to fail when it's hot. The RAM test flogs it continuously, but when started from cold succeeds initially, only to fail once the thing gets really hot. Then if you immediately restart, it fails more or less immediately, if it will even boot at all. Presumably there is something like a poorly soldered joint or hairline crack in a track on the mainboard, and, as it heats up, eventually a gap opens and it fails. Short of replacing the mainboard, a serious fag, as well as being somewhat intricate and error prone, I think it's just going to have to run with one stick for the foreseeable future. Bloody nuisance, as that was my development PC, the one that has been doing all the hard work, compiling, etc. It's like lame duck with only half the RAM. http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compat...recision-m4300 Maximum Memory:4GB Standard Memory:1GB removable Slots:2 (2 banks of 1) Chipset: Intel PM965 Unfortunately, of the 8 items listed in the extended Crucial list, the 4GB DDR2 SODIMM they sell, is not in the list. So you cannot fix it that way. I was thinking, maybe you could replace the single 2GB SODIMM with a 4GB one, but the chipset doesn't support it. I have run into one case, where the VIA chipset company, didn't actually know the capabilities of their own hardware, and a chipset with a 1GB slot limit, actually could use 2GB DIMMs. But that's only happened the one time, and the BIOS wasn't "tuned" for 2GB DIMMs so the experiment was overall a failure. The setup had an excessive background error rate which would have required 256 experiments to correct :-( ******* This is the PM965 datasheet. https://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/316273.pdf 1.1.2 System Memory Support 1-Gbit memory technologies supported [=128MB]. 16 chips of 128MB each is 2GB, and that's why it won't take more than 2GB per slot. To fit that many chips on an SODIMM, takes FBGAs or two dies inside a single plastic package. ******* It doesn't look like there is an easy workaround. As for bad solder joints, it could be a bad joint on the DIMM slot, but it could also be a cracked solder ball underneath the PM965. At the factory, you can spot such things with a 2.5D Xray machine, which shoots pictures from either side of vertical, to review the balls in perspective view. Some companies do Xray inspection (two snaps per chip), for every large BGA, as part of closed loop quality control. This makes sure they aren't doing anything stupid on a soldering profile. A properly tuned soldering setup, will have around 1 bad ball per 100,000 balls. With the XRay machine available on the line, presumably the amount of bad product that escapes the line, is even lower than that. The PM965 is conservatively designed. It's a 2500 ball pattern, with a sparse fill and only 1300 balls populated. This leaves plenty of room for stress relief as the chip heats up. From a bar bet perspective, the pattern I see on page 137 is not the worst I've ever seen. When you have BGAs with full matrix and high ball counts, the balls in the corner sometimes crack. For example, if all 2500 locations had balls, then the corner ones would be prime candidates for failure. I've had at least one corner ball crack on me in the lab, out of all the proto boards that crossed my bench. **** happens, as they say. Paul |
#9
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Dell Precision M4300 laptop, 2 identical sticks of 2GB RAM, each passes individually, together they fail
In article , Java Jive wrote:
As per title, I have an old Dell Precision M4300 laptop with 2 identical sticks of Crucial CT25664AC800 16 FHZ 2GB DDR2 SODIMM PC2 64 RAM. Running the RAM test from the Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit grub boot option, each stick passes individually in Slot 1 (under the keyboard), but together one in each slot they fail ... I had a similar embuggerance with a Toshiba, some time ago. It has two SODIMM slots, and came with 1x1GB and 1x2GB. I upgraded it immediately by swapping the 1GB SODIMM for a 4GB, giving 6GB in all, and it worked just fine. Then, after a couple of years, I had a need to run three Windows VMs at once (under Linux, of course) for a client project ... which didn't quite work in 6GB. So, I swapped the original 2GB SODIMM for another 4GB. The machine reported (IIRC) 1GB in total installed! After a lot of hair-pulling and asking questions online that elicited no useful answers I found a comment in a forum somewhere that prompted me wonder whether a BIOS update might be available and might fix the problem. Sure enough, an update existed -- the release notes said nothing about improved RAM handling -- so I installed it, and on rebooting all 8GB were recognized. So: try a BIOS update. -- Cheers, Daniel. |
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