1GB 200PIN DDR2 SODIMM will not fit in Acer Laptop. (Problem now identified thanks)

Avoriaz

Hi, my brother in law has a 5 or 6 year old Acer Aspire 3003 LC laptop with 704 mb RAM.

He wants to upgrade the memory by swapping the 512mb card for a 1gb card in the single memory slot.

The memory is 200PIN DDR2 SODIMM

I bought him a Crucial 1gb chip on ebay but it doesn’t fit. The slot is about a millimetre out of position. I thought it must be a faulty chip so I bought another, this time made by Nanya. That does not fit either as the slot is in the same position as the Crucial card.

The pin configuration is correct and the cards look identical to the existing 512mb card. Only by lining them up together can you see that the slot on the 512mb card is in a fractionally different position.

Is it possible that the laptop has slightly non standard memory? The 512mb card supplied with the machine is also made by Crucial. The Crucial memory checker identifies it as 200PIN DDR2 SODIMM and confirms that 1gb is supported.

I thought all 200PIN DDR2 SODIMM cards were identical and made to a very tight specification.

I am puzzled. I have upgraded a few laptops of varying memory card types and never had this problem before. I just buy the correct memory type and it slots in easily.

Here is a picture of the Nanya card.



Any suggestions?

Thanks

spud17

Is THIS the laptop memory, you twice mention ddr2 but Crucial (if I've got correct model?) state plain ddr.

macman

DDR and DDR2 do look identical at first sight, but they're not and the slot is fractionally further along, so they can't be transposed.
Agree with spud, the Crucial checker says that the 3000 series uses DDR not DDR2.
Safest way is to use the Crucial scanner when you buy to avoid errors. I had a similar issue when I bought RAM for someone based on a model number taken over the phone, turned out that his son had changed the mobo without mentioning it, it needed DDR2 not DDR.
One phone call to Crucial and they agreed to swap it, excellent service as ever.

macman

PS: looking at this again, are you sure you have the right model number, as according to Crucial the 3000 series has 2 RAM slots, each taking a maximum of 1GB?
But you refer to a single RAM slot?

Donnie

It's clear that he purchased DDR2 instead of DDR. He's probably kicking himself right now.

I am puzzled. I have upgraded a few laptops of varying memory card types and never had this problem before. I just buy the correct memory type and it slots in easily

The correct memory type is here. £30.

Lost count of the number of people who want to buy cheap modules, ignoring the actual specification and then wondering why they come unstuck.

Avoriaz

spud17 wrote: »

Is THIS the laptop memory, you twice mention ddr2 but Crucial (if I've got correct model?) state plain ddr.

Thanks for your helpful suggestion.

I don't have the laptop in front of me at the moment but, when my brother in law brought it over a few weeks ago I checked the memory.

There is definitely only one memory slot and that currently contains a 512mb DDR2 card.

I also ran the Crucial scanner which stated that it had one slot that could accommodate up to 1gb of DDR2 memory.

Perhaps I have misquoted the model number in my OP.

Avoriaz

macman wrote: »

DDR and DDR2 do look identical at first sight, but they're not and the slot is fractionally further along, so they can't be transposed.
Agree with spud, the Crucial checker says that the 3000 series uses DDR not DDR2.
Safest way is to use the Crucial scanner when you buy to avoid errors. I had a similar issue when I bought RAM for someone based on a model number taken over the phone, turned out that his son had changed the mobo without mentioning it, it needed DDR2 not DDR.
One phone call to Crucial and they agreed to swap it, excellent service as ever.

Thanks also for your helpful post.

As above, the memory should be DDR2 so I appear to have bought the correct card.

kwikbreaks

http://forums.zantive.com/showthread.php?t=74

Relevant bit... (same will apply to SODIMMs)



DDR and DDR2 sticks, showing the difference in notch position
Currently, there are three main types of desktop RAM, (not talking about the DIMMs etc.), DDR (Double Data Rate), DDR2 and DDR3. There is also the older SDR (Single Data Rate), which has long been phased out. DDR has also been phased out so there is currently only DDR2 and DDR3.
The main idea of DDR RAM is that they can offer double the data rate of their clock speed - hence the reason why DDR2 memory clocked at 400MHz is marketed as DDR2-800.
One cannot insert a DDR RAM stick into a DDR2 slot or a DDR2 slot into DDR3 or whatever, as there is a physical 'key-notch' that will prevent it from being inserted.

Donnie

Avoriaz wrote: »

Thanks also for your helpful post.

As above, the memory should be DDR2 so I appear to have bought the correct card.

As above?? Where does it say that it should be DDR2? As you have written, perhaps you have misquoted the model number.

Avoriaz

Donnie wrote: »

It's clear that he purchased DDR2 instead of DDR. He's probably kicking himself right now.

The correct memory type is here. £30.

Lost count of the number of people who want to buy cheap modules, ignoring the actual specification and then wondering why they come unstuck.

Thank you too for your “helpful” if rather condescending post.

As above, the right memory appears to be DDR2 as that is what is already installed.

If I had paid £30 each for the memory cards I might indeed be kicking myself. As I paid about £5 and £7 for the two cards, with free postage, and will probably get at least that back and probably more if I resell them on ebay, I won’t be kicking anything, least of all myself.

Avoriaz

macman wrote: »

DDR and DDR2 do look identical at first sight, but they're not and the slot is fractionally further along, so they can't be transposed..

Is it not rather odd that the physical card specification is so nearly but not quite the same? Surely it would have made more sense to have a more clearly defined and obvious physical difference.

Oh well, no matter, it isn’t urgent.

I’ll wait until my brother in law brings the laptop over again and have another look.

Thanks everyone for trying to help.