The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    New RAM causes Studio XPS 13 to freeze

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by mikepaco, Oct 20, 2011.

  1. mikepaco

    mikepaco Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    17
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    So I have a SXPS 13 and decided to buy some new RAM for it ( this in particular). However my laptop now freezes at intervals from 2-8 hours after I turn it on. This is often accompanied by artifacting on my screen, which leads me to believe it has something to do with the graphics card and memory compatibility, as I have a 9400M G with shared memory. I ran 3 passes of Memtest and checked temperatures and both were normal. Anyone have similar experiences or suggestions?
     
  2. SlickDude80

    SlickDude80 Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    3,262
    Messages:
    4,997
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    106
    have you checked your ram timings and voltage in the bios? Should be 9-9-9 1.5v
     
  3. mikepaco

    mikepaco Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    17
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    My BIOS doesn't have much information. CPU-Z seems to say that my RAM is running at 7-7-7. I know my laptop doesn't support the RAM at full speed but I thought it should be fully backwards compatible.
     
  4. mikepaco

    mikepaco Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    17
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Anyone have any ideas about what the problem could be? I really want to make this memory work.
     
  5. mikepaco

    mikepaco Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    17
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    So it seems that if I use either stick with one of the old sticks, there is no problem but if I use both new sticks together then the computer freezes. Has anyone encountered a similar problem?
     
  6. mpalandr

    mpalandr Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    99
    Messages:
    191
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    My guess is you got some bad sticks. Download this and make a bootable CD and test it. Since it takes up to 8 hours for your PC to wonk, you may have to let it run for a while.

    If you purchased recently enough, you can send it back to Newegg if it's bad. If you go past the return window, you'll have to deal with Gskill. That shouldn't be too bad, the manufacturers seem to have the return process down. I got a bad Patriot stick when I upgraded the memory for my L702x, andexchanging it was relatively painless.



    Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic