How can I warranty THIS bad RAM?

July 15, 2005 2:35 AM

When I bought my PC I was told by the sales person that my RAM was covered under a "lifetime warranty"...

The shop I have since bought my PC from is now defunct. I recently ran Memtest86 and my RAM came back with a few errors. I would like to try to warranty the RAM. It is a 256MB PC133 stick with NEC SyncMAX 16Mb Chips (0114ZEUE07). There is a label on the RAM stick "DMI Warranty Void if removed date 07-01 Batch 2690" and on the other side is another label with the text "P/N S256M-16038-133 PC133 CL3 Warranty void if removed", also printed on this label is a bar code. Who can I send this off to for a replacement? Is the manufacturer "DMI"? I can't find a link for a RAM Manufacturer by the name DMI via Google. I mostly use Macs and this PC was just gonna be a used to evaluate Solaris 10 so there is no rush to get it up and running now... it's not mission critical; and I would hate to have to go out and buy another stick when by all rights this should be replaced IMHO. Any help is appreciated.

posted by Livewire Confusion to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Googling the part number led me here, and the relevant policy is here. I think your sales person probably screwed you.

You've got nothing to lose by asking for help, though.
posted by flabdablet at 4:08 AM on July 15, 2005

Also, are the errors in a consistent spot, or random and inconsistent? Because if they're random, your BIOS might just be trying to use 2-clock latency instead of the 3 clocks your RAM requires. Poke around in the BIOS settings and have a look.
posted by flabdablet at 4:12 AM on July 15, 2005

Response by poster: flabdablet, CAS Latency was indeed set to "2" I changed it to "3" .

Now when the system starts to boot the post gives a message of "suggested CAS Latency 2"

Also what do I set the other settings to?

SDRAM Cycle Time Tras/Trc (options 6/8 or 5/7) ?

SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (options 2 or 3) ?

SDRAM RAS Precharge Time (options 2 or 3) ?

Delayed Transaction (Enabled or Disabled) ?

Sorry to be a tech support leech... The reason I want to know is if the ram is bad or not... I made a GoldMemory (http://www.goldmemory.cz/) floppy, ran it and it showed no errors.

Anyway I just want to make sure I have this setup correctly before I start screaming bloody murder at somebody. Thanks.
posted by Livewire Confusion at 4:50 AM on July 15, 2005

Have you tested with memtest86 after changing the CAS latency to 3? The DIMM has an SPD (serial presence detect) which should tell your BIOS what the proper latency is, but the datasheet suggests running it at 3 cycles if the bus speed is 133MHz. Not sure why it would suggest 2.
posted by kableh at 9:34 AM on July 15, 2005