Reccomended RAM upgrade for m15x

I just got my m15x today and everything seems okay.

**I'll mention now the battery only had enough power in it to let me set the window settings, and shut down immediately after. Being a laptop I can only assume that's an expected thing and there's a failsafe for it. Even so it's just a loss of power, gradual systematic shutdown not a click**

As soon as I got the laptop I installed 4GB (2x2) of this:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3575583&CatId=2268

Soon after booting up I was met with the BSOD. Now, it's windows so I shrugged the first one off. It happened a second time (These all happened while multitasking, mind you). Got a little worried.

Vista did it's little check and determined it was a hardware problem.

Now I think... I know there's been problems with the machine, however the first thing I did was change the RAM. So the likely culprit is the RAM.

I go on a bit and it's fine. Then I decide to let it charge a bit. I come back and figure I'll run the memory diagnostic tool. Taking a while I have it sitting in the other room while I do other things around the house. I come back and see the safemode pre-boot screen. Since I didn't see what happened didn't think much of it. Windows tried to load and got a BSOD trying to do so. I try again, same thing. That happens a total of 3 times.

Then I decide I'll put back in the factory RAM.

Windows boots fine.
Ran the test just now and no crash.
Nothing to report as errors during or with the summary of the diagnostic.

So this pretty much seals the deal that either the RAM I have for some reason isn't too friendly with the motherboard/vista, or (the less likely) I got bad RAM.

I know it couldn't have been I put the RAM in wrong, because if you don't have it in right the computer won't boot. And it's impossible to secure it without breaking something (which me staring at a fine working computer now says i didn't).

So this brings me to ask. For all of those who have bought their own RAM for the m15x, do you have any recommendations? Looking for something that doesn't want to crash windows on boot up.

Edit: I'm Canadian so please don't mention anything Newegg has to offer.

 

I think you did a great job diagnosing it and narrowing it down to the RAM that you purchesed from TD. It's really not that uncommon for a RAM module to be defective. It's not a compatibility issue, and Corsair is a very good brand. What you got is exactly what you should've, one of them was just defective. Exchange them for new ones, and it should be right as rain.

 

yeah tiger is very good at exchanging stuff. Give them a call and they'll take care of it.

 

Ship it back, Tigetdirect are awesome in this regard, they changed my SE W810i because it was a bit wonky.

 

Well that's good to hear. This isn't the first time hat I've had problems with them and RAM.

The thing is I got the RAM over a month ago but I'll have to give them a call tomorrow morning. Still have the invoices and records though.

 

dude that ram is so expensive u could just gotten aw to put there 4 in for you for a few more 20's. I guess thats a game though, but if you did it that way you wouldn't have had to go through the trouble. Although, you did a great job of identifying the problem.

 

4GB of RAM in AW.ca cost C$358. In Tiger (by the way, Tiger ships to Canada) they cost C$103. Quite cheap, in my opinion. Only $255 more through AW...

 

u need to buy 2 of the tiger ones though

 

Two 2GB sticks was $117 with tax, shipping as free on that order.

If I'd have ordered 4GB with my laptop it would have added $350 to my order.

 

Ok, Oic, listen - we're NOT going to have a huge RAM discussion in here, got it? What Tyrien bought from Tiger was a 4gb Pack - a box with 2 2gb chips in it. So you don't need to buy 2 of them...

 

2 times 2 equals 4.

 

@Oic - Yea if you did your research he is actually saving over $200 which is pretty damn good if you ask me.

@OP - Try to send the ram back to tiger. I'm sure they will help you out as I have had no problems with them. Faulty ram is everywhere, never figured out why though lol.

 

I did good with $80 for ram 4gb of ram. Tax shipping and included. $220 savings. They should be here Monday.

 

Called tiger, they're sending me a new set and refunding the old set once they recieve it. Since I have 30 days I'll probably wait until I get the new set to be sure it wasn't Lemon RAM, and not the board failing with 4GB.

All signs point to lemon RAM though :<

 

possibly if the timings settings in the bios for memory are not set to auto detect... or mabye not even able to be changed.. this would be a good way for Alienware to ensure u use there specific memory.. i have had dell do this to me a and a friend afue times before.

look in the bios for memmory timing options and set it to the same as the ram u purchased.

my ALienware reseller told me that using the ram directly from alienware is the best idea .. he may have been hinting at some thing like this.. Does any one have the brand and model number of the ram ALienware uses for its duel 2gx2 4gig set ups? i guess its OZ or corsair 600 or some such

 

Well a hell of a lot of people on here have their own RAM in, so it's almost certainly NOT locked to Alienware RAM

 

Hay Heathkidd might be right on this. When I called Aleinware about the 5400. They told me it would not work. They seid, Only the PC5300 DDR2 667MHz SODIMM Memory would work.

Corsair 4096MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz SODIMM Memory.

 

alot of people here may use high performance ram which can stand the lower timings...

u guys should have a bit of a bios scavenge see if there are any options.