Does Fujitsu somehow lock down third party memory upgrades?

I bought an A6025 notebook recently because they had gotten so cheap. Its not the latest and the greatest but I just wanted it as a second laptop for general web surfing and word processing, its fine for that. Came with Vista Home Premium and 1GB (2 x 512MB sticks DDR2 5300 667 FSB CAS5 RAM). Wanting 2GB I bought a 1GB x 2 sticks upgrade from Crucial, same specs DDR2 5300 667FSB CAS5.

When I put in the upgrade modules and remove the old the system hangs - splash screen comes on, can go into BIOS but just a blank screen and hard drive does not boot into Vista. Note the BIOS recognizes that 1024MB installed in each slot. If I put the old modules back in it boots right up again. I put in a single 1GB stick from the upgrade pack - hangs. But, leaving that module in place and then putting back one stick of the original memory, the system boots right up and even recognizes 1.5GB of RAM being installed. I even tried this with each of the 1GB sticks from the upgrade just to make sure one was not bad and same result for each. Has to have one of the original modules that came with the notebook to boot. The markings on the original sticks show an "M" for Micron. Obviously the Crucial sticks I bought are Micron. What gives? Is Fujitsu somehow locking down these upgrades so that I have to purchase their upgrade at 3x the cost???

 

Probably they are bad sticks. I really don't think any manufacturer locks down such a simple and common upgrade as ram. Certain manufacturers limit the options in upgrading things like mini pci-e cards and what not, but haven't ever heard of ram being in that situation.

 

Can you contact Fujitsu and ask them directly? I'd like to know the answer also.

 

I don't know if they lock it for your region, but for Asia, we're allowed to add memory on our own.
I asked the local Fujitsu about adding RAM and they suggested I just buy the RAM from a store since it's cheaper and adding 3rd party RAM won't void my warranty.

 

Crucial Memory is in campatable with fujitsu-siemens laptops Try kingston memory i think ull find it will be fine.

 

Mark, it seems to be a BIOS problem.

Re-flashing the BIOS did it for me and allowed me to use 2 2GB sticks instead of being forced to keep one of the original 512 MB.

Went through 3 matched pairs of memory (Kingston, Patriot, finally Mushkin) after only being able to run 1 of the two 1GB sticks from my Gateway with this N6460 until I tried that. Same issue of slot 1 being filled with original memory and slot 2 with whatever I wanted (be it 1GB or 2GB). At that point I realized there's no freakin' way it's the memory (these weren't just matched pairs they were sequential sticks of high quality RAM [the Mushkin is PC6400]).

I don't know why the flashing of the BIOS clears it, but it worked like a charm for me, and I passed this info along to tech support after 3 calls for them, with the only help being "did you try it with just one stick?", "sounds like faulty memory" (despite every one of these sticks passing mem test for more than 24hrs on the Gateway and running alongside the 512MB stick in memtest as well. When I told them about that, they said, oh, that's weird, ok glad to hear.

Anywhoo don't do it if you're not comfortable with flashing a BIOS, but if you're confident of you abilities, then re-flash your BIOS with one of the sticks in the 1.5GB configuration may help.

Just telling you what worked for me, your mileage may vary.

 

well, it seems like something is up...

check out all the hard time people are having trying to upgrade ram in their tablets.
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=10082&highlight=memory+upgrade
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=8775&highlight=memory+upgrade (post #2 and #6)
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=6998&highlight=st5112
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=7929&highlight=st5112
there's quite a few more, but u get the point

i just bought a stylistic st5112 preconfig. with 2x512. thinking i'd just add ram later. little worried about what will work now. i've alway just bought crucial ram because it's always work out good for me, but now it seem crucial doens't always run in people's fujitsu lappies/tablets...

someone mentioned this worked in his fujitsu tablet so i'm gonna give it a try. figure it something is wrong, i can always leave 1 512 stick in and run the 2gig in the expansion slot which seems to do the trick
http://www.memorysuppliers.com/mi2gbddpc66s.html

 

I've heard of this happening, I think you must increase your virtual memory in the control panel. Then put in the new RAM and it should be ok

 

fujitsu is known to limit memory amount in bios. e.g. my n3530 can't support more than 2 gigs of ram. also, take note that there might be a primary slot, so if you have two sticks of different size, the larger one has to go in the primary.

 

What I might suggest is buying one 2GB stick of memory, and putting it and one of the original chips into the laptop. If the laptop registers more than 2GB of RAM, get another 2GB stick. Then you'll have somewhere between 3-3.5GB available, or the max that Fujitsu allows.

 

The problem is like others mentioned, that single 2GB stick will work no problem, and matched memtested to death pairs are fine in every other laptop, however unfortunately the original stick seems to be the major barrier, where be it a 1GB stick or a 2GB stick (of many different makers) or replacement memory it doesn't matter, you can always do the 1.5 GB or 2.5 GB, but removing that 512MB allows you to only get to the BIOS screen and no further (including diagnostics) where afterwards it just hangs and black screens you. Even though individually even on the same laptop they'll run various memtests for hours on end without fault.

If you have matched pairs you can swap them all you want with the 512MB having stick A or B be the companion of the original memory, but the moment you put anything else in there alongside it lock-up again.

Anywhoo, my suggestiong is what I did, flash the bios. Like ejl said, I think it's BIOS locked to require that initial stick be present.

Which kinda sucks for those of us who have done this type of upgrade a bazillion times since the old PS2/Note days, especially considering the price of some of the suggested sticks on the home site ($900-1,400 for 4GB !?! )
http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ec...ry&category=Memory+Expansion&subcategory=2+GB