Faulty Dimm Slots - Anybody seen this before?

Hi All,

I've been given a Dell Dell XPS L702X notebook to upgrade the RAM. It currently has 1x1GB and 1x2GB (3GB). The plan was to upgrade to 8GB (2x4GB).

My customer, a friend of mine, has had the machine from new and was bought directly from Dell in 2011.

Anyway, I replaced the RAM like I've done a thousand times before only to be alerted with 4 beeps during the boot process which means there's a RAM problem. So, I take out the first stick and I can see immediately that there's bent/squashed pin (third from the left). The laptop boots fine on the remaining 4GB stick.

I was really annoyed and at first and I blamed myself until I checked the other slot and there's a problem with the same pin although not as bad. I was going to take another photo but I'm afraid of removing the RAM from the 'good' slot just it case I compromise it.

Could this possibly be a manufacturing fault? Anybody seen this before?

Kindest regards,
Mike

 

Highly unlikely a manufacturing problem. More likely, bent pins on DIMM slots happen when inserting RAM the wrong way, or too forcefully.

Now, whether the RAM was (improperly) installed by your friend, by the Dell factory tech, or by someone else, we don't know. But that is the most likely problem.

Is there any way to bend the pin back into place, and salvage the situation?

 

Thanks for your reply kent1146 - I may try bending the pin back into place but I'll do it with my friend present so he can witness the situation.

The RAM I took out of the Dell looks perfect with no evidence of any scratches.

By the way, I have an old 'dead' Toshiba laptop with some faulty RAM so I thought I'd have a play... no matter how hard I try I can't see how it would be possible to damage/bend the same one pin on separate slots.