Which one has Easy, Best, Reliable Global Warranty & Free Replacement? Before buying 2x4GB DDR2 PC2-5300/6400 for X61T

Which MEMORY has Easy, Best, Reliable Global Warranty & Free Replacement? Before buying 2x4GB DDR2 PC2-5300/6400 for X61T

Assuming all prices are equal or only have slight differences in price.. Which one should I go for?

I've found dominantly these 2 x 4GB Chips on the market:
- Patriot
- Crucial
- Corsair
- Hynix
- Samsung
- Micron
.. any other good ones? (There are some GENERICS & Komputerbay on Ebay)

From my research, all of the above seem to have pretty good brand name and PRICING is what would determine which one to buy.

Well.. I want to know about actual WARRANTY REPLACEMENTs that you guys have experienced or heard from friends.

Most of them say LIFETIME warranty, but how they IMPLEMENT their policy and cater to the customers need for replacement would vary?

Ease with which they TRUST and send replacement? Do they charge to & fro shipping? Etc.. Overall experience of replacement..

The reason I ask is because I MAY buy BRAND NEW or USED Chips from Ebay. I am concerned that if I am not first owner or dont have ORIGINAL receipt it might be hard to claim warranty replacement.

Maybe, this is not the case? Maybe some or all of these companies replace the CHIP simply us saying the CHIP being faulty.

Maybe, I get better pricing over Ebay rather than through some online store.

What kind of Warranty Policy do they all have?

Which brand would you recommend?

 

No memory brand related insights?

 

I recommend G.Skill RAM. I've built many systems with it and I've never had a problem with any of the DIMMS.

Lifetime warranty, too.

 

Pretty much all the RAM you listed is from reputable brands and won't give you problems. I use kingston RAM since it has worked pretty well for me so far and it is usually not expensive.

Of all the brands you listed, go with whichever is cheaper. I'd avoid the eBay brands, but corsair, mushkin, crucial, kingston and co are all reliable.

 

You may want to consider the retailer in the decision of what brand has the best customer support. Hard to beat Amazon return policy, others not so good.

 

The fact is that RAM have so low of failing rate that it rarely need a RMA. I doubt even 1 in 100 NBR have experience RMAing rams.

 

I guess i'm unlucky as I had to deal with 3 RMA's for bad RAM's before, all different with companies too! But I had no problems getting replacements from Kingston, Corsair and Crucial (Micron) based on their lifetime warranty scheme which should give you some piece of mind.

Sometimes you don't even have to refer back to the RAM vendor, if you buy it from a reputable e-tailer they should be able to exchange the bad RAM for a new one too regardless of which brand.

 

haha. probably would be a interesting poll option.

 

Corsair, hands down. This is why -

1. When submitting an RMA, you have the option of selecting something along the lines of "I am an IT professional and have tested this RAM and confirmed it to be faulty" and that straight cuts through all of the bull and automatically approves your RMA.

2. I sent my RAM to Corsair from Western Australia to California and within the week i had a brand new replacement kit received in the mail. That is a replacement RAM kit sent from their depot in California to my doorstep within a full week of first submitting my RMA.

3. As far as i can remember no invoice was needed, no questions were asked.

 

Corsair is the last on my list, but that's because i've seen a particular rig not boot up with 3 different sets of corsair RAM. Kingston worked just fine. It was probably just a fluke, the mobo not liking those particular 3 sets of RAM, but these kind of experiences leave a subconscious mark. That doesn't prevent me from recommending Corsair RAM though, but as i said earlier, i'll stick to kingston.

 

I'm just an unlucky person in general... If i held every DOA or RMA'd product i've ever had as a mark against the manufacturer, i'd be trecking through the back-alleys of Hong Kong looking for no-name brands i can't pronounce.

I've realized that absolutely anything can happen to them by the time they've left the manufacturing line and ended up in your hands, so the most important thing is how efficiently they handle their customers and replacements should anything go wrong.

Can't say I've ever had to deal with Kingston or Crucial warranty claims so i wouldn't know about them, but i guess that's a good thing right? OCZ i know to be good, they aren't big on communication but they're fast enough, and Steelseries & Razer are right down at the bottom of the list with 4 items between them having been RMA'd but never received or replaced or followed up on even when contacted directly.

 

So, I have few friends based in China (few cities) and given how DDR2 SODIMM prices have balooned up for no stupid reason (esp the 4GB SODIMMs), I will be trying to get it from China (Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hongkong etc). So price will be right.. but it will be lower and hence price differences not a BIG FACTOR.

What will be a factor here is which COMPANY would be the EASIEST replacement.. assuming that I cant do the following:
- Show a proof of purchase or Merchant Bill (from source)
- Go back to the Seller for replacements

Who would be the easiest Global Memory Replacers with no questions asked. And yes, having a long IT background so can write to them and tell them.. I tested these SODIMMs with MemTest+ etc etc.

Most likely brands on my online research (through Taobao):
- Kingston
- Samsung
- Hynix
..

Since you've dealt with all of them and each of them have Lifetime. Can you give a comparative of the RMA processes for each?
- Did any of them want the date/ place of purchase/ proof of purchase / merchant invoice/ bill?
- Which one was the toughest and which one did not care for paper work and just replaced it.
- Return & Delivery.. Speeds..
- Shipping .. back & fro.. charges/ costs?
(Compare your experience using some of the above factors & more.. I am sure this could help get a COMPARATIVE of the COMPANIES & their STANCE when replacing)

Nice. Thats a good Corsair positive.

I agree on the how efficiently they handle replacements part. When you say, that's a good thing in the sense that in your personal experience with their products you have NOT NEEDED to ask for Warranty Replacement.. i.e. the product did not develop faults.. ?

OCZ doesnt seem to be high on my list. nor seem to be available visible on what China research I could do.

True. But, helps to share & review the collective information we all have.

Does/ would Amazon support the product after 30 days? .. i.e. Longer term replacement?

 

This was a couple of years back but neither companies needed a receipt of purchase, they just needed to know what module you have (usually by the serial/product code on the module) and a little explanation of what went wrong.

Though with the Kingston modules for some reason I just left it around for over a year before I decided to take action with RMA (maybe I wasn’t in the mood back then?) and sure enough they stood by their product and just authorised the RMA with no receipts required (which is a good thing since I got that module from an electronics market back in Hong Kong at the time!).

At the time neither was tricky to get RMA, they will ask you whether you have tried reseating it or tested the modules with a memory test program before authorising the RMA which most likely you would’ve done so before requesting it.

All within reasonable time, I got replacement modules within less than a week of dispatching the old ones.

Now for shipping I do remember having to pay to get the modules to them which is a bummer. I think the most expensive was shipping to Corsair because in Europe their base is in the Netherlands so it's International shipment for me! Kingston and Crucial (Micron) wasn’t so bad as they have bases in the same country where I am. Let's not forget that they were relatively small items so overall it didn't cost the Earth to ship. But you don't need to pay for shipping back, they usually send their speediest courier service to get your replacement modules back to you ASAP.

 

Good to know that it doesnt matter where you bought it, as they just send a replacement.

Do they always want you to SHIP to THEM first and then they send the REPLACEMENT? Or are any of them okay with sending the replacements first, that way you have some Modules to use until you get the replacements.

Another thing I am wondering is.. when some WARRANTY say LIFETIME some others say LIMITED LIFETIME.. What the difference is.. ?

And how does the Warranty come into play, when they EOL (End of Life) a Product from their Catalog.

Would they truly replace a LIFETIME or LIMITED LIFETIME product after several years?

 

Yea exactly, no faults at all yet so wouldn't know about their replacement.

 

Are you still in / around HK? Do you know of any stores/ shops that I could contact by email for these modules?

I have a friend visting HK, but he's not techie and gets busy. So, if I could get them from Decent Brand and Decent price, from a SPECIFIC location/ shop, I could have him go and buy it.

Have another contact in Shanghai as well.