Crucial RAM = great customer service

[eljefino]

Bought a whole computer off ebay real cheap b/c I got local pickup. It was flaky and part of that flakiness was a 512 mb ram stick that sometimes POSTed as 256. I swapped in a known good stick and things improved.

Not having great diagnostic skills I filled out RMA info on crucial's website and sent in my stick. Stuffed it in a business envelope and paid
It later became evident that my (dell) MB had swollen capacitors that sent it to the junk pile. I would not be able to tell you if this were the ultimate root cause of all, not just some, of my problems.

Got a new one, no questions asked, they paid shipping to me, even though I was not the original purchaser etc.

 

[MGregoir]

I was a Dell tech at the time.

A lot of 2005 vintage computer equipment is loaded with bad Taiwanese capacitors and the only way to tell is to take the side panel off the computer then look to see if the capacitors are bulging. If it is, the motherboard is toast.

A lot of the time if you get really random crashes, this is what it is in that age of machine.

Micron (Crucial's owner, they actually make the RAM chips) is a good company and they have a RAM ocean to drain, so it's not worth it to them to begrudge you a stick of RAM.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

We have seen many Dell GX270's, HP Evo D530's, ML370 servers (2 of them) with those suspect capacitors fail....the extra $0.95 for quality parts in each computer could have saved a LOT of companies a lot of warranty $$$. Those span from very late '02 - early '05.

But, it does fit into the planned obsolescence model.

Crucial is a good company. Their memory calculator is what I rely on when purchasing at NewEgg.

 

[bruce381]

Originally Posted By: MGregoir
I was a Dell tech at the time.

A lot of 2005 vintage computer equipment is loaded with bad Taiwanese capacitors and the only way to tell is to take the side panel off the computer then look to see if the capacitors are bulging. If it is, the motherboard is toast.

A lot of the time if you get really random crashes, this is what it is in that age of machine.

Great does that apply to my 9200 I got in Early 2007??
bruce
Micron (Crucial's owner, they actually make the RAM chips) is a good company and they have a RAM ocean to drain, so it's not worth it to them to begrudge you a stick of RAM.

 

[bruce381]

should say

Great does that apply to my 9200 I got in Early 2007??
bruce

 

[MGregoir]

No, the QC went way up on them and a lot of stuff, especially better equipment switched to Japanese sourced or solid instead of electrolytic capacitors. I have a 9150, which is the same as your 9200 except for the motherboard voltage regulator, I believe.

 

[Colt45ws]

Ah ha, thats why I popped a few caps on that soyo board I got a few years ago. Ah well, it was time to upgrade, and my new gigabyte has solid caps.
Yeah, Crucial does have good service, I bought 4 sticks of Ballistix 1GB DDR2-1066 and after awhile one started failing, just RMA'd it and got a new one.