memory upgrage

I have a toshiba C660D Laptop and it has DR3 4GB PC3 12800 memory, I was trying to upgrade but purchased DDR3 4GB 10600 memory module.
Is my laptop not compatible and when i restart the laptop it comes up with the dread BSOD!

Thanks in advance for any help and advice x

 

Hi, fionamarie. Welcome to Major Geeks.

Do you mean that when you swap the 12800 memory to the 10600 memory you get the BSOD or are you using both at once (12800 in slot "A" and 10600 in slot "B"). If you are, the laptop's RAM speed will only be that of the slower module. The BSOD more than likely was caused by one or both of the modules being incorrectly seated. Try reseating both modules (little to none of the pins should be showing) and see if that corrects the issue.

 

I will reseat them again and will report back, Thankyou for your help

 

Thankyou for your advice I have now tried various combinations
1 x 12800 in slot A
1 x 10600 in slot B
Works and is recognised as 8GB Ram

1 x 10600 in slot A
1 x 10600 in slot B
BSOD

1 x 12800 in Slot A (original set up)
Works fine and is recognised as 4GB

could it be that one of the 10600 could be faulty?

TIA x

 

What you did was exactly what my next suggestion would have been. Since you found that one of the 10600s work with the 12800 the other 10600 module must be defective. The defective module would have BSODed your computer as well if you had put it in with the 12800. If you can, get a replacement 10600 or your money back for the defective one. But, in the mean time, you'll have 8GB of working RAM which I believe is the max your Toshiba will support. As far as the one module being slower, I don't think you'll notice an appreciable difference for the most part.

 

Thankyou for your help.

Since I posted this yesterday I managed to get the laptop working with just both of the 10600's but after it being used intermitently for roughly 6 hours it threw up the BSOD.

 

There's an app called memtest86+ that many members here use to test memory modules. It comes in 3 forms (ISO, USB and floppy) and all are bootable. You'd burn the ISO to CD, boot from it and let it perform its tests for at least 7 passes with one 10600 module in slot "A". The defective module will be identified by then and you'll know not to use it.

 

It may be one of the PC-10600 SO-DIMMs is not making a good contact in the slot. This would possibly cause the problems you are seeing.

This might be because the 'suspect' SO-DIMM is still not seated properly (unlikely, because you aware of that potential issue). You could try the PC-10600 in slot A one at a time to eliminate the possibility of a problem with slot B (this would be a motherboard problem) [or all the SO-DIMMs in both slots one at a time]).

The problem could also be caused by dirty contacts on the SO-DIMM in question. You might try cleaning the contacts with a little IPA. I am unable to advise on the details of the best method, but I'm sure mdonah can, or is better placed to give a good reference.

It may be that one of the RAM chips or other 'internal' part of the SO-DIMM is defective, depending on the manufacturer of the SO-DIMM this may be under warranty (certain manufacturers offer a 'lifetime' guarantee on memory modules, I believe)

Be careful when removing and especially replacing RAM, because, at least on my laptop, the clips are very fragile.

If you run memtest, it may well fail if you are getting problems after a few hours - it is my belief (correct me if I am mistaken) that memtest86+ takes a long time run thoroughly, during which time there is almost certain to be an error, if I understand your description of the situation as is, without doing any of the above)

The Toshiba website should say what the memory compatibility is (but you may get functionality outside the manufacturer's spec); many PCs will operate on the next memory speed up or down, but will only get the speed of the bus if it's higher, or as mdonah says, the speed of the slowest RAM that you have installed. For example, my laptop will work with both PC-8500 or PC-10600. Anyway, it sounds like your laptop is compatible with both PC-10600 and PC-12800 RAM

Dumb_Question
14.September.2014