[SOLVED] 2nd hand PC- seller reports one DIMM slot is faulty- cancel purchase?

Sep 14, 2021
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Hi folks, I'd really appreciate your insight in proceeding with my issue. The story:

I bought a second hand HP Elitedesk 800 G4 Mini to run my living room TV: play movies, Youtube and some light gaming. It has fantastic specs and I got a great deal (red flag) from a reputable 2nd hand IT shop with good feedback (green flag). The day after purchase the seller wrote to me on eBay saying that their technician has found one of the DIMM slots is faulty and asking if I'd still like the machine with a further discount. I've already bought a second 8GB SODIMM but I can exchange it for 16GB.

My question is: in your experience what can cause a DIMM slot to become faulty, and is it likely that other parts of the motherboard are also faulty? Would you step away from this purchase altogether, or accept it with discount? I'm going to call the shop today to find out the nature of the fault, whether they've checked the CPU pins, and whether it has any warranty left from HP- can you think of any other questions I should be asking?

Thanks in advance
 
Solution
if you can communicate directly with them and find out that dual-channel is definitely working in the other paired DIMMs then it may be worth it at a HUGE discount from MSRP, like 95% off.
in your experience what can cause a DIMM slot to become faulty, and is it likely that other parts of the motherboard are also faulty?
can be a short or just a faulty socket or just faulty manufacturing.
it would be difficult to tell without deconstructing the board and running tests which would not be worth the time, effort, money involved.
if you can communicate directly with them and find out that dual-channel is definitely working in the other paired DIMMs then it may be worth it at a HUGE discount from MSRP, like 95% off.
in your experience what can cause a DIMM slot to become faulty, and is it likely that other parts of the motherboard are also faulty?
can be a short or just a faulty socket or just faulty manufacturing.
it would be difficult to tell without deconstructing the board and running tests which would not be worth the time, effort, money involved.
 
Solution
Sep 14, 2021
2
0
10
if you can communicate directly with them and find out that dual-channel is definitely working in the other paired DIMMs then it may be worth it at a HUGE discount from MSRP, like 95% off.

can be a short or just a faulty socket or just faulty manufacturing.
it would be difficult to tell without deconstructing the board and running tests which would not be worth the time, effort, money involved.
There's only 2 DIMM slots, so dual-channel mode won't be an option. It cost me AUD$430 with the 8500T, 256GB NVME and wifi/bluetooth present, before whatever discount they're offering.
 
Possibilities:
  1. Second stick of ram is faulty; easy fix.
  2. Processor is defective(not likely) and not operating single channel. No fix.
  3. Socket pin is bent. sometimes it can be fixed, but do not count on it.
  4. The second slot is damaged.

The good thing is that Intel does not depend much on fast/dual channel ram.
For the right price and a guarantee that nothing else is wrong, take a chance.