Confused over 8/16 chip RAM

[Pratyay67]

I have a Dell inspiron 15 3537 notebook, which came installed with 2 gigs of memory. Now I want to up the memory to 6 gigs. About a couple of months ago, I plugged in a friend's RAM and it didn't work. Another friend told me to take it out and plug his one in. Then it worked correctly. When I asked him about the matter, he told me that the difference lies in RAM chips. It comes to this: Earlier I plugged in 2 gigs of 16 chip RAM and it didn't work, but when I plugged in 2 gigs of 8 chip RAM, it worked perfectly.
Now that I want to buy my own memory, what should I say to the shopkeepers? No shopping site has the 8/16 chip tag on their RAM.

 

[Saberus]

Look for the term Rank. Single Rank or Dual Rank. Sounds like your system can only handle Single Rank DIMMs.

Another thing is to make sure they are Unbuffered, which should be the most common type you'll find for SO-DIMMs.

 

[Pratyay67]

Well I just bought a 2 gig. I plugged it in, and the same problem has come up; windows doesn't recognize the new RAM. All of the suggestions of my friends have failed.
For the comparison:
The stock RAM has 2GB 1Rx8 PC3L-12800S-11-12--B4 1406 written on it.

The new RAM has 2GB.1Rx8.PC3-10600S-9-10-B2.1333 written on it.

What may be the problem?
I'm freaking out since the shop wont take it back anymore.

 

[Pratyay67]

I ran CPU-Z, and this is what I got after I logged it into a text file


DIMM # 1
SMBus address 0x50
Memory type DDR3
Module format SO-DIMM
Manufacturer (ID) Hyundai Electronics (AD000000000000000000)
Size 2048 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3-12800 (800 MHz)
Part number HMT325S6EFR8A-PB
Serial number 0139B626
Manufacturing date Week 06/Year 14
Number of banks 8
Nominal Voltage 1.35 Volts
EPP no
XMP no
AMP no

DIMM # 2
SMBus address 0x52
Memory type DDR3
Module format SO-DIMM
Manufacturer (ID) Nanya Technology (7F7F7F0B000000000000)
Size 2048 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3-10700 (667 MHz)
Part number NT2GC64B88B0NS-CG
Serial number 37862E22
Manufacturing date Week 13/Year 11
Number of banks 8
Nominal Voltage 1.50 Volts
EPP no
XMP no
AMP no

 

[Saberus]

Ok, breaking them down:

Stock ram:
2GB = 2 gigabytes, pretty much what you expect.
1Rx8= Single Rank times 8 chips.
PC3L= DDR3 (L)ow Voltage
12800S = This is how many Megabytes that are transferred per second, since DDR3 pushes 8 bytes per clock cycle, you divide by 8 and you get the frequency of the DIMM in Mega Transfers, in this case, 1600MT (Combined with the previous bit of data, this is DDR3L-1600 to most consumers) The S means Unbuffered (DDR means Double Data Rate, so it sends data on the rise and fall of the timing signal, in this case, the clock is 800MHz)
-11-12= These are the timings for the DIMM, in this case 11-11-12.

New RAM:

2GB= 2 Gigabytes
1Rx8= Single Rank by 8 chips
PC3= DDR3
10600S= 1333MT (667MHz) Unbuffered
9-10= Timings of 9-9-10

The new RAM is slower, and mixing RAM from different manufacturers (Stock is Hyundai, new is Nanya) and different speeds is not good and frequently causes issues.

You're out of luck if you can't take it back. You should buy a stick of 4GB DDR3L-1600 memory if you want to upgrade.

 

[Pratyay67]

Thanks a lot. Though I'm out of luck since I can't give it back, but it really helped.

 

[Pratyay67]

Well, now that I know RAM sticks with different memory configs cause problems, but is there any way at all to run them together?

 

[Akbar 86 Trueno]

Well, now that I know RAM sticks with different memory configs cause problems, but is there any way at all to run them together?

Yes there is a way to end your misfortune.
It's very simple actually, just put the slower module in the 1st slot, and the faster module in the 2nd slot.
The drawbacks by doing this is your Hyundai 2GB 1Rx8 PC3L-12800S RAM module will run at the same speed as the new Nanya 2GB.1Rx8.PC3-10600S (which is slower) and since the new module is DDR3 (3v) instead of DDR3L (1.5v) it will drains the battery even more.