[SOLVED] IdeaPad 3 - BSOD and Sudden Restart After RAM Upgrade

[Bagaskoro Olga Yonear]

I have IdeaPad 3 14ALC6. Ryzen 5 5500u.

Comes with 4GB Permanent + 4GB Upgradeable RAM (MICRON SODIMM DDR4 3200).
First, I add my old SATA SSD 256GB for secondary drive and it run smoothly for a few weeks.
Then I upgraded the RAM to 8GB (SAMSUNG SODIMM DDR4 3200).

After that RAM upgrade, I don't know why my IdeaPad keep getting BSOD.
The stopcode is vary. Almost every stopcode comes up.

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
and idk what else.

I tried to reset the Windows 10 home, and looks like it doesn't solve anything.
I tried removing the new RAM, running smoothly with only 4GB Permanent and 512MB cut for GPU.

So, what could be the problem here? How can I solve this? As a graphic designer, I really need more RAM on it.

 

[geofelt]

I think your ram is mismatched.
The dram is different.
Ryzen processors are quite sensitive to this.
Go to a ram site like crucial or corsair and access their ram upgrade app.
Enter the make/model of your laptop and you should get a list of compatible upgrades.
Buy one of the explicitly supported upgrades.

 

[geofelt]

I think your ram is mismatched.
The dram is different.
Ryzen processors are quite sensitive to this.
Go to a ram site like crucial or corsair and access their ram upgrade app.
Enter the make/model of your laptop and you should get a list of compatible upgrades.
Buy one of the explicitly supported upgrades.

 

[Bagaskoro Olga Yonear]

I think your ram is mismatched.
The dram is different.
Ryzen processors are quite sensitive to this.
Go to a ram site like crucial or corsair and access their ram upgrade app.
Enter the make/model of your laptop and you should get a list of compatible upgrades.
Buy one of the explicitly supported upgrades.

I did went to crucial but it gives me wrong detection on my laptop model. So I trusted lenovo support page, find the supported RAM, it said some brands like samsung, hynix, micron and alternatively kingston. I bought samsung because I can't find micron brand in one of the biggest marketplace in my country. The seller is trusted, they ask me to send the screenshot from CPUZ, first I ask for samsung, they advice for kingston, then I give them screenshot from lenovo support page so they can decide which best, then they give me samsung.

 

[geofelt]

It is not so much the brands, but the chips that are used in the ram.
What do you mean by wrong detection?
If you know the make/model of your laptop, you should be able to enter that.

Kingston will have an upgrade app as well as corsair, crucial, and I imagine others.

 

[geofelt]

I went to kingston with your info entered, and here are the results:
https://www.kingston.com/unitedstates/us/memory/search?model=102538&devicetype=3&mfr=LEN&line=IdeaPad

 

[Bagaskoro Olga Yonear]

It is not so much the brands, but the chips that are used in the ram.
What do you mean by wrong detection?
If you know the make/model of your laptop, you should be able to enter that.

Kingston will have an upgrade app as well as corsair, crucial, and I imagine others.

Ah yes, thank you, I double check it. Crucial have 2 choices, auto detect or choose yourself. One more point since I checked again manually, crucial shows that my laptop has a max cap of 20GB RAM. But windows CMD (with this code: "wmic memphysical get maxcapacity") said 16GB. Can you educate me with these difference?

I went to kingston with your info entered, and here are the results:
https://www.kingston.com/unitedstates/us/memory/search?model=102538&devicetype=3&mfr=LEN&line=IdeaPad

Thank you, so kingston has 2 types of 8GB. Fyi, the previous micron 4GB has 4 chips on it, idk if it matters. So for these kingston, which one will be the best choice, best match for my laptop?

This is my current status, only using the onboard ram.

Edit: I found this on Lenovo support page. Here

 

[geofelt]

Apparently, your laptop comes with 4gb soldered in and can not be changed.
You would think you could add a 4gb, 8gb or 16gb module resulting in 8,12, or 20gb.
That works with intel processors, but apparently not for the amd processors which are tightly integrated with ram.

I do not know what to tell you other than to order, if you can, one of the exact part numbers upgrades explicitly supported for your laptop.
If you have a problem, customer technical support should help you.

 

[Bagaskoro Olga Yonear]

Apparently, your laptop comes with 4gb soldered in and can not be changed.
You would think you could add a 4gb, 8gb or 16gb module resulting in 8,12, or 20gb.
That works with intel processors, but apparently not for the amd processors which are tightly integrated with ram.

I do not know what to tell you other than to order, if you can, one of the exact part numbers upgrades explicitly supported for your laptop.
If you have a problem, customer technical support should help you.

Before I bought the RAM, I contacted Lenovo customer support first just to confirm that I can upgrade my RAM or not. And they told me that I can upgrade my RAM up to 12GB. Which means 4GB Onboard + 8GB Removeable. And told me to check Lenovo support page for part references. The part number is exactly the same (M471A1K43CB1-CWE) if you see it again. Hard to say that it's working when I got too many BSOD in a short time.

Looks like it's still not getting the solution. But thank you for your time buddy. Appreciate it.

 

[geofelt]

There is always the possibility that your ram is defective.
The gold standard for testing ram is memtest.
Run memtest86 or memtest86+
They boot from a usb stick and do not use windows.
You can download them here:

MemTest86 - Official Site of the x86 Memory Testing Tool

MemTest86 is the original self booting memory testing software for x86 and ARM computers. Supporting both BIOS and UEFI, with options to boot from USB.

www.memtest86.com

Memtest86+ | The Open-Source Memory Testing Tool

Memtest86+ is an advanced, free, open-source, stand-alone memory tester for 32- and 64-bit computers (UEFI & BIOS supported)

www.memtest.org

If you can run a full pass with NO errors, your ram should be ok.

Running several more passes will sometimes uncover an issue, but it takes more time.
Probably not worth it unless you really suspect a ram issue.

If the test shows ANY errors, return the ram as defective.

 

[Bagaskoro Olga Yonear]

There is always the possibility that your ram is defective.
The gold standard for testing ram is memtest.
Run memtest86 or memtest86+
They boot from a usb stick and do not use windows.
You can download them here:

MemTest86 - Official Site of the x86 Memory Testing Tool

MemTest86 is the original self booting memory testing software for x86 and ARM computers. Supporting both BIOS and UEFI, with options to boot from USB.

www.memtest86.com

Memtest86+ | The Open-Source Memory Testing Tool

Memtest86+ is an advanced, free, open-source, stand-alone memory tester for 32- and 64-bit computers (UEFI & BIOS supported)

www.memtest.org

If you can run a full pass with NO errors, your ram should be ok.

Running several more passes will sometimes uncover an issue, but it takes more time.
Probably not worth it unless you really suspect a ram issue.

If the test shows ANY errors, return the ram as defective.

Thanks for the tips. I run the test twice this night.

1. 12GB RAM with 512 cut for Radeon - PASS
2. 12GB RAM with 2GB cut for Radeon - PASS

Both of them pass the test. But BSOD keep showing.
I assume there's a software or driver issue here.
Since I use the windows 10 home from Lenovo that comes with lenovo & amd radeon software,
I guess I will try to install a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro without Lenovo software and see what happen later.

 

[Bagaskoro Olga Yonear]

Update current progress.

Accidentally broke the whole system with bios setting.
Can't even login windows. LOL

Manage to install pirated windows 10 pro that I burned with my office's MacBook.
It's tricky to work around with Mac to make bootable windows 10 installer.
I can't get the Microsoft version of windows to be able to burn in FAT32.
As it said FAT32 is the mandatory for bootable windows installer in UEFI setting.
But I guess, I downloaded the "not the best one out there" because I can't even install a driver on it.
I can't access internet with it.

Still using the 4GB permanent RAM only.
But the worst part is that now I got BSOD

it said: CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT

Indicated that there's a procie problem here.
Maybe AMD should bring new driver update asap.

Now that I'm able to access my laptop, everything is fresh.
I can be more flexible to tinkering around.

 

[Bagaskoro Olga Yonear]

PROBLEM SOLVED
Looks like there's some compatibility issue here, but I'm not sure if it's about the hardware or software.
But I'm no longer using that Samsung RAM (It's the second RAM I bought btw).
Now I'm using Team Elite SODIMM DDR4 8GB 3200 (the first I bought).
It's weird because it has different JEDEC timing with the original MICRON SODIMM DDR4 4GB 3200.

It's still shows BSOD tough. But it's rarely happen compared to SAMSUNG.
I think I need to downclock the RAM. But it's something that I can do later.

It was the same thing happen. That's why I bought 2 ram just to make sure.
Then I decided to clean everything.
Start fresh with the original windows 10 installation.
Not downloading drivers from lenovo & amd, because they oftenly mismatch.
Just let windows 10 does all the work with its update.