[SOLVED] RAM problem with Lenovo Desktops ?

[Treker_10]

Hi

I have over 27 years’ experience in building, repairing and programming computers, ranging from DOS and Windows 3.1, through to Windows 10, so I would consider that I have a reasonably good knowledge of what I’m doing, but I have a problem that has me confused.

I was recently asked to check five Lenovo ThinkCentre desktop computers, to see if I could get them working.

There is one 8808, one 0822 and 3 7360’s. None of them had any RAM or hard drives installed in them.

I worked out that the 8808 uses DDR2 RAM and that one is all set up and working fine.

The rest use DDR3 RAM and from the research I did, I found that they can use 2GB modules in each slot. 4GB max for the 0822 and 8GB max for the 7360’s.

I decided to purchase some DDR3 RAM on eBay and I bought 4 Samsung PC3-10600U 2GB modules, 1Samsung PC3-12800U 2GB module, 4 Hynix PC3-12800U 2GB modules, 1 Ramaxel PC3-12800U 2GB module, 2 Corsair VS2GB1333D3 PC3-10600 2GB modules and 2 Kingston KVR1333D3N9K2/4G PC3-10600 2 GB modules.

All of these RAM modules work perfectly when tested in the 0822, but only the Kingston RAM will work in the 7360’s.

I’ve contacted Lenovo Australia tech support with a detailed description of the problem and all I keep getting from them is a computer generated email, trying to sell me more RAM. Completely useless.

I’ll be able to use 4 of these modules in a Gigabyte board that isn’t anywhere near as temperamental, but that will still leave me with 6 modules that I’ll have to try to resell, if I can’t work this out.

Any help or advice to point me in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[SamirD]

Lenovo is really good about having great technical manuals (like IBM before them). What I would do is find genuine used memory modules or specific compatibles as systems from this era, especially lga775 with ddr3, was awfully picky about module construction.