Acer Travelmate laptop: broken expansion ram slot ??

[Alessandro]

Hi all,

I have an Acer Travelmate 8006 LMI laptop and I have done a ram upgrade into
expansion slot. Result: it doesn't turn on, hard disk led flashes for some
milliseconds and stops.
Of course leaving ram from expansion slot it turns on like before.

I'd like to know possible reasons, I have thought to 3 possibilities (I'll
have to test with another ram package PC2700):

1) lost expansion slot (I needed to work with screwdriver to polish the
plastic piece on the slot wich divides the two group of contacts because it
wasn't aligned with the hole on the slot. I could have make some damage even
if I was very soft!)

2) principal ram is PC2700 (512MB), new one put into slot is PC5400 (1 GB)
(Kingstone and certified for Acer). Maybe some conflicts ? CPU is Centrino 2
GHz with FSB at 100MHz.
I'll try with PC2700 1GB. Laptop supports 2 GB ram , one for slot

3) new ram damaged

I need kindly a suggestion.

Thanks and best regards,
Ale

 

[Gerard Bok]

I have an Acer Travelmate 8006 LMI laptop and I have done a ram upgrade into
expansion slot. Result: it doesn't turn on, hard disk led flashes for some
milliseconds and stops.
Of course leaving ram from expansion slot it turns on like before.

1) lost expansion slot (I needed to work with screwdriver to polish the
plastic piece on the slot wich divides the two group of contacts because it
wasn't aligned with the hole on the slot. I could have make some damage even
if I was very soft!)

You mean, that the keying in the slot indicated that the new
module is not compatible and that you applied brute force to get
it in anyway ?

 

[Paul]

You mean, that the keying in the slot indicated that the new
module is not compatible and that you applied brute force to get
it in anyway ?

On the Crucial site, they list some PC2700 DDR unbuffered non-ECC SODIMM modules as
compatible with the Acer Travelmate 8000 series.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=TravelMate 8000 Series

Pull the original memory and the new memory modules, and compare the design
of the modules. Are the number of contacts on the edge connector of
each the same ? Perhaps you bought DDR2 memory for your new module by mistake ?

Your old module may be similar to this one, in terms of physical
characteristics. There are 200 contacts on the module, 100 on each
side. The contacts have odd numbers on one side, and even on the
other. There are 20 contacts, an area for the key, and 80 more contacts.

http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KVR333X64SC25_1G.pdf

Here is a picture of a DDR SODIMM module.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Sodimm-rear.jpg

Wikipedia also has this warning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodimm

"The 200-pin SO-DIMM has two variations for locating the notch which
are nearly indistinguishable to the naked eye. If the notch is located
further outboard, it indicates the DDR class of memory. When the notch
is located nearer the center of the board, it indicates DDR2. These two
types of memory are not interchangeable, and the different notch locations
prevent incorrect installation. The 200-pin SO-DIMM depicted in the
accompanying photograph has the notch slightly outboard, and is thus DDR.
Caution should be exercised when visually identifying 200-pin SO-DIMM modules."

In the above DDR SODIMM KVR333X64SC25_1G.pdf document, the center of the notch is
at 2.15+11.40+1.8 = 15.35mm. In the following DDR2 SODIMM document, the
notch is at 16.25mm. So the DDR2 module has the notch about 1mm further
from the module edge.

DDR2 SODIMM
http://download.micron.com/pdf/datasheets/modules/ddr2/HTF16C128_256x64H.pdf

The plastic key is there for a reason - to protect you from inserting the wrong
memory. Filing off the key is not the answer... Sawing a new slot in
the SODIMM is not the answer either... (Yes, someone actually did
that, then posted to ask why the module did not work ) I hope
there is no permanent damage electrically.

Paul