So I bought a FW13 mystery box which arrived today. I excitedly opened it up and saw that I got sent a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 which is awesome but at the same time I have absolutely 0 DDR5 in the house to even test this thing.
Can someone point me in the direction of how I would even test what is wrong with this thing?
I’m thinking of picking up the cheapest DDR5 5600 SODIMM I can find with a return policy, plug the board into USB-C power and crossing my fingers.
I have one of the initial batch intel 11th gen FW13 and if somehow I got a unicorn working board it would be amazing to update that. If it’s not laptop ready with something like a dead USB-C connector or something I would still be able to use it as a home server or something.
Buying ddr5 with the intent to test your board and return if it fails is immoral and dishonest. I would suggest looking on local markets such as fb marketplace to find second hand ddr5 for cheap.
I completely disagree but that’s your opinion. Sodimm prices are as high as regular dimm prices despite not being utilized by AI companies so the price is pure greed with a small amount of shortage. If you want me to pay $150-200 for memory and keep it if I have 0 use for it then you’re out of your mind.
i believe that Sodimm is just the form factor, the chips used in any RAM are still produced by the big semiconductor manufacturers and they’re focused on making RAM for AI. This results in all RAM prices increasing regardless of its formfactor. (take this with a big grain of salt as i am a bit out of my expertise)
I got the complete opposite - I got 2 different DDR5 sodimms (48 and 32 GB) and 3 11th gen boards. I don’t have any way of testing them, gonna see if a local PC store will do a trade for some ddr4 and a couple nvme’s
This is a supremely bad take. Why would it be immoral? You’ve only availed yourself of the existing return policy. There’s no abuse of the return policy or fraudulent activity.
It’ll just go on the shelf to be resold. Nobody incurs any kind of loss here.
I would agree with you there. Just more nuanced than the original statement. Merely buying something to test with isn’t immoral. Although knowing the board might be faulty, I would hope those purchasing those boards have the skills to at least test the various circuits without RAM to determine the presence of a fault.
I, for one, do not. That said, I honestly don’t know if I ever heard of a board that fried RAM in my, checks notes, 30 years of this hobby. Goddamn I feel old.
Then yes, you should not purchase something that you are not confident you won’t damage. Especially if you don’t intend to be the one to shoulder the risk if it’s broken. The board didn’t pass QC for a reason and you don’t know how the board is faulty.
Presumably your 30 years hasn’t included damaged/faulty boards before?
Faulty boards, yes. But like I said before I’ve never seen one that damages RAM. Bad board ICs or physical faults tend to fry far more susceptible components like the CPU itself.
While it is possible to damage RAM if there is an overvoltage, it is highly unlikely. The only cases I’ve seen were not caused by the board but by faulty PSUs which wouldn’t be the case here. Also those cases were desktop units where there is FAR more power going through the board than on a laptop.
You’re correct in your experience, no debate there. But it does happen (to motherboards in general), VRM / MOSFET failure. Here on the forum, we have seen MOSFET failure, just not the one specific to cause RAM failure.
It’s a bi-directional business opportunity. If the board works, he’ll need the RAM for the board to remain functional. If it doesn’t work out, that’s what the return policy is for. The morality issue relative to store policy and regional / cultural mindset…which if the return policy is in place, it’s in place to be utilized. The dishonest aspect, depends on the store and region, it could be a “no-questions-asked” return policy…we don’t know, so that’s premature assumption. (Plus, since when do you have to declare “intent of purchase” when it comes to computer hardware?)
The question is if they intent to buy the RAM with the intent to keep it if it works (which would be fine), it would be roughly like ordering clothes or something and return them if they don’t fit. Or if they order the RAM with the intent to only check the board with the intent to always return it. It’s not super clear, maybe they want to only “borrow” the RAM to check if they can sell the board or something. In that case, I think it would be dishonest.
It’s not much different than buying a dress for a particular event and returning it afterwards
Assuming you haven’t damaged the dress by staining it or whatever, you’ve availed yourself of the available return policy. More than that and we start delving into unwritten social contracts.
As time goes on I feel that companies violate those unwritten social contracts all the time, so why should I feel any need to reciprocate something I won’t receive? I’ll only agree that purchasing the RAM in this specific case is unwise because unlike the dress, you can’t look at it and know it’s undamaged without then testing it in a known working board.
The “borrow the dress - use it - return it” is unacceptable from my point of view too, I do agree with @jared_kidd on this.
Plus you justify it by saying “companies violate unwritten social contract”/ “why would I be the only one doing good” so you know the above is bad behaviour.
No, it’s refusing to be taken advantage of. It’s not “everyone else is doing it, so why not me?”. It’s “you are no longer upholding your end of the bargain, therefore I’m released from upholding my end”. That’s how contracts work. Social or otherwise. Why should I be expected to give 2 weeks notice when I resign if my employer won’t give me notice of termination (absent criminal activity or something else that would create greater liability concerns for the company were I to remain employed).
You may have your own moral compass and that’s fine. I consider myself plenty moral and I try to be charitable towards individuals. Companies are inherently amoral and I treat them as such, I act amoral to them.
@mlg@GhostLegion There may be value in letting this topic lie - I agree it comes down to personal social attitudes.
Without siding with one or the other of you, I’ve sometimes wondered if tech companies are not unaware of this phenomenon - that people will try before they buy. Outwith Amazon, where I think the offer is deliberate and explicit, I think some tech companies will redirect used/returned tech into an “Opened” or “Outlet” sales channel. Everyone’s a winner in that case - the first buyer gets an extremely generous returns policy, the second buyer gets a good deal, and the seller still gets to shift a stock item.
Returns add about 10% on the cost for the shop, it’s a bit like insurance fraud. There might be some saying not advantage taking of a right that we pay for but it’s also the main driver for increasing costs so why we even pay so much. So it’s a cycle where at the end we all lose.