1. Macbook Bad Ram Slot
2. Mac Bad Ram Slot
3. Diagnose Bad Ram Slot
4. Bad Ram Slot Symptoms
5. Bad Ram Slot Macbook Pro
6. Bad Ram Slot Error

I recently bought some DDR2 667 MHZ RAM for My ASUS M2R32 motherboard. I went to put the ram in, booted up, and checked the memory. Odd, it wasn't reading the new ram. So I took out all the ram, replaced my old ram slot with one of my new sticks, and the system worked perfectly. The same with the other new slot. So, I moved the old RAM to a different slot and, surprise, no post! To check the new RAM wasn't defective, I tried it in slot 1, a known good slot. All 4 sticks of RAM worked in slot 1, so the RAM wasn't faulty. All 4 sticks work in every slot except slot 2 (the first black RAM slot). If I put any stick in slot 2 - old or new - the PC is dead, it won't even boot to the BIOS.

If a blue screen pops up and white text flashes directly after, it is likely that your bad RAM causes this issue. This is a pretty annoying warning sign since the text flashes so fast so that you don’t have a chance to read the error message. It is hard to determine any possible error code from that. This is one of those signs of bad RAM that might actually be the fault of the computer manufacturer: the RAM module isn’t seated properly in the slot provided on the mother-board. Before you make that understandably irate call to customer support, try this Make sure the memory sticks are properly seated in their bay. No, even if you could disable a ram slot it will be still a jumper/switch on the motherboard so you still need to open the case. Best you can do is open the case and remove the ram if that ram is not soldered on the motherboard, if it is then you have to go to warranty.

Is it possible to fix laptop memory slot failure with a guitar pick? Yes, it is. You will not fix the memory slot itself, but you can work around the problem. 🙂
Today I received a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 laptop with the following complaint:

The laptop starts and works properly, but recognizes only one of the two memory modules installed. The laptop has two 256MB RAM modules installed, but registers only 256MB.

First of all, I removed the memory cover to find out if both memory modules are installed correctly. The laptop had two 256MB Kingston modules installed and they were seated properly.

Macbook Bad Ram Slot

When I started the laptop and entered the BIOS setup menu, I found that only one of the two memory modules is detected and the laptop registers only 256MB (262144KB) of RAM instead of 512MB (524288KB).
Just a side note. In the computer world 1MB=1024KB. That’s why 256MB=262144KB and 512MB=524288KB.

I tried reseating both memory modules but it didn’t help.
After that I tried installing both memory modules in both memory slots one by one and here’s what I found. The laptop worked absolutely fine when both memory modules were installed into the slot A, but failed to boot with both memory modules installed into the slot B.
Apparently, there is nothing wrong with the memory modules and the laptop has a faulty memory slot B. The memory slot is permanently soldered on the motherboard. If one of the slots fails you’ll have to replace the whole motherboard or use the laptop with only one working slot.
Buying a new motherboard for this older laptop wouldn’t make any sense because it’s too expensive, but the laptop is still in a good working condition except the faulty memory slot B, so I continued playing with that trying to find the solution.

I noticed that the laptop start normally with the memory module installed into the faulty slot if I slightly press on the module with my thumb. And this gave me an idea.

Mac Bad Ram Slot

This guitar pick is going to fix my laptop. 🙂

I installed both RAM modules back into the slots and then placed the guitar pick over the module in the slot B as it shown on the picture.

I thought if I close the RAM door it will press on the guitar pick/memory module and it will have the same effect as pressing on the module with my thumb. And it worked!

Diagnose Bad Ram Slot

Both memory modules were detected properly and the laptop registered all 512MB. After “the fix” I tested memory with Memtest86+ and the laptop passed the test.
I wouldn’t call it the best solution for fixing a faulty memory slot but in some cases it will work.

Bad Ram Slot Symptoms

By the way, I didn’t charge the customer for this “repair”, he knows what is going on and how I “fixed” his problem.

Bad Ram Slot Macbook Pro

Bad Ram Slot Error