Samsung 870 Evo 4TB 2.5″ SATA III 6GB/s V-NAND SSD MZ-77E4T0BW
Memory
Patriot Memory Viper Steel Series DDR4 32GB (PVS432G360C8)
Power Supply
Corsair SF600 Platinum Fully Modular Power Supply, 80+ Platinum
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z590I VISION D (rev. 1.0)
External Networking
QNAP USB 3.0 to 5GbE Adapter (QNA-UC5G1T)
Now, I got nearly all the parts to start building so I got to it, unboxed the motherboard, unboxed the RAM but something is really, really off…
Now, I’ve made sure the latches extend completely outwards and even latched them back and unlatched them to be sure and there seems to be this extra bit of PCB, about one contact point thick, that is preventing it from slotting in.
I was concerned that I bought the wrong product but the Z590I Vision D according to Gigabyte is designed for “Dual Channel Non-ECC Unbuffered DDR4 memory, 2 DIMMs” (source) and the Patriot Memory sticks I purchased say they’re single-channel DDR4 UDIMMS right on the back (I bought two of them).
The PVS432G360C8 should be off the shelf regular DDR4 RAM so I have no idea what’s happening.
It doesn’t seem to be DDR3, at least based on visual inspection compared to this illustration.
I’m getting pretty scared, due to shenanigans I’ve talked about in my original post, I had to deal with filing lots of product returns and I thought I was finally done with it.
if its ddr 4 then it should fit in the slots. regardless off ecc or not.
you have tried both ways flipping the ram round to see if the slots line up.
if you have any other ddr4 ram then check the dimple in the middle lines up, if they dont then its likely you have been scammed or they mistakenly sent you ddr5.
That’s what I thought, DDR4 is a standard and physical fitting should work regardless.
To double check I compared to against a known good stick of RAM by gracelessly powering off my current rig and that slot into the motherboard just fine…
I’m confused, it says DDR4 on the box, says DDR4 on the sticker, the SKU corresponds to DDR4 RAM but the layout is off…
What am I witnessing here? DDR5 RAM? Bad production batch? I’m extremely confused…
EDIT: Does the PCB colour matter? All listings and reviews show a black PCB while this is a green PCB. I usually don’t pay attention to that since I chalk it up to different factories and supply side stuff but now I’m wondering if this is just a Patriot chassis slapped onto completely unrelated RAM.
Stick on the right isn’t DDR4 or DDR5, that’s either DDR3 or DDR2. The pin pitch shrunk when they went to DDR4, you can see it’s wider on that module to the right. Also, you’ll notice there’s no curve along the contact edge of the DIMM - they added a bulge outwards in the DDR4 standard to reduce insertion force.
And I’m thinking DDR3 has the key further from the center than that, so I’m suspecting that’s a DDR2 DIMM under there.
My guess is that someone bought a kit of DDR4, took the heatspreaders off, replaced the actual memory with some kind of junk, and sent it back for a refund. The green PCB is kinda out of place, too.
EDIT: Yup, I just overlaid an image ontop of yours and congratulations, you’re the proud new owner of a stick of DDR2. Where exactly did you buy this from?
Well, fuck me. I guess it’s good that Amazon has easy replacements but i’ll call their customer support and tell them these sticks should be sold to nobody cause I genuinely thought I forgot how to install RAM and didn’t even consider the possibility of being scammed until I wrote down this post.
;-;
Thanks everyone for your help! We really are dealing with Scotland’s finest detectives here
You can validate his findings yourself by counting the pins. DDR2+3 has 240 pins instead of the 288 seen on DDR4+5. But don’t lose concentration while counting
looks to be, looks like someone removed the original and replaced it with another pcb.
as for the colour. a lot of pcb’s are still green so that doesnt tell you anything…
there should be screen printing on the pcb itself that tells you what ram it is.
but that would risk you damaging the product yourself and that could cause them to refuse the return.
so up to you. if you want to try removing the heat spreader.
best thing to do though.
just stick it back in the box and make sure you explain to amazon that its not a faulty return in your email.
that way it shouldn’t be put in amazon warehouse as part used. and someone else having to return it also.
Here’s the interesting part, I bought new from one of the most established Amazon retailers in the country (basically you could say they’re Amazon’s vendor zero here) so this is doubly surprising.
The reason it didn’t register that it could be a RAM swap was a) I bought new and b) I bought two single-memory sticks and got two swapped out sticks. It’s possible that they were just lying next to each other and I got them or they’ve swapped out a larger number of RAM sticks, which could evade Amazon suspicion but you’re now dealing with quantities which should raise an eyebrow.
Overall, odd experience.
Funnily enough, I needed to return a AX100 Wifi Card and Amazon has this odd thing where you have to first ask for a replacement, then when you get the replacement, you can ask for a return. I talked to customer support and complained how wasteful this is, a) for the seller, b) for support, c) in non-reusable packaging and d) for delivery agents, and they were like “we know but this is policy”
So, I did the same song and dance, I got a replacement, didn’t open the seal of the Amazon packaging and today when I had to return it, they open the seal and check the product inside to ensure I haven’t swapped anything out.
Fair enough, I’m used to it.
Turns out, the seller shipped an empty cardboard box with Styrofoam with no Wifi card. They couldn’t accept the return as they’d pin it on the delivery agent but they’d vouch for me if I filed a fraud complaint with Amazon that I haven’t swapped anything out and after talking to support, I’ve been issued a refund for that.
Figured I’d give a quick update, Amazon has done a thorough investigation™ and will be issuing me a replacement despite me not wanting one (I bought higher quality RAM from another vendor) but this is their “standard policy” and they told me to just file for a return after a receive it despite knowing that I don’t want it.
Where exactly did you buy this from?
