Second hand ram arrived in a packet

happysappy

happysappy

happysappy

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26 Jun 2006
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I bought some 8pack team group ram sticks from the auction site. It came in a small packet envelope with a small lining of bubble wrap. The envelope itself had been ripped in several places and sellotaped back together also my delivery label had been stuck on top of another label so the small packet had obviously been previously used. The ram was packaged in two sheets of bubble wrap for each stick, one 20x12cm and sellotaped together and the other 15cmx10cm pocket sellotaped at the open end. Most of the bubbles had completely deflated. The royal mail deliverer didn't even knock the door but put it straight through the letter box, nice. I imagine the ram received a lot of this rough treatment in delivery because tbf the packet had no indication that there were fragile items inside.

I don't know if the ram actually works because i havn't used them yet. They've been sitting there for 3 days. I can't see any physical damage to the sticks so they might work. I'm strongly inclined to open a returns case just on principle. But maybe if i test them and run them through 8 hours of testmem followed by a large fft test for a few hours in prime and get no errors they'd be good to keep? As i said it probably got a lot of rough treatment in transit, is possible that might have slightly loosened components inside the ram and with more time under use, heating up and cooling down, the component might dud out a lot sooner? Can't really make my mind up but i'm siding towards returning them. Any thoughts? I'd appreciate any advice.
 
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Run Memtest and if all is good then I would leave appropriate feedback advising the seller they should at least use an antistatic bag when selling these sort of components.
 
Plenty of ram gets shipped without being in a box and comes in anti static bag / bubble wrap, if they aren't bent or have any physical damage to the heat spreaders test them.
 
RAM is super tough, I have never seem a dead RAM module in my life and I use computers all day every day for 30+ years. Or maybe I am just lucky.
 
I've had RAM come like this before. I ordered some SD133Mhz RAM for a retro build I put together and it came exactly like you described. A bunch of sticks of RAM all in one anti static bag put inside a flimsy envelope lol.

90% of them work shockingly. I'd probably say that the broken ones are age related rather than transit related.

I'm guessing yours will be fine.
 
I have re-used packaging before to cut down on wastage and although a antistatic bag would have been best, bubble wrap should be fine.

As long as the gold pins look ok it should work, testmem them anyway though.
 
Thanks guys, that's reassuring to hear. I guess i'll slap them in and give them a damn good thrashing in testmem then. It just irks me with ram prices what they are the seller couldn't even spend a few quid on packaging. The heat sinks look pretty well built on these sticks though. These are what i bought: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...4-28800c16-3600mhz-dual-channe-my-08q-tg.html. I'll let you know how it goes after testing.
 
Back in the day of SDRAM everybody had static bands for working on a PC.

So after upgrading a PC I purposely rubbed the old 2 sticks on a carpet floor I knew caused a lot of static build up (we used to shock each other).

They went back in the old PC and were totally fine. :D
 
I have never had an issue with memory despite packaging. New comes in formed plastic packs and second hand has usually been in bubble wrap with cardboard either side, then in a envelope or Jiffy bag.

Given the ways some sellers on Ebay take photos of stuff resting on carpet, the posting is the least of the problems with static :cry:.

I rarely use an anti-static strap for installs, only for electronic repairs or maybe deep cleaning. I have never had anything die from handling (although I always touch something to earth myself first and avoid shuffling around). I never touch contact points when handling stuff if possible, it does make me twitch when I see people grabbing the pin contacts on hardware.
 
I just think given the current price of memory, a 20p antistatic bag would be good practice when selling this stuff.

Granted very few of us actually have any issues, but it’s a fact that static can damage memory modules.

Failing the above a proper cardboard box would do but it seems the OP didn’t get either.
 
Well i've installed the ram and both sticks work. Tested 1 hour large fft in prime and 3 cycles in testmem extreme profile with no errors. I'll probably leave testmem on overnight and see what happens. So it looks like the ram will probably be ok. The only thing that bothers me is thaiphoon burner says it's 8gb 1 die when the seller claimed it was b-die. Not that it's that necessary to overclock the ram because i have a 5800x3d and i heard it doesn't help it much. The xmp profile is pretty good too at 16-16-16-38. Would still like to see if i can get the timings down slightly.
 
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