Addressing what I said earlier in the video regarding battery removal: the safe bet is to _always_ remove the battery. I've never come across a board that fried as a result of not removing a battery when swapping something as simple as RAM - but that doesn't mean it hasn't (and won't) happen. I've worked with more than a few XPS laptops in the past and was confident in this process, but the official answer should always be to remove the battery if you've any doubt. Sorry for the confusion and poor choice of words on my part.
I just recently stopped working on dell laptops for warranties. It sounds like you actually have a poor slot 2 on the board(saw many boards with 1 bad ram slot on them). you could try the warranty but support may try the scapegoat of well its not "officially" supported.
I would have thought you'd have more experience with laptops/notebooks. Dell, HP, Toshiba, and many other manufacturers do this so the non-techies have no choice but to take it to them to get fixed or upgraded, which as you probably know, is more often for low power mobile tech(they NATURALLY "feel" slow after only a year or so to most peeps). With memory, HDD's, SSD's, GPU's and many other security-centric devices they can get away with BIOS tagging(rather like Intel's Trusted Platform system), because of their higher bulk business customers(office workers etc.). Same as their desktops really too, let me tell you.....we don't call Dell "HELL" for nothing in the modding community. 😏 You have to look very deep into the data sheets and documentation of the unit's manufacturer to find the compatible hardware needed.....then deffo go somewhere else to buy the stuff at almost half the price even for new. With the memory it is a pain, as most are limited just like the old days of DDR1/DDR2 were by the motherboards and chipsets of that era. They often have to have a certain controller, only a certain count of DRAM chips, restricted to single sided, restricted to only a single row of DRAM chips.......or all restrictions. Then after all that you have to do a hard reset of the BIOS, which as you know means disconnecting the main battery and the button cell CMOS battery, and on some finding the two pads to short or tiny switch to actuate with a pin. 😑 I hated doing repairs and upgrades on nearly ALL the laptops I did.....except the older 1200 series Macbooks funnily enough......that sound sad for a PC guy doesn't it!?! 🤔😔 Most of the laptops/notebooks are REALLY not designed for "us" to upgrade.....or you mess with their system for high turnover.
Years ago when I was in the computer repair business, I was upgrading RAM in a laptop with the battery still installed, when the RAM suddenly started getting extremely hot. Turns out, something caused the computer to turn on and the poor connection of the SODIMM, or just the fact that it was powered, caused it to heat up. Fortunately no hardware failure from this.
@@charleswolfman i just fixed a razer blade, what a crap batterypack is in there it broke the laptop by expanding. and the build quality is bad in my opinion.
I'm glad you're uploading videos where you don't succeed at something. It's not only more content to watch on your channel but also a good learning experience and you've turned them into exactly that i.e. the 3900x video where you broke a pin but instead of trashing the vid you turned it into a "look how I messed up so you don't, and if you do here's how to fix it" kinda thing. I love the vids and congrats on the baby!
@@jordanabendroth5568 I did the same in my G3. Motherboard manufacturers post lists of compatible RAM for a reason. If you blindly choose one and it works, great. If you blindly choose one and it doesn't, it's not Dell's fault. Take some responsibility.
Dell probably runs whitelist still, they have for at least a decade. It's no surprise that the Delran module probably has a flag that allows the laptop to boot, and is required in dimm Slot 2.
Had the previous 9570 8th gen Intel version. Also had to upgrade from 2x4GB RAM. Had some Crucial Ballistix 2x8GB RAM around and that's how I found out that only some RAM works with this! Most laptops these days don't have this issue but you have to hand it to Dell for NOT fixing this problem in your newer 7590! Thing is even Crucial's website claims the RAM I tried works but it didn't so be careful guys. Ended up buying 2x16GB G.Skill RAM for it, that worked fine!
I have the exact same issue with my hp laptop (15s-fq series). Until I watched this video, I was no display the whole time, when I then put my original 4gb RAM into my second slot to my new upgraded 8gb ram into my original slot one, my PC then turned on with 12 gb ram, so i have to thankyou massively as this is still an upgrade even though I couldn’t get the full 16:)
Market segmentation. HP does this as well. The Core i5 systems will only support half the amount of memory vs the Core i7. It is done in BIOS. In theory you can hack the BIOS to allow larger total memory amount. A side note sometimes the timing is locked and if the memory doesn't respond back with the right timings you won't be able to use faster DIMMs.
It's very unfortunate that Dell does this. I work on Dell laptops and the amount of XPS 15s we get for not posting due to 3rd party memory is absolutely ridiculous.
It's a longshot, but I own an E6440 that, in newer BIOS'es no longer had a RAID-0 option. I managed to get that working using an NVRAM editing program. Basically reflashing the BIOS to enable a hidden option by directly flipping bits. You could try doing some research on whether or not it is possible to edit the BIOS in the same way on this laptop in order to enable non-QVL RAM modules to work. I honestly have no idea where I found the guide I used, but maybe it is something you could look into.
It feels like more companies are locking hardware out from the bios. When I was working at Lenovo testing problems that customers have with QIT (quality insurance team) and there was a huge wlan adapter issue. I could not put another wlan to test because the bios refused it. Contacting China, the people responsible for bios and drivers, asking for a unlocked bios for testing they just refused. Let the customers suffer the return rate is to low :(
had the same RAM upgrade problem but managed to to get them work after 2 hours of removing and swapping. I installed the oemone first, made sure the laptop posted, shut it down, removed the CMOS battery, added the second RAM stick switched on the laptop while the CMOS battery is still disconnected and booom! it just worked!
As computer company owner, we do these kinds of things daily, first always install latest BIOS/UEFI, second make sure you find the correct memory speeds, voltages, timings etc, that are compatible with that specific model, we have several speeds/sizes/timings etc in house so we have a good selection to try, I understand not everyone has that luxury, also that specific model we had issues with also, after a BIOS/UEFI update and correct memory speeds installed, no problems...
Can you use Thaiphoo burner and extract the SPD data from the OEM and the Teamgroup profile? I could help you take a peek at modding the programmed SPD data on the ram to make them work. If you're up for it that is.
^^^ Exactly this! It's also the only way to get 'non-Apple' RAM to boot in older MacBook Pros; can't recommend Thaiphoo Burner enough in these situations. Just need to do one Teamgroup stick at a time (with a stock Dell stick in slot 2 to boot). Annoying task, but well worth it in the end.
Indeed. I've modded unbrand 1333 d3 8g dimms to 1066 before for my MacBook 2010 mid. Also noted that there're mem modules which has spd write protection that cannot be modded.
That's not an option since RAM SMBus addresses are locked for writing on XPS laptops. Wasted several hours today on this one I am considering to use external I2C programmer for the next attempt
@@qewrtyio Bought a Crucial Ballistix BL2K32G32C16S4B 3200Mhz (the 2 x 32GB kit) for my HP Pavilion Gaming 15-dk1056wm (2933Mhz max) and thought the RAM would be downclocked to 2933Mhz but it went all the way down to 2666Mhz, even though Crucial's scanner didn't mention that issue. Do you think using Thaiphoo Burner would be a good idea ? I'm a little afraid of breaking something 😅
Wasn't super familiar with Team Group to begin with, but when I upgraded the hard drive in my old laptop (i7 Ivybridge) I went with one of their SSDs because it was the best value and I've been happy with it. Then when I killed one of the SODIMMs while I was reapplying the thermal paste in that laptop, they were the best deal with a recognizable name.
Interesting that the XPS 15 firmware is picky, but not surprising since it is reasonably common for laptop firmware to be picky with RAM configurations. By contrast with a ThinkPad T480 for example the firmware isn't picky when it comes to RAM with the firmware accepting RAM modules of different capacities, speeds, and manufacturers (can still retain the benefits of dual channel RAM). The firmware can even accept more RAM than what is officially supported (32 GB max). Many people have done this with two 32 GB SO-DIMMS with every attempt being successful (the laptop remains stable with no freezes/crashes).
@Science Studio in regards to the speakers being trash - do you have the dell audio app installed? It makes a night and day difference for me on the XPS 9550 with a little tweaking in that app.
It's not that it's not detecting the memory, it probably is, Dell applies a whitelist, and the ram you bought is not on the white list. Dell has been doing this with other components for at least a decade, probably longer. They prevent you from upgrading your laptop by preventing the laptop from booting with anything that is not on the white list. You can go with a modified bios, that changes the whitelist, or in some cases modders have successfully removed the whitelist, but that is a risk that you have to take in possibly breaking your board.
Dell has been picky with ram for a long time (since the core2 days). Rule of thumb with Dells is Crucial website and their compatibility test, and order from them or the same kits elsewhere.
JCMP Technology Services it’s a good rule for any memory upgrade to verify compatibility first. “Should” work just isn’t good enough when it’s so easy to check for “does work”
I had the same fear with my Lenovo Thinkpad T480S, matched it to the paper specs and it worked fine. I almost bought this exact laptop for school, kinda glad I didn't now. Great video though!
Hi Greg, Loved watching your video. I really would like to to know if this laptop delivers the total performance of 20Gb or it it only 16GB that performs?
I have a question on an HP Envy TouchSmart 17t-j100 Quad-Edition CTO Laptop and want to know if it should support any DDR3 Memory. It runs at 1600MHz and wanna see about upgrading it to 16GB from 8GB but am not really able to find any info on it. I also wanna install an mSata SSD but am unsure as to if it only supports a certain brand of SSD's but I know how to install them, just finding the best but affordable upgrades I can get that are supported for my laptop. I don't have the money to buy a new laptop as I just use mine to play GTA V & 4, Garry's Mod, and VRChat. I'm also in Florida in the methed out county of Pasco and wish to soon do a meet and great and talk computers and tech with you. Also Congrats on the baby my dude! I bet it feels amazing being a father and dad! Congrats man!
It sucks learning the hard way. I tried installing a Crucial SSD in my Alienware laptop...no go. I should have checked list of compatible parts first. Still running HDD!
Interesting, we've always bought crucial sticks at work for our XPS and Latitude workstation laptops and haven't had any trouble. Dell really out here trying to be apple with this compatible ram bs
@@cee128d i actually never knew about this. Had only one Dell laptop in my entire and never tried swapping out RAM. Now i know what to expect when i encounter another Dell laptop
@@RackaApps Basically just look up Name of laptop+compatible ram. There is however, a reason why lots of sites have ram compatibility checkers because even on PC motherboards not all ram is compatible, this is worse on laptops. Admittedly Dell is definitely one of the worst for this, however, they are far from the only manufacturer who doesn't allow you to just use anything.
Before adding extra memory/replacing memory, I use the Crucial memory/storage scanner to find out from Crucial's end what kind of memory the computer/laptop has, if its a different brand memory than crucial, i just use the part# on newegg for the exact same memory stick. or I just buy new XGB kit replace the current with Crucials.
Upgradable macs had the same problem. I had a similar issue with my 2010 Macbook back in the day. The solution was the same as yours: using a standard one with the upgraded one :(
If I recall the 2080 ti's running Micron memory are the ones that were artifacting and shitting the bed. I think the only way people fixed it was to put the memory speed at or below stock. Apparently Micron has really bad issues with accelerated degradation. That or their memory just isn't engineered for overclocking.
had something similar on Dell Latitude. Managed to save the situation with just "hardware check" = holdinng the power button for 30 sec, and the running the troubleshooting.
When I bought my Lenovo Y700 3.5 years ago it had 8GB comprised of 2x4GB SODIMM. I bought a single SODIMM to max it out before I left the store, not realizing it was not 1x8GB SODIMM. I ran it for like 2 years on 12GB before finally buying a matching 8GB to bring it up to 16GB. I'm about due for a new laptop next year.
i am too i hate the dead display dots and screen burnin on the y700 series they said more than three dots on the screen then they will RMA it company policy bullshit i got myself a 1080p panel on ali express and ama happy bunny
@@tanmaypanadi1414 Luckily mine doesn't have any dead pixels, and with a SSD upgrade I did when I upgraded the RAM a year and a half ago, it still runs great. But new games are coming out all the time and eventually this one just won't be able to run them. Do you have the touchscreen version? I wasn't aware of that version when I got mine, though I think I'm glad for that now.
actually in a laptop if it has a battery (most do … DUHHH) then you'll want to take out the battery and then hold down the power button for a minute otherwise you have a chance of actually frying something, mostly common in older laptops from what I've seen though, also if ur gonna (not saying you didn't) but for anyone potentially reading this, if you're laptop has windows on it you'll want to make sure you're laptop is powered down completely, i've had laptops that quite literally shorted out when i replaced or took out the ram due to windows actually having a hibernate mode and with some laptops windows sets to were when you press/hold the power button it just hibernates or goes into sleep mode, so if it dose do that you can change that in the good old control panel
interesting. very strange. I have been using a 16x2 Samsung 2400Mz kit for the last two years more or less, on about 20 different laptops, including XPS 9550, 9560, 9570, 7590, and always worked. I never thought memory would not work.
I just faced the same problem ( in dell inspiron 5559) but in a weird way, bought 2x8gb ram plug it with no problem then I updated bios and my laptop stuck in black screen and blinking led battery. I got back to the original 2x4gb and it booted normally. great video to learn the logic thanks.
So basically Dell does not want you to upgrade the PC as much as possible because they are locking the BIOS. Would be interesting to see what M.2 SSD's and NVME drives are compatible or not with that laptop.
Well, it's a Hail-Mary, but you could try pulling all the batteries (external and internal [if it has an internal]), disconnect the coin battery, and short the CMOS pins for a good long while. That might jolt things so that it will wipe all memory timings and read from whatever is installed. Sounds like it's getting all its timing info from dimm slot 1 and applying it to both slot 1 and 2.
I had the same deal but, with my gpu on my HP pavilion HPE H8 with a core i7 2600 non K which had garbage bios that prevented me from using a GTX 760 years ago and forced to get the older Kepler architecture when I wanted to use the newer Maxwell architecture back in my 19th birthday. But the GTX 660 still gave me a day and night difference in performance over the stock low end dedicated graphics card. Now I am rocking a custom built gaming rig with a Ryzen 7 2700X and Radeon RX5700XT. Could not be happier because aftermarket quality motherboards have a future proof easy to update bios, much better OC stability, and the RGB lighting is the cherry on top of the sundae. I am glad I went with an AMD GPU because they age better than Nvidia GPUs and have better quality reference boards and AMD motherboards have very good Forwards compatibility with future AM4 CPUs and retains CPU cooler backwards compatibility you can actually use an AM3 cooler on an AM4 CPU.
I have an Asus TUF series laptop that came with just a single 8GB stick. When I upgraded I wanted to get at last a16GB kit from a well known manufacturer, but compatibility has always been an issue with OEMs like Dell and HP. I wasn't going to assume Asus was any different so I just bought another 8GB stick that was exactly what was in the laptop. I have had no issues, but the downside is that the latencies are high at CAS19. The overall performance has gone up considerably though, so it was a less expensive win for me! Later down the road I will consider a much better 32GB kit with lower timings.
damn i just got a xps 13 9570 , but its strictly for documents and uni, no rendering or nothing like that, i pretty much gave up on laptops after using my own built desktop . i love the fact that my fav tech youtuber made a ram upgrade ( attempt ) relatable af
Greg, I think the problem is you need to have a Dell technician to change the profile in the bios or get the high price ram modules from Dell. Sounds like Apple philosophy reach Dell computer. They probably have a program that runs under windows that does the same when you update the bios, but you can tweak the bios with that program. But only Dell computer tech have access to that program I guess. You can call Dell and ask them or check the profile of the machine you have with it's service tag number. That service tag number give you access to the download page for the machine you have. And maybe the program you need to change the RAM profile could be there, Maybe.
The blade stealth has soldered ram... if you want to blame anyone blame limited BIOS settings in laptops. Your main problem is that laptops don't really have ram settings and your xmp profile just makes this unable to post. You can have problems like this with normal mainboards too which is why there is a qvl
June 2022 and Bought a Dell G15 Gaming Laptop with a 8GB DDR4 - Same exact issue so I returned the 16X2 for a 1X32 and kept the 8GB in Slot one so now I have 36GB RAM. Its stable but its weird that the Bios is still not allowing Dual channel Ram other than their own brand...
I've just upgraded my xps 15 7950 to 64GB Corsair Vengeance and had a boot problem as well. Solution was that each stick needed to be initialized by the system seperately. Meaning, first stick into slot one, then boot to windows. Shut down and add second stick, then reboot. Took a whie to figure it out, but it worked.
Thankyou for calling Dell support. How can I help today? No sir that is a feature we have graciously included. We have always made sure that our customers have very clear upgrade paths and compatibility lists by ensuring you can never upgrade because nothing is compatible. You don't have to thank me for the help sir, it was my pleasure. We are alway here for you when you decide you need a new computer. Thankyou for joining the Dell family. Good bye.
It must've been the locked voltage on the RAM, because that is what happens to my laptop when I was first trying to upgrade my laptop's RAM (this was with two different storage of the physical RAM like "4 500MB RAM chipsets each side and 8 250MB RAM chipsets each side). I really hate it when Laptop Manufacturers kept making finicky BIOS for them, and they will "call it good". Sure, that my laptop is far older and weaker than your laptop. But the problem is still the same.
Honestly? i work with DELL notebooks daily and do this kind of thing a lot - as for every brand, notebooks are extremely picky about ram sticks and getting the right one is always a pain. Doesn't matter if it's the right type and size, it still won't work. I replaced stock ram between models and it just doesn't work sometimes. I just usually go on Kingston's website, input the notebook model and i have a part number list (exact PN) of ram that's fully compatible with the machine. So far, 100% success rate. I know it's not really a solution, but it works. I happens with basically all brands, also for non-enterprise models, like the ones you can buy in stores for cheap. being pissed at DELL isn't really right, since nearly everyone does that.
Reminds me that a few years back I modified a BIOS file to properly support a CPU that wasn't officially supported but ran just fine. Maybe there is something available for that laptop to tell it to run something like 2133 CL16 by default, no matter what RAM is in.
hope you do a follow up video after you swap to a compatible ram kit. im a reseller of new and used dell xps 13 and 15. what i notice is that when a new xps was launch, its only half ass ready. major bugs issue. driver problems. but after a 6 monts to a year, its very stable and reliable. i know defeats the purpose of buyiing new. also dell is really good at supporting their products. i have a 2016 xps 13 and it still gets new driver updates. very reliable laptop and gorgeous screen. their just finicky when newly launch.
Just a few things, Greg..... For one, YES it can matter about if you unplug your battery. With a desktop, after unplugging from the wall, all you technically have to do further is either power cycle the system to discharge any residual power, or unplug the mobo from the power supply entirely (provided you want to follow best practice procedures). With a laptop, the only source of power IS NOT the wall. Whenever opening up the system to replace parts, or repaste, you should ALWAYS unplug the battery. Thank you for the slight correction on your pinned comment though. Personally, I would not suggest repaste unless you are noticing abnormally high thermals (try cleaning it out first!) or are working with an older laptop that you don't know has had it's paste swapped out recently. As far as who's fault it is, I'm going to blame both you and Dell for this(though Dell is not alone on this). I'm going to blame Dell and other OEMs for having restrictions on what memory they will aknowlage, as there is no reason they shouldn't be able to utilize other perfectly fine sticks of RAM. HOWEVER, this is a known issue with many OEMs, and has been for a while. As someone who does influence the purchasing decisions of others, and helps instruct on how to maintain and upgrade systems, I would expect you to know this. This is my reasoning for placing some of the blame on you as well, particularly for not doing your due diligence for not checking for compatibility beforehand, like someone with even a desktop should do with their motherboard.
It is not just the laptops I had a Dell Inspiron desktop with a Ryzen 1700x. After alot of research noticed that the only memory that would work with it was Crucial Ballistix LT DDR4 2400 everything else would run at DDR4 2133. And yes the bios was hard coded so the memory couldn't go past DDR4 2400 which is not good for a Ryzen 7 1700x.
So, now you need to look in a QVL for just swapping memory in a laptop? That's great. It makes me happy for having switched to a desktop. And for all laptop users out there, before buying your kits, remember you can use CPU-Z to look at your memory configuration ( how many DIMM's you have, which are populated, etc.)
And that is one of the reasons I don't by Dell or HP products, they always cheap out somewhere and make it a headache to work on. Got my MSI GS63 to 32gb RAM, done as you intended here in the video, super easy and usually not a thing you need to worry about trying.
lol REALLY wanted to make sure that we all knew it wasn't Team Groups fault, to be fair there may be some people out there that were saying that as soon as it failed to post with them that " its Team Groups fault!" , So I don't blame him for that. I would be disappointed too Greg, I had the same thing Happen, but mine was with Crucial :/ I ended up having to using Kingston to get it to boot
you could always try a program called Thaiphoon burner, and read the xmp profile from the micron memory if it has one and flash it to the team group dimms
Recently did a hardware proposal in a class I'm taking. Ended up avoiding both Dell and HP laptops because of pricing, even with school discounts. Dell has laptops with single channel memory, HP prices are too high for anything that could be usable. Might be different in the U.S but in my region they are not competitive.
its problem that is plaguing every dell model so far, i've seen it in inspirion and multitude of latitude models. even when installing exactly same memory as it is in first ram slot (single ram stik from factory), it would not work, only workaround i have so far is adding second stick from another manufacturer and it works. i't crap, but at least i got upgrade done and installed memory is detected correctly.
Prolly the reason why I stick with brands like Acer and Lenovo. Great accessibility, no bs like soldered ram (in most of their non-budget bottom bin stuff meant for third world college students) or finicky ram selection and relatively easy to service it yourself.
@@GregSalazar My bad, must have missed that. Still, this a very weird problem. Have you reached out to Dell for input? Normally their system are very easy to upgrade, I rave about them and love working on them for that reason.
That Micron RAM, while only 4GB, is very good, and reliable. Check the rank organization of your Teamgroup SO-DIMMs. Their website does not have this information. Since the Micron sticks are 1Rx16, that would be a good place to start, in your search for something more compatible. Thank you for the videos. Hopefully RU-vid is throwing you more than a penny per ad view. :-/
Many ago I purchased a couple of Alienware PC's due to a significant discount I receive through my workplace that made it a pretty decent buy. Even heavily discounted, I can't recommend anything from Dell because every single component they use is proprietary and of the lowest quality. Even their motherboards are some weird form factor, somewhere between ATX & micro ATX, there's a separate IO panel, cable management is abysmal so they hide it with showy looking plastic panels, etc. At least this was the case with the two Alienware Auroras I owned. The only good thing Dell ever did was use their significant financial muscle to keep nVidia from doing that GeForce affiliate program bullshit.
Dell, in some regards, is almost as bad as Apple when it comes to this kind of stuff. Many of their laptops even require Dell proprietary power adapters with very specific voltage/amperage. If you plug in a non-proprietary power adapter, it even outright tells you "non-Dell manufactured power supply detected, get fucked" if you even try.
Ya Dell BIOS sucks. I tried to upgrade my neighbour's laptop from hdd to ssd, which I did, but I wasn't able to just swap it in the same caddie. I had to remove the dvd drive and use an adaptor and boot it from there, now I can't even use both drives installed, they won't be recognized for some reason and cannot unlock the configuration. So I just gave him an external enclosure for the old hdd...
Check if the BIOS is on the latest version. Additionally, you can report this issue to Dell. Maybe they will check and issue a new BIOS update for this model. Hope this helps.
Did you try disconnecting the battery and depressing the power button for 15 seconds? This fully discharges the system and forces it to load BIOS and memory configs from scratch on the next boot. The laptop may have inadequate hardware change detection built into the BIOS. Try this and see if it works.
