RAM technical question

Hebbes · August 4, 2021

Hello,

I work for a company that refurbishes, recycles, and gets RAM remanufactured. Today, we received some sticks from one of our remanufacturers that are throwing me for a loop. The SPD info on the sticks tells me that they are 16GB PC4-2400 2Rx8 NON-ECC SODIMM, however the chips are clearly x4, I'm at a loss as to how this would actually work. Any information would be greatly appreciated so that I can be either rid of the guilt I am feeling that we are putting these into the world, or I can fight us allowing these to exist.

Thank you for your time.

Hairless Monkey Boy · August 4, 2021

It's double sided?

The physical grouping by four doesn't really mean anything. 2Rx8 means it's dual rank with 8 banks per rank. This doesn't necessarily correlate with a physical layout, but typically you would expect a 16GB 2Rx8 stick to be double sided with 8 chips per side.

Chris Pratt · August 4, 2021

Not the most knowledgeable here on this particular issue, but as far as I'm aware they can't be both. It's either x4 or x8. Something is lying.

Hebbes · August 4, 2021

18 minutes ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

It's double sided?

The physical grouping by four doesn't really mean anything. 2Rx8 means it's dual rank with 8 banks per rank. This doesn't necessarily correlate with a physical layout, but typically you would expect a 16GB 2Rx8 stick to be double sided with 8 chips per side.

It is double sided but it isn't the physical grouping of the chips I'm talking about. The chips are x4 chips, the SPD is programmed as x8. It shows up as a 2Rx8 but with the chips actually on the stick it would be a 1Rx4.