Memory Those dirty liars!

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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I bought some Crucial Ballistix DDR4 SODIMM for the ASRock DeskMini 110 and future Mini-STX reviews. DDR4 runs cool enough that heatspreaders are totally unnecessary but it looks nice so why not?



Well, it turns out it doesn't have heatspreaders at all, they're just stickers!



Sneaky little Hobbitses manufacturers, wicked, tricksy, false! :p

Not that I really mind, I bought it for aesthetics and not cooling and it still looks nicer than just the bare PCB. But it was a bit of a surprise when I got them out of the package and noticed.
 

CC Ricers

Shrink Ray Wielder
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Nov 1, 2015
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lol wut

On the bright side, it's probably easier to remove those than metal heatspreaders.
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
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May 9, 2015
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Hahaha marketing at it's best. Are you sure they are legit ? I'd get the heatgun out and remove them, store them in the packaging. My DDR3 Ballistix Sport sticks do have an actual heatspreader, but I bet they never saw close to 30°C.
Sneaky filthy Hobbitses !
 

|||

King of Cable Management
Sep 26, 2015
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Yep, zero mentions of heat spreaders, or anything to do with heat, for that matter, on the Crucial product webpage.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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Hahaha marketing at it's best. Are you sure they are legit ?

After seeing them, I looked around and Legit Reviews had a review that appeared legitimate of them and these sticks do indeed just come with a sticker.

Yep, zero mentions of heat spreaders, or anything to do with heat, for that matter, on the Crucial product webpage.

Yup, Crucial doesn't mention that there are heatspreaders, but they also don't mention that there aren't heatspreaders :\
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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That would actually be pretty cool (har har). It would solve the issue with M.2 drives where the sticker is on the side with the controller and most of the NAND chips so to mount a heatsink you have to remove it and potentially void the warranty.
 
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jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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Oh lovely, so not only do they not really have heatspreaders, they throws errors in MemTest as well :(
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
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Maybe you can get a refund and buy some higher end RAM with better stickers.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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Play to lotery right now...all your bad luck is focused on these ram sticks..:)

Too early for that, this is a used CPU so I need to check that and also the motherboard. Don't want to use up all my good luck just yet.

Maybe you can get a refund and buy some higher end RAM with better stickers.

Yup, once I verify 100% that it's the RAM and not the board, I'll return them and probably get the Kingstons:

 

veryrarium

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 6, 2015
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I guess these stickers at least protect the chips from a slipped screwdriver accidentally scratching them...to some extent?

Off topic but I wonder if any RAM manufacturers have made or will make any low-profile SO-DIMM modules. This is doable if LP and VLP are possible for regular DIMM modules correct?
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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Off topic but I wonder if any RAM manufacturers have made or will make any low-profile SO-DIMM modules.

I'd love it if that became a thing. It'd be perfect for Mini-STX since they use vertical SODIMM slots.

They do exist for DDR3 at least but I don't see any for purchase anywhere.
 

veryrarium

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 6, 2015
144
44
Oh cool, that innodisk SO-DIMM DDR3 is exactly 1" tall, that's pretty low profile for an SO-DIMM isn't it.
 

rokabeka

network packet manipulator
Jul 9, 2016
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in the middle of the Product Page:

Go covert
With a stealth digital camo design, Ballistix Sport LT SODIMMs are your memory lieutenants. Keep your system cool and collected while demolishing the opposition.


so it does make your memory cool. just hard to measure.