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Off the back of the ASUS thread...
I'm looking at a laptop with 16GB of soldered RAM. It's enough for what I use it for (Office,RDP,Teams,web).
My concern is what if the RAM fails?
Does the machine go in the bin? How likely is soldered RAM to fail? Worst case can I just rip out the SSD and get the data off it?
16gb is lots of ram for standard desk jockeying so I wouldn't worry about it in that respect.
If it's a new laptop wouldn't it be covered by warranty so you wouldn't be the one that needs to worry about replacing it?
I think that's been the the standard way for ram on laptops for years. It's cheaper than plug in ram and more compact. Some laptops may offer a plugin expansion slot for later upgrades but have the main ram onboard. Again this is extra cost and complexity so less common than it was.
My concern is what if the RAM fails?
It's very rare that RAM fails unless its faulty from the get go... I can't recall ever seeing dead ram unless its been mis-handled or fried from overclocking.
Unlikely to fail. Does it have a slot to insert extra RAM?
If no extra RAM slot then you're stuffed should it fail.
If you have a RAM slot then you could add more RAM and then disable the internal RAM via the BIOS.
Worst case can I just rip out the SSD and get the data off it?
Depends if the SSD is soldered on or plug in. I suspect ASUS are a plug in job.
However you can always restore data from those regular backups you are doing - right?
Not worth worrying about, it's no more (arguably less) likely to fail than the CPU, or many of the other motherboard chips, the motherboards power management, the memory controllers, the bios chip, or any other of the thousand components soldered directly to the board.
No more or less likely to fail than non soldered ram.
If under warranty you send it back, of out of warranty repair or replace.
It depends on if the ssd is socketed or soldered.
It would be easier to restore from your backup than messing around removing socketed ssd’s & using caddy’s to mount on a replacement system surely?
You can also take it to a repairer and get them to solder new stuff in should the worst happen.
You can also take it to a repairer and get them to solder new stuff in should the worst happen.
Might be a bit tricky and expensive... it's not really a DIY solder job, for sure.
You'd be surprised, local guy offered to reflow a mobo for 20 quid and replace some surface mount components for the same amount. Seems about the going rate.
Fair enough, but on a laptop it's labour intensive, as taking it to bits and putting it back together again without damaging anything is a job in itself, nevermind doing the actual repair.
I'm looking at this.
Just read that the Intel version has a spare ram slot. The AMD version does not. Nuts!
Do you worry about the RAM in your phone failing? Your iPad? Your Xbox? Your smart thermostat?
Its getting more and more common on laptops with LPDDR5 RAM running at higher frequencies, they are trying to keep the board tracks as short as possible between the CPU and the RAM to keep the RAM stable at higher frequencies.
If you're just doing light desk jockey work get an ex corporate Lenovo for pennies.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134544648491 that's a year old and probably just been sat on someone's desk. A t490 is cheaper still.. £230 https://itzoo.co.uk/collections/refurbished-lenovo-laptops/products/refurbished-lenovo-thinkpad-t490-laptop-i5-8365u-16gb-256gb-ssd