My LAPTOP RAM IS GONE!!!!!!!!

Just a question for any computer repair whizzes out there.......
I have a 10 week old toshiba laptop that got a faulty hard drive at 8 weeks after purchase. When I bought the laptopI had an additional 2 gig or ramadded to the existing 2gig of ram giving me a total of 4 gig.
Performance was wasesome- no complaints there.
What I amconcerned about though is the fact that i got the laptop back fromthe cambridge retailer yesterday after it had been sent back to them by the service place in Auckland that does the warranty repairs for Toshiba. Tonight I went to transfer all my data from this laptop to the new one AGAIN- bit of a drag after setting up the new one not so long ago.
Anyway- to my horror[:0][:0][:0][:0][:0]when i went into the computers properties as I was trying to find my way to the Easy transfer page to bring data in- I came across the amount of RAM in my Laptop- there was nolonger 4gig but only 512mbof Ram in it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What the heck?????????
would they even need to go near the ramto put the new hard drive in??? arent they under seperate coverson the bottomof the laptop???
Anyone have any idea how that could have happened?
I cant speak to either the retailer or the service placein Auckland until Monday.
I ama bit concerned they will both duck for cover and I will be left with a laptop trying to run vista on 512mbof RAM!!
Arrggghhhh!!

Simple, it's called Theft!

When you talk to the retailer, and/or the service centre in AKL, record the conversations. If you have the original documentation and reciepts, that should prove you had 4 to start with.
Laptops only have 2 ram slots. To achieve 4Gb you would have had to have 2 x 2Gb.
There is no way they can accuse you of removing excess ram over the weekend, as you never had 512 in the first place.

thanks for the advice.....I am gobsmacked.I guess if they all deny any knowledge as a last resort I called notify the police because as you say it is theft. It is definatley the same machine- no doubts there.hard drive has been replaced with the right size. I have left a message on the service places answer phone. It will be interesting to see what explaination they have for this tommorrow

Eeek Emma, not sure what you are talking about, but it sounds terrible... hope it all works out somehow and they havent given your Ram to someone else..and it was just a hiccough in reality [if only it twas a rooster, then no problem with replacement]

EmmaOs;199330 wrote: ...would they even need to go near the ramto put the new hard drive in??? arent they under seperate coverson the bottomof the laptop???

We have just bought Inger a new Toshiba Laptop; Model Number is L300 so it may be similar to yours.

In that case, the RAM and HDD are definitely under separate covers and in my experience they always are. So, the tech. would have to deliberately replace the RAM in order for this to happen.

However, while they have undoubtedly been sloppy in not putting your RAM back afterwards, there is a valid reason for them to replace the RAM temporarily:

- When faultfinding a computer, it is common practice to replace all the easily-removable parts with known good ones in order to start from a point where the computer is most likely to work
- They would have put the 512MB module in for testing, but obviously should have removed it afterwards and put your RAM back in

So, very disappointing, but don't be too hasty to accuse them of theft unless they aren't being cooperative. Most likely it was just a mistake on the tech's part.

Emma, if you need local help sorting it out let me know.[]

could it not just be faulty? Or as GrantK says the service man was slack and didn't replace your ram.

If its faulty and its the second fault you have had with the laptop (you mentioned warrenty repairs) and its only 10 weeks old then I would be demanding a complete new machine rather that another repair.

well! turns out the retailer I got the laptop from had my RAM. When I purchased the laptop and had the extra RAM added it seems they did not put in genuine Toshiba RAM and had taken it out and replaced it with some Toshiba RAM they had in the store- all 512mb of it. Apparantly if the RAM that had been added wasnt genuine Toshiba RAM the warranty would be void.
Goodness Gracious- you mean I paid that much[:0]for budget RAM??? lol
I am assuming this was something they would rather I hadnt found out:confused:
Anyway- full of apologies and it is back now so will see how it goes now it has all its bits and bobs!

Great stuff Emma!!! YAY!!! Shifty business though.... budget RAM.... so someone was selling off cheap stuff for the real deal and charging accordingly?

Does this mean they put in the full quota of what you had paid for and it's all legitimate now? So you haven't lost out but have the right stuff now?
Hmmm. If things hadn't gone Phhhhzzzt, you would be none the wiser, complete with fake parts.

Well at least it's sorted.

Cheers

Yakut

Great news Emma

What you have described sounds like a genuine explanation to me. Some manufacturers get very sniffy about so-caled Third Party RAM even though if the truth be told, their "genuine" RAM is made by another company anyway and simply re-badged as Toshiba, HP, IBM etc, etc.

In our computer business, we sold a lot of Kingston RAM because it was the best quality RAM available. Kingston have all sorts of Qualified RAM for just about any manufacturer under the sun. Your local retailer may well have installed Kingston RAM when they sold you the upgrade, or it could be another less-reputable brand.

Just because it wasn't branded Toshiba RAM doesn't mean it's no good -- far from it as explained above. If you insisted on "genuine" Toshiba RAM, your memory upgrade would probably have cost at least 2 if not 3x the price [:0] and most likely there would not be any measurable difference in performance.

You'll probably find the third party ram is all made in the same factory anyway. If you look close at the little chips on the ram card, there are only a handful of manufacturers anyway. I have a feeling Official Toshiba Ram is really third party ram with a Toshiba sticker on it.

Why do I feel that MM should be in here drawing a cartoon of laptop rams (could be the newest thing in small block farming!) and rams that don't conform to warranty standards[][]