A story about RAM

So I have a quick question. I had a guy come into Geek Squad yesterday--he just purchased some ram and installed it incorrectly (plugged 1Gig RAM into his computer while it was powered on). I took out the RAM he installed, powered it back on...no POST, NO OS, Blank screen, spinning fan (i'm thinking it's the mobo). Then i took out another 1 gig chip he has in...it powers on. I do this for about a good 10 minutes- turning the computer on and off...it appears to be fully functional. This led me to believe that the motherboard is reaaaallly picky, or the ram is bad. BUT, i remember reading somewhere a while back that you can only plug in laptop RAM while having the computer powered on (hot swapable).

MY QUESTION: What happens if you plug in Desktop memory while the computer is powered on???

I know in my case, nothing; at least i think. but what about in most cases...as i've never really ran into that type of scenario before.

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Comments

sprkymrk

I've never heard of installing RAM on a laptop or desktop while it's powered on.

Some high end servers with the right OS have that feature, but to my knowledge both the hardware and OS have to support hot swapping RAM.

seuss_ssues

Sprkymrk is right...pretty much nothing has hot-swappable RAM.

snadam

seuss_ssues wrote:

Sprkymrk is right...pretty much nothing has hot-swappable RAM.

+1

all my RAM changes, laptop or PC, were in a cold state. I could not imagine what would happen if you tried to swap RAM while powered on.

sprkymrk

snadam wrote:

seuss_ssues wrote:

Sprkymrk is right...pretty much nothing has hot-swappable RAM.

+1

all my RAM changes, laptop or PC, were in a cold state. I could not imagine what would happen if you tried to swap RAM while powered on.

It can be done, as I mentioned, if the hardware and OS both support it. The first I heard of it was back in 2002 on some Compaq Proliants. But here is a more recent example on Longhorn:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9019641

May 16, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Microsoft Corp. and NEC Corporation of America today demonstrated a feature of Longhorn that will allow administrators to add and swap processors, storage devices and memory without needing to take the entire machine offline.

snadam

very interesting sprkymrk. I can see that costing some green for that feature.

But on most consumer laptops that are out there now, hot-swapping RAM is probably not going to work so well.

Mishra

My first thought was you have a motherboard that requires a full bank of RAM to function...

wpiersall

Hot swap RAM

Now that is a bright

We could make millions!!! Quick lets get the patent now

Sounds to me like there is a company replacing a computer!

KGhaleon

Could it have damaged the one RAM slot...did you try the other RAM stick in that same slot? Your post is rather confusing since it sounds like you took both RAM sticks out and got it to boot. I'm assuming it will only boot with one or the other, but not both?

KG

JDMurray

Hot-swappable RAM is something you only see in servers. Both the hardware and the OS must support it. I know that Windows Server 2003 Enterprise and Datacenter Edition both support hot-swap RAM. And I assume that many server editions of Linux do too.

ally_uk

Could you short the M/B by doing this?

JDMurray

I would think that hot-swappable RAM modules would be mounted in a fixture that makes shorting nearly impossible. It should be no more dangerous than hot-swapping a hard drive in a RAID system. Check the service manual for a server mobo that supports hot-swap RAM.

ally_uk

Ah I assumed the motherboard in question was just a standard job

Would swapping ram in a normal m/b when powered on cause a short?

JDMurray

ally_uk wrote:

Would swapping ram in a normal m/b when powered on cause a short?

Yes, because the mobo is not designed for that operation.