HP Pavilion dv7 3080ed memory issue

sim085

Commendable
Nov 22, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hello, I have an issue with my laptop.

Laptop Details: core i7, 4GB RAM (2x2GB), SSD Drive, On Board Graphics Card.

When I turn it on most of the times it booted into windows normally. After a couple of minutes, it crashed (black screen) or blue screen of death or simple freeze. When I restart most of the time either it crash on start up, or I manage to login to windows and it crash again, etc. However after a couple of crashes it boots up nice and normal and I can use it for hours without any issue (browse internet, play games, photo editing, etc).

At first I thought the issue was a driver issue but the same issue happened on Windows 10, 7 and also Ubuntu. I then thought it was a memory issue but Windows Memory Diagnostics checked both memory bars and reported no issue.

Yesterday by chance - during one of the long runs without crashing - I noticed Windows Task Manager reported only 2GB of RAM installed on 1 Slot. So I concluded this must be a memory issue. I opened the laptop pulled both memory bars out and installed one of them on SLOT A. When I switched the laptop on it crashed nearly immediately and sometimes it did not even show the start-up screen (with HP logo), just fun running and black screen. So I thought this bar must be broken. I then pulled the other memory bar in SLOT A. Same thing!. I then entered the same memory bar in SLOT B and Windows booted normally and the whole thing ran without any issue for hours.

So I guess the problem must be related with the memory SLOT A on the motherboard.

So I was wondering... Is there anything I can do? I can buy a 4GB memory bar and install this on SLOT B so I have 4GB of ram again. However i was hoping to go for 8GB of RAM so I am seeing if SLOT A could be salvaged.

What confuse me the most is why Windows Memory Diagnostics detected nothing when both SLOT A and SLOT B were populated (literally checking both bars and reporting nothing).
 

sim085

Commendable
Nov 22, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hi ffg7, thanks for your answer. Yes it can be maxed to 8GB (2x4GB). However that is impossible for me given populating one of the RAM slots is causing the laptop to crash.

I am mostly looking to see if there is anything I can do from my side to see what is the issue with this slot before giving up on it.
 

sim085

Commendable
Nov 22, 2016
3
0
1,510
Something else I noticed is that from Task Manager (Windows10), under Performance, under Memory it says speed is 1067MHz. The service manual for HP Pavilion DV 7 (http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01859666.pdf) says that memory should run at 1066MHz. I tried different RAM modules and they all report 1067MHz from Windows.

Could this +1MHz be the problem?

I have looked into the BIOS and cannot find anywhere from where to change the memory speed. Can I change this from somewhere else?



 

ffg7

Splendid
Moderator
I wouldn't worry about the 1mhz difference as same as ram amount is different from what you have as 4gigs is actually 4,096,000,000 bytes. some name brand computers, you can hardly change anything in the bios so yours might be 1 of them.