Is my RAM compatible?

[R1S8K]

Hi,

My new laptop msi GF75 thin 95D, i7 9750, GTX 1660 ti, Kingston 512GB boot m.2 SSD

Came with 8GB DDR4 of Hynix 8GB PC4-21300 DDR4-2666MHz.

And I upgrade it with another 8GB of the same brand from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JP4C1PD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I don't know if my upgrade is totally compatible !

The one came with the laptop is exactly the same and I learned that it's a famous Korean brand.


I started to have screen blacking out for a moment, and then return back to original state.


I was watching a video on YouTube and suddenly the screen went black for seconds and got back.

I went to task manager and noticed this drop in RAM usage.



What you guys think it is ?


I didn't overload the RAM usage + shouldn't a 16GB can handle what ever I throw at it + there's a 6 core i7 to handle pretty much anything !


The battery mode is set to Balanced mode, I don't if this mode could have some drawbacks, but if I put the battery mode to HIGH PERFORMANCE then the laptop would be hot.

 

[Zerileous]

Can you post CPU-z memory and SPD tabs for each slot in a screenshot? There's also memtest86 which is a command line utility that you boot to outside of windows. Although it seems that there are now GUI/Win versions of the utility: https://www.techpowerup.com/memtest64/.

 

[R1S8K]

What is SPD ?

 

[Zerileous]

SPD is a chip on the DIMM (the ram stick) which tells the motherboard how to run the memory. However in the context of my post, I was requesting a screenshot of the SPD tab from a program called CPU-Z: https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html. This program will help us see more details of your system, include displaying the SPD specs from each stick of ram in that tab.

 

[R1S8K]

Slot#1




Slot#2




-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
MemTest64 result:

Module 0:
DDR4, 8192 MB, 64-bit, 2667 MHz
ChannelA-DIMM0 BANK 0 Samsung M471A1K43CB1-CTD
Module 1:
DDR4, 8192 MB, 64-bit, 2667 MHz
ChannelB-DIMM0 BANK 2 SK Hynix HMA81GS6JJR8N-VK

0.000: Detecting usable memory (16227 MB theoretical max)...
40.719: 10496 MB Test starting on 12 CPUs...
41.062: Allocating memory...
45.781: Memory locking failed (might be reserved by other apps/kernel)
49.062: Test finished with no errors detected

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

I checked the Memory tab on CPU-z, there's something fishy here !




Does that mean the 16GB RAMs are not running at the advertised speed ? Does that have to do with the MSI Dragon setting ?

 

[Zerileous]

You linked to a 2 DIMM kit but it appears you're new DIMM was a single 8GB DIMM. Both sticks are specified to run at the same speed/voltage/timing, but they are not the same. In fact one is Hynix, as you say, however the other is made with Samsung memory. This, while not ideal, is actually usually okay at stock settings.

How long has it been since you installed the new memory? I really don't think it's a memory problem actually.

Looking back at your first screenshot I noticed that both the integrated Intel GPU and the discrete nVidia GPU spike in activity. nVidea laptops have a technology called Optimus which is supposed to switch between the integrated and discrete GPUs depending on workload, as a power saving measure. What was on the browser window? I'm guessing the flickering you saw was the laptop switching to the discrete GPU and back for some reason. Either something on the webpage you were using was intense enough to do this or there is a driver issue. Edit: the change in ram can be attributed to the iGPU using system ram with the discrete having its own vram.

If you go to the same page, does it happen again?

 

[R1S8K]

You linked to a 2 DIMM kit but it appears you're new DIMM was a single 8GB DIMM. Both sticks are specified to run at the same speed/voltage/timing, but they are not the same. In fact one is Hynix, as you say, however the other is made with Samsung memory. This, while not ideal, is actually usually okay at stock settings.

Oh wow I didn't notice, I should have opened the laptop before buying that Hynix DIMM !

How long has it been since you installed the new memory? I really don't think it's a memory problem actually.

Like couple weeks starting from 24 March

Looking back at your first screenshot I noticed that both the integrated Intel GPU and the discrete nVidia GPU spike in activity. nVidea laptops have a technology called Optimus which is supposed to switch between the integrated and discrete GPUs depending on workload, as a power saving measure. What was on the browser window? I'm guessing the flickering you saw was the laptop switching to the discrete GPU and back for some reason. Either something on the webpage you were using was intense enough to do this or there is a driver issue. Edit: the change in ram can be attributed to the iGPU using system ram with the discrete having its own vram.

If you go to the same page, does it happen again?

Actually I was watching YouTube .. so it could something happened in the background combining with the YouTube.

The browser is Chrome and opening a lot of tabs but the 16GB should handle that .. that's why I upgraded the RAMs !

 

[trents]

Modern browsers eat RAM fast! Open a bunch of tabs in Chrome while watching the Windows Resource Monitor in Task Monitor.

Do you still get this problem if you have your Windows Power Options set to High Performance? There are separate settings applied when using battery vs. when plugged in.

 

[R1S8K]

Modern browsers eat RAM fast! Open a bunch of tabs in Chrome while watching the Windows Resource Monitor in Task Monitor.

Yep I know Chrome use a lot of RAM, also there's something I still don't understand which is in task manager, when I have 20 tabs opened, then I find Chrome on task manager has 78 !!

Do you still get this problem if you have your Windows Power Options set to High Performance? There are separate settings applied when using battery vs. when plugged in.

I didn't actually measure these conditions. But it's like most of the times %99 of the time I don't have this problem, it happens like once with continuous heavy use.

 

[R1S8K]

I used msi dragon app that controls some of the laptop functions.

1. Here the RAM usage was so high ~10GB as I wasn't loading it very much, just the chrome and couple office files.

2 Pictures for this capture to explains both Performance & Processes tabs.




2. Here I used the msi dragon center "Free up" to the RAMs.



It did a really pretty job, but the RAM usage and within minutes it's now 9.4GB !! So I guess there's not much use of the "Free up" !

 

[trents]

Essentially, you'll see a new process thread for every tab open in Chrome, I believe.

 

[R1S8K]

Yeah I know there would be any program runs anytime. But this one is not really normal.

I dropped the RAM usage from 10 to 6.5GB !! That's a lot of RAM.

And then within just minutes, the memory usage starts to rise up and up until as I mentioned it reached to 9.6GB ! So it's almost no use of the FREE UP MEMORY feature in msi dragon center app !!

 

[Zerileous]

Yeah I don't know how that app works, but memory is just the cost of having that many tabs. I'm not sure why chrome uses so many processes, but I've been using Firefox for a couple of years now. 12 tabs and just under 3.3GB of ram used. Of course it depends on what is on the tab as well.

 

[R1S8K]

Well, I have 26 tabs and chrome using less than 3GB. Is that what you mean or you mean the overall RAM usage ?

These two snaps I took over like an hour but with the same tabs I didn't open any new.

Here Chrome uses 2.8GB




Here it's using over 5GB !!




As it clear the tabs are the same, what is going on ?

I'm afraid there is some sort of stealth hacking and I'm not aware of it.


Now on balanced battery mode, the laptop should be snappy too but now it has some latency when I choose stuff !

Also, I found something on start up apps in task manager.



Could it be a bot or something ?

 

[trents]

Temporarily disable that and see if it changes anything. Looks suspicious.

 

[Zerileous]

It's a memory leak, I was seeing similar issues before I switched to firefox. But yes that does look suspicious as well. I believe chrome does this regardless, but it can also be a sign of malware. Funny thing is many years ago I switched to chrome from Firefox due to memory leaks, and now within the last couple years the tables have turned. Do you have any add-ons, extensions or toolbars installed?

On balanced / battery mode, I suspect the CPU is limited in it's maximum clock which could be causing a bit of sluggish feeling.

 

[trents]

Chrome and Firefox seem to have taken turns with memory leak issues down through the years. Now Microsoft has switched to using the same engine as Chrome uses. Did anyone else read that? It's the "New Edge".

 

[R1S8K]

Chrome and Firefox seem to have taken turns with memory leak issues down through the years. Now Microsoft has switched to using the same engine as Chrome uses. Did anyone else read that? It's the "New Edge".

Yep I encountered the launch of this browser but I just love Chrome because of the sync properties with Google it's just a beautiful combination.

For my experience now I think Microsoft with its set of programs and features combining that with Google programs is wonderful for me.

Actually New Edge is Microsoft product so I guess it could be a good idea, because maybe I can pack all my bookmarks data, online files with Microsoft products.

But Google also has just important stuff, like maps, gmail, Chrome ... etc.

 

[R1S8K]

But now I want to know, are my RAMs running @2666MHz as advertised ? In #5, I posted the CPU-z screen capture for it.

 

[EarthDog]

But now I want to know, are my RAMs running @2666MHz as advertised ? In #5, I posted the CPU-z screen capture for it.

Yes.

1386 (or w/e) x2 = 2666. Remember, DDR = Double Data Rate.