Mixed DDR3 and DDR3L

[lenovo188]

Hello, I had installed in my y510p by default DDR3 Ramaxell 4gb ram which ran at 1.5v according to CPU-Z until I bought and replaced it with 8gb Kingston value ram DDR3L stick, same clocks, same timings as my original ram, and after reading that Kingston ram is backwards compatible to 1.5v, I thought if I use them together everything will be fine, so I put 8gb in 1st slot (where 4gb was previously) and 4gb in second slot, I boot and notice only 8gb is recognized, shutdown, put back only 4gb and computer won't boot, it starts up, is on for like 2-3 sec and shuts down, no reboot, no beep no nothing. Did I somehow fry my 4gb stick? Are there any hidden settings that the ram socket now provides only 1.35v and thus 1.5v ram doesn't get enough voltage? Can I do something to make my 4gb stick work again?

Short summary:

-Ramaxell as originally installed ran at 1.5v.

-I buy Kingston DDR3L, put it in the slot (J18) Ramaxell was before, and put Ramaxell in 2nd slot (J20)

-Computer boots, CPU-Z recognizes both sticks, but shows module size only for Kingston, its blank for Ramaxell

-I take out Kingston, put Ramaxell to original slot (J18), computer powers up for 2-3 sec and shuts down

-Computer works now with Kingston ram at 1.35v in socket J18, doesn't start anymore with only Ramaxell installed in J18

[rientrz]

different timing perhaps or uncompatible with dual channel mode. it is better to use same brand ram for both slots, or even same series. single pack recommended like 2x4GB or 2x8GB. For y510p witch is haswell processor inside, intel recommends DDR3L use.

[lenovo188]

Hello, thanks for the reply and I'm aware of what you said, although both rams are on paper the same regarding the speed and timings, but my problem is that that once I had both installed at same time, ramaxell wasn't recognized, cpu-z did show ramaxel in slot 2, all info was there but the module size info was missing, and in system it showed only 8gb installed, and when I tried using only ramaxell again the computer wouldn't boot when before it was working great. So now I+m stuck with 4gb ram stick which i cant use or sell becaouse i don't know if i damaged ramaxel stick or my laptop decided to troll me.

So with this thread i was hoping to get some answers what could have gone wrong, if i did something bad, or did hardware fail or is some software messing with me. If by any chance someone had same or similar problem and could shed some light on this problem.

[Khenglish]

The stick is fine. Put it in the other slot. Sometimes bios does dumb things.

[comanche12]

These new Haswell-line cpu's are quite finicky with memory. I have seen people run standard DDR3 in some haswell notebooks just fine: (it was a newer asus gaming notebook, not sure of the model) however this does not seem to be the case with you.

[cancerman]

Sounds like you are trying to boot with the 4gb stick in slot2 and nothing in slot1. That won't work on a lot of motherboards.

[mw86]

It definitely depends on the motherboard/system. My Alienware 18 can use a single 8gb stick in any of the 4 slots. The important thing in most systems is generally matching ram sticks and making sure one stick is in one channel and one in the other channel to use dual channnel. Usually two ram slots next to each other are a slot for one channel amd a slot for the other. having 4 slots the other two are as well one from each channel. One can boot ram from the second pair or main pair of ram slots on laptops but perhaps some can be finicky as Cancerman states. Im using 2133mhz ddr3l in my Alienware but for some they can only get 1866mhz to be stable and run on these Haswell Alienware laptops. Finicky is probably the best definition of a PC lol.