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I bought 2x1GB RAM from Corsair. On both RAMs I can see that the gold contacts have little scratches. The RAM was already in a computer.
Now my question is: can the RAM still be new? Maybe the scratches are from factory tests. Or are the scratches a sign for already used RAMs? The product was sold as new.

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What did Corsair say when you asked them? – John Gardeniers Jun 16 '12 at 11:24
@John I just received the RAM today - and I hoped to get a quick answer. I didn't contact customer support until now, it will certainly take a while until I get a response there - but I will do so. Btw. the RAM was sold by Amazon. – tanascius Jun 16 '12 at 11:31
If you're at all concerned don't wait for an email response. Phone them. – John Gardeniers Jun 16 '12 at 11:33
@John OK, I thought that there is a definite answer like "gold contacts are never damaged when a product is new" or "yes, factory tests will scratch the contacts". I'll wait for the answer of corsair and post it. – tanascius Jun 16 '12 at 11:40
Just remember, there is a large difference between "from Amazon" and "through Amazon". What I mean there is that you purchased the Ram from a company that sold their Ram on the Amazon website. It is highly unlikely that anyone at Amazon ever actually touched it. It was more than likely packaged and shipped directly from the company who sold it to you. Calling Amazon is all well and good, but the receipt that came with the Ram should indicate the name of the company you REALLY need to call. – Bon Gart Jun 16 '12 at 13:42

migrated from serverfault.com Jun 16 '12 at 13:32

1 Answer

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Pieces of RAM are randomly selected for testing beyond the normal automated tests (which can test only the electrical properties). In order to perform a thorough test it is placed into a system and real-life tests are performed. That RAM is still considered to be new and put back in with the rest.

Of course there's no guarantee that this is what happened to your specific examples, so you may or may not have new pieces.

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Thanks for your answer - this is the second time within a week that I got RAM with scratches from Amazon. The first ones I sent back immediatelly but now I wasn't sure anymore. However your answer suggests that it is very unlikely that I got two of those testing examples. – tanascius Jun 16 '12 at 11:52
I have to say that is definitely grounds to be suspicious. Normal automated testing procedures use touch contacts that don't leave a mark and I don't like the odds of you having received more than one batch of manually tested pieces. For that matter, even getting two at one time is pretty unlikely. – John Gardeniers Jun 16 '12 at 11:58

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