Is my new RAM module broken?

Question

I have a new Lenovo B40-70 laptop, which came with 4GiB RAM (SK Hynix HMT451S6BFR8A-PB) pre-installed. I just tried to upgrade it with an 8 GiB RAM stick (Corsair Value Select CMSO8GX3M1A1600C11). On inserting the new stick and turning on, the power button light came on but laptop didn't boot up, and there were faint beeps after a minute or so. I tried re-seating the stick so that it went in it's slot properly and also the other RAM slot but no good news. I then, put back in the older RAM stick, and windows 8 booted up alright.

So, did I receive a bad stick?

Or, is the stick I'm trying to install incompatible?

4 GiB SK Hynix!

8 GiB Corsair!

The specs seem to suggest that the sticks are compatible, but I maybe wrong.

Answer 1

The difference in those chips is the voltage.

The original is 1.35V, the other you bought is 1.5V. According to the hardware maintenance manual for the B40-70 model you provided, your notebook uses "DDR3L-1600Mhz".

DDR3L means DDR3 Low Voltage, which is 1.35V.

Some DDR3L motherboards work well with standard DDR3 chips, others don't. Yours probably doesn't. On pages 68/69 of the manual (in the link above) you can get a list of compatible memory. Get one of those and you can't go wrong:

68
Lenovo B40-30/B40-45/B40-70
No.         FRU         FRU no. CRU ID
15 Memory, M471B5674QH0‐YK0 2GB DDR3L 1600 11202451 *
15 Memory, HMT425S6AFR6A‐PB 2GB DDR3L 1600 11201299 *
15 Memory, RMT3170MK58F8F‐1600 2GB DDR3L 1600 11202301 *
15 Memory, MT4KTF25664HZ‐1G6E1 2GB DDR3L 11201967 *
15 Memory, HMT451S6AFR8A‐PB 4GB DDR3L 1600 11201300 *
15 Memory, M471B5173DB0‐YK0 4GB DDR3L 1600 11202081 *
15 Memory, HMT451S6BFR8A‐PB 4GB DDR3L 1600 11202706 *
15 Memory, RMT3170ME68F9F‐1600 4GB DDR3L 1600 11202302 *
15 Memory, MT8KTF51264HZ‐1G6E1 4GB DDR3L 1600 11202125 *
15 Memory, HMT41GS6AFR8A‐PB 8GB DDR3L 1600 11201301 *
15 Memory, M471B1G73DB0‐YK0 8GB DDR3L 1600 11202082 *
15 Memory, HMT41GS6BFR8A‐PB 8GB DDR3L 1600 11202707 *
15 Memory, RMT3160ME68FAF‐1600 8GB DDR3L 1600 11202450 *
15 Memory, MT16KTF1G64HZ‐1G6E1 8GB DDR3L 1600 11201304

But if you can't find one of those, any SODIMM DDR3L PC3-12800 1600MHz should work.