computer parts in china

OK, it's cold, and dark, and will start raining overnight, so here's an off-topic query:

Any recommendations here inside the firewall for buying quality, authentic computer parts, online or off? I want to boost the RAM in my Macbook Pro to 8gb from 4. Alas, that means chucking the two 2gb chips in there now and replacing with 4gb pieces.

Here's the spec:
204-pin PC3-8500 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM

Taobao (love it or hate it) has not helped me out here, but I did stumble on the local version of newegg.com, a big mail-order house in Los Angeles. Here's what I found on their site:

4gb 1066 MHz DDR3 SODIMM chips

at 299 rmb each for the Chinese-made Kingshare and 369 rmb each for the Korean-made Samsung, these are comparable to US mail order prices of $90-100 (and a lot cheaper than the $400+ that Apple charges).

Any other quality suppliers in China?
Any warnings or cautions about brand or compatibility?

best thanks!

Taiwanese brand ADATA is quite good price/ quality than those chinese King???. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=9246182878 tel: http://360life.taobao.com/
Compatibility: Go to mall & test in shop if u afraid shop online . If booted OK, 99% + chance good.

Thanks, HB. Nice tip. I'd not found any 4gb chips in taobao. Price is good too, and this shop is in Shanghai so conceivably I can drop by and do the upgrade on the spot.

cheers!

Dear Humanbeing,

Followup question: These 4gb chips are not widely available in Shanghai, and it looks like Adata has only a 1333MHz version, not the 1066MHz that my Mac requires. In the shop of course they say the 1333 "will work just fine" but I'm skeptical. With a more careful taobao search i've identified quite a few 4gb ram chip choices.

Should I insist on 1066 or is it ok to go with 1333? Price for the 1333 from Kingbridge(?) or Kingstone(?) was 295 rmb.

thanks!

Faster chips (1333Mhz) should work fine running at slower speeds, I've done that before, but never in a Mac. I suspect it will work. If you are buying it from a shop, and they install it while you are there, if the laptop starts up at all, you'll be fine. Just check the 'About this Mac' and make sure it says 8gb of ram.

295 rmb seems cheap, is that for two 4gb sticks or just one? For one, that would be comparable to the US, for two, its very cheap.

In the states, NewEgg.com sells Kingston 2x4gb 1066mhz for about $87. (I'm not sure that is the same Kingston you are looking at).

Dear Josh,

Thanks for the reassurance about clock speed. I've found quite a few Taobao shops offering the 1066 from Samsung for 300-320 per stick. And Newegg.com.cn is in the same neighborhood, a bit higher. So should be able to do this for about $100. Funny, looking through various threads about upgrading -- these same chips were abou $300 only a year or so ago. Next year: $25...

I see you are posting in daytime. You over your jet lag?

cheers!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by euphonius

Thanks for the reassurance about clock speed. I've found quite a few Taobao shops offering the 1066 from Samsung for 300-320 per stick. And Newegg.com.cn is in the same neighborhood, a bit higher. So should be able to do this for about $100. Funny, looking through various threads about upgrading -- these same chips were abou $300 only a year or so ago. Next year: $25...

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Yeah, memory is funny/depressing like that... We've got sticks of ram lying around the office that cost a couple hundred dollars new, and now they are worthless.

I didn't know there was a newegg.com.cn, I should check it out. I wonder if they have a warehouse here in China. I keep suggesting there is such a market here for my company's warehousing solution, but people at my company are gun shy about the intellectual property issues.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by euphonius

I see you are posting in daytime. You over your jet lag?

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Yeah, mostly. I was on a Skype meeting last night around 11 and dozed off, but other than that, I'm pretty adjusted.

Macs we all known for their delicacy, can you access to Crucial ram?

p.s. google.com and gmail.com are crawling today:confused1:

Dear TD,

would love to find Crucial, but don't see what I need in TB. looking at Samsung and Maglite (美光). I've done RAM upgrades in macbooks before with no problems, but I'm reluctant to use a 1333MHz chip when system expects 1066MHz. Of course I know nothing about RAM and how clock speeds actually work, etc, etc....

Euphonius,

I take back what I said before. It SHOULD work, and it MIGHT work, but I guess Apple's boot process can be a bit finicky. I found a few links online:

http://discussions.apple.com/message...ageID=10821129

http://www.mactalk.com.au/24/82168-t...09-models.html

So personally, I would be quite surprised if the 1333 didn't work, BUT if you want to err on the safe side, I'd find 1066 ram.

I've got 8gb of 1066mhz ram in my Macbook Pro, you can order me some 1333 mhz ram and I'll send you my 1066. :lol8:

As for how it works, often-times the chips come off the exact same manufacturing line, at the same time. During final validation, the QA process tests the chips at varying speeds until they fail, and then mark them at whatever speed they are comfortable rating them at.

I don't know if you remember the days of 486SX and 486DX processors, but the DX had an on-board floating point processor and the SX didn't. Supposedly, the SX and DX actually had the same manufacturing process, and both actually had the extra processor, but if test showed the floating point processor was bad, they would disable it and sell the chip as an SX:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486SX

Anyway, as far as I understand it, chip speed verification is basically the same thing... if the chip likes the faster speed, it gets rated faster. Naturally, there are fewer chips that like the higher speed, so the price is higher.

Hilarious. I've heard similar stories. We like to think of computers as marvels of precision and accuracy, but at the atomic level they must look as messy as the rest of the world.

i'm going to run out to Qujiang Lu today to see what I can find.

Wow, what a difference doubling your RAM can make! I took my mac out with me and went ahead and tried the 1333MHz chips. Kaboom -- we're flying! Even booting was way faster. My system tells me I'm at 8gb and running at 1333MHz. Beat that! Went with a brand called Kingston, which is everywhere here in Shanghai. No one seems to know where it's from, but chips say "assembled in China". 295 rmb each, or US$90.

All's well! Thanks all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by euphonius

Wow, what a difference doubling your RAM can make! I took my mac out with me and went ahead and tried the 1333MHz chips. Kaboom -- we're flying! Even booting was way faster. My system tells me I'm at 8gb and running at 1333MHz. Beat that! Went with a brand called Kingston, which is everywhere here in Shanghai. No one seems to know where it's from, but chips say "assembled in China". 295 rmb each, or US$90.
All's well! Thanks all.

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well, I didn't realise 8g vs 4g can make that much difference, upgrade from already sufficient amount suppose make less difference, or you must having 10+ safari windows open simultaneously while several other memory-hog application remains at background.
Now how much left free now? 4g? :lol8:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by td_ref

well, I didn't realise 8g vs 4g can make that much difference, upgrade from already sufficient amount suppose make less difference, or you must having 10+ safari windows open simultaneously while several other memory-hog application remains at background.
Now how much left free now? 4g? :lol8:

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Like a breath of fresh air. Everything is better. Yes, I tend to have a lot of tabs and windows open. And multiple browsers. And Aperture with 15,000 pictures. And music. And mail with 30,000 items in my inbox. Not pretty.

In fact, one reason for wanting more RAM was to run a neat little utility called Remove Duplicates in a package of mac mail utilities called Mail Scripts. It zaps redundant emails, of which I have thousands and thousands.

So like I said, everything is better today.

Everything except gmail. Gmail is sucking big time today. Anyone besides TD and me having trouble here inside the GFW?

cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by euphonius

...Went with a brand called Kingston

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Technology The ONLY trustable King??? :lol8:

Yes that's the one. Guess this is not a fly-by-night 皮包公司！

I've been using it for an hour, and no meltdown yet...

Yeah, Kingston is a good brand, pretty much middle of the road in terms of reputation and cost. They seem to make a few quality lines and different price points, but assuming its genuine you shouldn't have any problems.

I don't use GMail, but I definitely had some oddities with Maps and other G-Apps today.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CantDecide

... but assuming its genuine ...

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There's many shop warranty ONLY Kingston that are from OEM market/ parallel imported :mwink: , so i'm don't recommended it in my 1st post. Also too many King??? brand :naughty: TiC

Since your Mac is recognizing and using the memory at 1333, you are getting a 25% speed bump over 1066, so even with just 4gb of ram you should notice a performance improvement.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CantDecide

Since your Mac is recognizing and using the memory at 1333, you are getting a 25% speed bump over 1066, so even with just 4gb of ram you should notice a performance improvement.

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All this is above my pay grade, but About This Mac shows 8gb at 1333MHz. I just talked to Kingston tech support in Beijing, and they said what normally happens is, as you noted, the CPU will accept the 1333MHz RAM but knock the clock speed down to 1066. Whatever. It's really made a big difference. Thanks for your advice and support.

cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by euphonius

Everything except gmail. Gmail is sucking big time today. Anyone besides TD and me having trouble here inside the GFW?

cheers

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For the last 2 weeks Gmail has been really messed up for me and my friends as well. Resorted to using Outlook as writing an email takes forever as the page tries to autosave.

BSOD !! My hard drive is dying.. Well at least that's what I can tell from the error messages Im getting. Second BSOD in one day, ouch. Since moving to China I've dropped linux and downgraded to using Windows and now on Win7. Not so bad, compared to the old days. But troubleshooting is still cryptic...
In the market for a new drive now. this is the one I have now.
Just writing to a forum makes me think about every possible symptom, and now I'm not so sure I really need to replace the hard drive. It's only about 3 years old now..

Anyways, I noticed newegg.com offers a 5 year warranty on this WD drive, whereas the Chinese site is only offering 3 year warranty. Not that it makes a big difference, I'll probably throw out the drive long before that day comes anyway.
I'm torn between the WD mentioned above and this Seagate drive >> http://www.newegg.com.cn/Product/22-c07-245.htm

Funny you should mention that, I just went through the same decision process, I just unboxed my WD 320 GB Scorpio Blue (5400 rpm) drive, which I got from NewEgg here in the US. Unfortunately, it looks like it shook itself loose in the packaging, so I'm not sure it is in good condition. I don't know what to do, because I'm leaving for China Tuesday and I wanted to bring a bunch of media with me.

Slabo, its funny, I checked that HD on the US NewEgg website, and its about 120 yuan cheaper, with free shipping. Anyway, I don't think you can go wrong with either the WD or Seagate drives. Generally I prefer the Seagates, but for what I needed, I just got the WD.

Josh,

Can't you just call NewEgg and describe the situation, tell them you are going to put the HD in your laptop. Run the standard tests and if it checks out, you're good to load the media and run. If not, return it. You won't have the media you wanted, but you'll not be carrying a fancy paperweight.

How long are you staying this visit? Any closer to having the residence permit and China license?

cheers

Hi Jeff,
The issue is not whether the the drive will be compatible or not, that I can decide according to the hard drive's interface. SATA II in this case. I was just looking which is the best deal and still get a performance boost. After a quick look at benchmarks, the two drives seem to perform almost the same, so really it won't matter either way, as long as I change the one I have now. Running out of space anyway..
But after running all the related HDD tests, seems the HD is fine. Again, MS trouble shooting, I might as well ask my dog what's wrong...

The question was why the warranty is different between the US and Chinese NewEgg and Amazon (identical prices for computer parts by the way). First I thought it must be a mistake on Newegg China side. But after trying to figure out the warranty on my Seagate HD.. turns out the warranty depends on the country you're in!!!
Yup, the same part, made in China, has a different warranty here than the US. Explain THAT if you can... It's not just for hard drives, USB flash drives, camera's .. electronics in general. .. To make things even worse, all this stuff is more expensive here, before it's shipped half way across the world. Call me stupid, but I just don't get it. Everything I've ever bought in China is at least 10% cheaper in the US.

see pm about visa..


err... Who's Josh??

Quote:

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err... Who's Josh??

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That's me. :)

Sorry, I think Jeff was replying to the problem with my harddrive arrive loose in the packaging... To your warranty issue, I'm surprised a 5 year warranty is offered here in the US. I thought 3 years was normal, and you are right, if a drive is still in use 5 years later, that's pretty amazing, at least in a home setting.

Jeff, to your questions: I tried out the disk, and it seems ok so far. Apparently the Mac doesn't have a active bad-block searching program, but I'll have my friend with a PC run a few tests. I contacted NewEgg, and they offered me $10 back to keep the drive, so I'll take them up on that offer.

As for my Visa/License, no, I haven't had any luck. Now that I'm pretty much 1/2 through this adventure, I've kind of given up. I bought a bike here in Boston though, a Ninja 250... Not the style of bike I'd really want, but its a good learner and there aren't many options in the 250 class here.

This time I'll be in China for 6 weeks, till the end of June. Mostly in Beijing, but I'm taking trips to Guilin, Hangzhou, and maybe Suzhou. I think we are planning on going to Shanghai on the next trip.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CantDecide

Apparently the Mac doesn't have a active bad-block searching program, but I'll have my friend with a PC run a few tests.

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Open Disk Utility, select the disk, choose erase, click security options, select "Zero Out Data", click OK, Erase. This will zero every sector of the disk, if there is a bad block, it will map it out. If you have a lot of time, select 7-Pass erase, this will pretty much guarantee that every sector of the disk is performing correctly.

Tech Tool Pro, Drive 10, Disk Drill, Drive Genius are all OSX options if you have data on the disk and want to do a non-destructive block test. Some paid disk utility programs have free trials that let you test a drive and then you only have to pay if you want to recover data.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChinaV

...Tech Tool Pro, Drive 10, Disk Drill, Drive Genius are all OSX options if you have data on the disk and want to do a non-destructive block test. Some paid disk utility programs have free trials that let you test a drive and then you only have to pay if you want to recover data.
...

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I think an earlier version of Tech Tool Pro even came bundled with one of my Macbooks in recent years.

cheers