Acer support repeatedly gave me the wrong max RAM for A315-41-R2W5, can I get satisfaction?

MrProsser

I've recently started using VMs quite often, so upgrading my RAM from 8GB to a larger amount was important to me. The more the better, really. However, unlike Dell, HP, Lenovo, and other vendors, Acer doesn't make service manuals available to customers. We might break something. Since they don't post detailed technical specs on the website, I had to contact technical support to find the maximum amount of RAM, and the maximum DRAM frequency it supported. This was quite a painful process, but eventually I talked to people both on the phone and through Twitter. They sent me a link to the datasheet my the A315-41-R2W5 (https://www.acer.com/datasheets/2018/4876/A315-41/NX.GY9AA.016.html) and told me it supported 16GB of DDR4-2400 RAM. I decided to make the upgrade recently, and installed 2x8GB. It works fine, but I was definitely disappointed. I wished it supported 32GB.

Then I found out there was a hidden M.2 slot in this model, and I wanted to learn more about it. In my search I stumbled across this Acer Community post, where a user describes adding an M.2 SSD, but also 2x16GB of RAM. I wasn't happy to hear this because it directly contradicts the information Acer support gave me, and contacted Acer again through Twitter. They replied and actually looked at a proper service manual, where it says it supports up to 32GB of RAM. So because Acer support got things wrong multiple times, I purchased RAM I don't want, and never would have purchased. I'd have simply installed 2x16GB to max it out. Today I got put through to Service Operations, rather than tech support, and they confirmed it actually supports 32GB. The person I talked to was very nice, despite the fact that I was pretty angry and frustrated. But they were not able to do anything more than pass it on to the team, which might get around to fixing the datasheet someday.

I'll buy 32GB of RAM sometime in the future, and have no use for the 16GB I purchased. It is just money down the drain due to poor support. So I am not satisfied with my Acer experience in any way. First, if Acer provided service manuals like pretty much everyone else, I would have just looked at the manual and would be done with it. No phone tag, dragging technical info out of people. The lack of information really frustrates me. Second, their incorrect information wasted my money. Is there some way to contact a manager, someone who isn't purely front line? They don't seem to be empowered to do anything to resolve this issue.

StevenGen

I realise your problem but, who are you going to blame if the 32GB RAM (which is not suggested) will not work? I've looked at 4 different RAM providers and they all suggest a MAX RAM of 16GB and NOT 32GB, you will waste MORE money if you buy the 32GB, leave it like it is as testing MAX RAM (if you don't know the max ram) can only be done physically and on a test and trial basis! You have to go/search different outlets and/or go there physically to get their advice and recommendations and/or try out different RAM’s and capacities on what the max capacity is for RAM is and what type of M.2 SSD is suitable for your A315-41-R2W5 laptop? As all suggested RAM type upgrades for your model Acer Aspire 3 A315-41-R2W5 laptop is stated at 16GB MAX of RAM type DDR4 PC4-19200 2400MHz to DDR4-2666MHz Non-ECC SODIMM, also and to make sure of your OEM RAM, get GPUz and see your current OEM RAM specs at “Memory” and “SPD #1 or #3” sections of GPUz, which will give you a start of your existing RAM.

With the storage, you have to inspect your own slots for storage e.g. either a SATA or an M.2 and what type of M.2 is suitable for your laptop? Which you can determine by the M.2 plug. With most of the A315-41 (as that should be a guide, as your model A315-41-R2W5) it has an M.2 “B&M key” type M.2 connector which is the 2x slotted M.2, see this guide and caption of what type M.2 SSD’s that your A315-41-R2W5 takes.

MrProsser

StevenGen said:

I realise your problem but, you have to go/search different outlets and get their advice and recommendations on what the max capacity is for RAM and what type of M.2 SSD is for your A315-41-R2W5 laptop? As all suggested RAM type upgrades for your model Acer Aspire 3 A315-41-R2W5 laptop is stated at 16GB MAX of RAM type DDR4 PC4-19200 2400MHz to DDR4-2666MHz Non-ECC SODIMM, also and to make sure of your oEM RAM, get GPUz and see your current OEM RAM specs at “Memory” and “SPD #1 or #3” sections of GPUz.

I did consult different outlets. For instance, I consulted sites like crucial.com, which says 16 GB MAX. As I said in my post, I contacted Acer a number of times to clarify what type and amount of RAM was supported, and they said it was 16GB MAX of DDR4 PC4-19200 2400MHz. The Acer datasheet also claims 16GB MAX. But surely if Acer tells me it supports 16GB, I shouldn't have to check any more outlets. They are the official source and should be reliable. So I purchased and installed 16GB of DDR4 PC4-19200 2400MHz. That is already done.

But they were not reliable. All sources no longer state it is 16GB MAX. As I said in my post, I talked to two different people at Acer today who actually consulted the service manual for the model A315-41-R2W5, and both said that it is actually 32GB MAX. One person I talked to was genuinely surprised I had a datasheet that claimed it was 16GB MAX. The problem isn't that I didn't consult multiple sources, or failed to look at CPU-Z. I already did that. My problem is Acer support staff were apparently wrong multiple times, leading me to purchase less RAM than I wanted. This is RAM I would not have purchased if they gave me the information they said today.

Actually, no, my real problem is that I even have to "go/search different outlets and get their advice and recommendations on what the max capacity is for RAM and what type of M.2 SSD is for your A315-41-R2W5 laptop". I shouldn't have to do that at all. I should have access to a proper service manual so I have the official information at my fingertips, not the opinions of various different sources. Especially since I learned that the service manual disagrees with the advice and recommendations of all of those other sources, at least based on what Acer told me today.

MrProsser

"I realise your problem but, who are you going to blame if the 32GB RAM (which is not suggested) will not work?"

You don't understand the problem at all. My problem isn't that I bought 32GB of ram and it won't work. My problem isn't that it doesn't support 32GB, and I really wish it did. It is that I bought 16GB of RAM because they told me that was the max, and now they tell me it is not actually the suggested max ram. They told me that the max suggested ram is actually 32GB according to their service manual when I talked to them today. When they actually went and looked at it, it didn't agree with those suggestions.

I can definitely blame Acer for supplying the wrong information to their support staff, and the wrong information in their datasheets. Because that is the only information I have access to, outside of third party sites which almost certainly rely on the same data. Because if the information Acer staff gave me today is correct, all those suggested max RAM values are wrong, and disagree with the actual service manual for the model.

StevenGen

Never mind that you consulted different outlets, check it physically by doing this: Windows users can determine the maximum RAM capacity in the Command prompt with the command below. It gives the final value in kilobytewmic memphysical get MaxCapacity, MemoryDevicess which can be converted to gigabytes (divide the value by 1048576 to convert KB to GB), its very simple!

wmic memphysical get MaxCapacity, MemoryDevices

The above example shows that my maximum RAM capacity is 8 GB. If your motherboard has two memory slots, it means the maximum RAM capacity per slot is 8 / 2 = 4 GB.

So take the '8388608" divided by 1048576 = 8GB divided by 2 slots = 2x 4GB per slot - its very simple! Do the same with yours. 

MrProsser

Did this a long time ago when I first started looking into the capacity. It returns 67108864, so 64GB. But I was told this is not a reliable method, that other factors can limit the max RAM. That's one of the reason I wanted to hear from Acer in the first place. If it is right, all those suggestions from different outlets are really far off.

StevenGen

MrProsser said:

Did this a long time ago when I first started looking into the capacity. It returns 67108864, so 64GB. But I was told this is not a reliable method, that other factors can limit the max RAM. That's one of the reason I wanted to hear from Acer in the first place. If it is right, all those suggestions from different outlets are really far off.

Well the above is spot on for one of my laptops an Aspire V3-571G whcih I'm using (btw some recommend 16GB whcih does not work I've tried it and wasted my money also) as this is what I get through cmd prompt:

Which the above is: 33554432 divided by 1048576 = 32 divided by 4 = 8 divide that by 2 slots = 2x 4GB max ram per slot which is what I've got installed and its DDR3L-PC3-14900 DDR3L and it works perfectly and very fast. 

You can go for 32GB but it won't work and you could waste your money as you have already the 2x 8GB and buying 2x 16GB sticks will be useless and you will have to sell them as second hand on eBay etc, its up to you but, I would go by the results that is recommended and the above states.

Samuel-Acer

Hi @MrProsser,

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. 

Please understand Acer community is a peer to peer supporting with members helping each other to solve their queries. Regarding your issue i would recommend you to contact Acer support in your region and check.

Link: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/CA/content/service-contact

Regards,
Acer-Samuel

MrProsser

Acer-Samuel said:

Hi @MrProsser,

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. 

Please understand Acer community is a peer to peer supporting with members helping each other to solve their queries. Regarding your issue i would recommend you to contact Acer support in your region and check.

Link: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/CA/content/service-contact

Regards,
Acer-Samuel

I've already contacted Acer support multiple times, as described above, which eventually lead to my coming here because I got misleading and inconsistent information from Acer support. I did some earlier searching on the Acer community which made me realize no one seems to know or have reliable information about the specifications of Acer laptops. Everything is guesswork, people giving opinions based on guesses, and so on. At best someone posts a screenshot of some specs without saying where it actually comes from, so who knows how accurate it actually is. This can be seen in the above comments. A disembodied screenshot and information with no sources given, and answers something I already knew. Which is why I contacted support in the first place, mistakenly under the impression they would know. But honestly, even a basic question about these issues seemed to confuse most of the support staff I talked to.

That is why I want to know if someone knows a way to talk to someone at Acer who isn't just a front-line worker, who can actually do something to clear up all the ambiguity caused by previous discussions with other Acer employees, but I can't even get through to a manager when I talk to support.

As I said before, all of this would be cleared up if Acer didn't hide their service manuals, and made them public like so many other companies.

MrProsser

Another example of the problems with support were related to the M.2 slot. When you look at the community pages you see things like this post: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/592328/#Comment_592328 which claims that for the A315-41-E3RF the "Yep. Your computer Acer A315-41-R3RF has an M.2 2280 SATA for SSD. The maximum capacity (GB) of SSD module which you can use in your laptop is 256GB." I have no idea where they got this info, if the max capacity is correct, or if it is the same for my laptop. Acer support wasn't even able to answer that question when I asked. No one seems to know anything for certain.

Or this other post where someone does the same thing (https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/556307/aspire-a315-41-recommended-m-2-ssd). That just looks like a list of recommended products, it certainly isn't a spec sheet. Does it imply 256GB is the max? Or would 512 GB with the same key work? There doesn't seem to be an answer because so little info is made publicly available.

MrProsser

Actually, the above M.2 info, like the info provided in this post https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/549376/does-a315-41-r3rf-have-an-m-2-slot and this one https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/556307/aspire-a315-41-recommended-m-2-ssd aren't even specifications, they look to just be a list of recommended products. Does it imply the max supported is 256GB? Or is that just all they listed in the chart? I'd love to check that chart out myself, but of course no one seems to link to it. Would 512 GB with the same specs work? No one seems to know for sure.

There is a complete lack of reliable information out there for Acer products.