DDR5

Make a reference to ‘The Simpsons‘At this point it’s complicated because the new generations may not get it, but there is an episode in which Springfield declares the dry law and, when they knock it down, the mayor asks the mafia how long it will take for alcohol to flood the city. The answer: five minutes. And that is exactly what is happening now with the RAM memory: where the market does not reach, counterfeiters enter Because after the DDR5 memories that are really DDR2 come the DDR5 memories with plastic chips. In short. The truth is that I did not imagine that we would reach a point where there would be well-crafted scams with all the intention of deceiving buyers of a RAM memory stick, but the truth is that we have been there for a few months. It was at the end of 2025, at a time when the RAM crisis was beginning to tighten (but it was far from the current moment) when it was reported that an Amazon Spain buyer received a kit of supposed DDR5 memory from Ireland that was nothing more than a DDR and DDR2 chip with a sticker on top. It was quite tacky, but you realized it instantly and you could always claim a refund because Amazon covers it in these cases. The problem is that there are scams that may be a little more ‘worked’ and that involve unsoldering the chips from a RAM tablet and replacing them with plastic parts. This is what, as we see in Digital Trendshas just happened to some users in Japan, who report the sale of memory tablets that do not correspond to previous generations, but are carefully designed to appear to be legitimate RAM when, as we say, it is a PCB with imitation chips. Or directly the entire pill being fake. An example of an auction stick ram. He original message It has moved a lot on Twitter and describes a full-fledged scam. Through stores like Yahoo Japan, users sell used RAM sticks as “junk” or “untested” in batches and at affordable prices. This is a practice that is also done with processors that we can find in stores like Wallapop and it may work… or it may not. That is why there are those who risk buying. In this case, a frog came out. The SO-DIMM modules (for laptops) had stickers that looked legitimate from Samsung or SK Hynix, but were nothing more than labels cloned from real memories used to cover the supposed chips. Instead of being DRAM memory as such, these are modules made of fiberglass that obviously do not work. In some cases, there are real circuits, but they correspond to lower-grade recycled chips. The important thing is that, be it one case or another, it is obviously not what you are paying for, but they are made well enough so that a person without knowledge cannot identify why the new memory module they have paid for does not work. Even a quick inspection can fool someone who has changed a few of these pads. It is no longer that they clone real stickers with their serial number and so on, but rather the dedication to produce those fiberglass “chips” screen printed like a legitimate one. One supposedly made by SK Hynix Another from Samsung (with SK Hynix chips, curiously…) One of the chips made with fiberglass Meteoric. Unlike the December 2025 fake RAM case, these pills are being sold in auctions on Yahoo Japan and there are already users with the fly behind their ear, which causes them not to bid and the modules to no longer be sold. But in the end it is the consequence of a market that is really impossible and in which scammers enter with promises of components at better prices than those we can find on the market first-hand. Because building a PC today is extremely expensive due not only to RAM that has been able to increase up to 400% in some cases, but for some SSDs that have also explodedgraphics cards that are beginning to be scarce and segments such as processors and the motherboards that are moving to the hoarder we’ve been talking about for months: AI hyperscalers. As I say, with prices through the roof, scams appear. with head. And (again, I didn’t think I had to give recommendations to avoid falling into a scam when buying a RAM pill), the important thing here is to have common sense. It really is like any other scam attempt: if the thing is too good to be true, we have to tune our antennas to see if they want to sneak it in. The first thing is to buy in stores and platforms that provide certain guarantees to the customer, but also look closely at the photos, compare serial numbers and ask for more photos from the seller if we are not 100% sure. And if the price is very good and we are not convinced by the explanation that the person may not know the market situation, ask as much as possible and do not trust the first thing they tell us. The RAM with a sticker that appeared in December last year. Image from VideoCardz. In the end, it is curious, but buying second-hand memory pills can become something that validates criminology, just like buy retro games on cartridge through Wallapop. Images | Taki, ri In Xataka | Nothing will be the same again: the price increase of the Nintendo Switch 2 in less than a year draws a new horizon