BestBuy tech did not replace the metal cover on the RAM of my Envy 16 laptop. Is it important?

[SheriSheri]

Took my new Envy 16 laptop to BestBuy to upgrade the memory from 16GB to 32GB. The tech did not replace the metal cover on the RAM. He said it was not important and would likely come loose and rattle. Is the metal cover important for heat dissipation?

CPUID HWMonitor shows normal temps so far. Just need to know if not having the metal cover on the SODIMMS could shorten the life of my laptop.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Yes, that cover is supposed to insulate the memory chips from the heat generated by the rest of the notebook.

Seems counter intuitive because you would assume that if you left the cover off, it would be better to dissipate the heat rather than having it trapped under a metal cover.  At least that's way I look at it.

Maintenance and Service Guide (hp.com)

The metal cover, if properly reinstalled should not come loose as it is held fast by several spring clips on the motherboard.

Things are there for a reason.

I don't know if it is imperative to have that cover on, but it is not available as a spare part, so hopefully the Best Buy tech gave you the cover back.

If the temps remain within the normal range, you should be fine.

It would have been nice to see what the memory temps were before and after the cover was removed.

[SheriSheri]

Thank you for your reply. The reason I took the laptop to BestBuy to have an HP certified tech do the upgrade instead of just doing it myself was this video: https://www.youtube.com/live/ZxJ7ZF7h3E0?feature=share at timestamp: 1:10:14 (he loosely puts the metal cover on) - 1:16:50 (The laptop will not boot) and it appears the reason for this awful outcome was most likely improper replacement of that metal shield.

the guy at BestBuy did give the shield back to me, but I am afraid of shorting something out with it, thus the whole reason for taking it to BestBuy (which is the nearest HP certified repair place to me). I can't reach a human at HP to ask anything, the site just sends me to BestBuy. This is frustrating.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

At least you have the cover, so if there is a problem with the memory overheating, you can carefully put it back in place.

Yes, I don't know why HP makes it so difficult to contact them, but since we don't work for or represent HP, there's nothing I can do to help in that department

There should be a way to contact HP customer service via the HP support assistant software that should be installed on your PC, so you may want to look into that option.

Here's the HP service teardown video for the previous 16-h0xxx model series.

Removing & Replacing Parts | HP ENVY 16-h0000 Laptop PC | HP Computer Service | HP Support - YouTube

At minute 2:44 is the memory replacement, and the cover is different.

But it still goes on the same way with clips.

The video makes look easy to replace the cover, but it could be easy to mess up if you don't snap it into place just right.

Definitely if it is not aligned right, it won't stay in place and that could be a real problem.

If you carefully look at what the person did in the video you posted, he definitely did not properly replace the cover.

It was even slightly crooked.

Some pressure would be required to snap that cover back into place and you can see that he didn't snap that cover into place.

[SheriSheri]

Thanks again! I'll keep monitoring my temps and will just call the BestBuy techs again if it starts climbing too high. I didn't stress it with Prime95 yet, but did use Cinebench and the  cpu core temps didn't go over 69°C and the Crucial temps stayed under 50°C This laptop has an i9 13900H cpu and DDR5 memory so I think my temps look pretty good considering. I hope it's all OK. This is my first new laptop in a long time.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime. 

Glad to have been of assistance. 

I was yelling at the video you posted..."You didn't put the memory cover back on right!"  LOL!

He was lucky that metal cover didn't make contact with something on the motherboard and cause a short circuit. 

[SheriSheri]

LOL, right! I did too haha. I think that he did short circuit something because it simply would not boot. It was getting power but was dead dead dead!