do laptop memories need to be the same brand when upgrading? I have the same specs, not sure about brands

[unKHEFTable]

hey guys

short version : I'm trying to upgrade my laptop memory myself for the first time, and I'm not sure what to do , so I would be really grateful if you pro guys could help me.
long version : I'm going to buy a new laptop in a few month, but these days my laptop ram kept bothering me , and a few days ago , I finally reached the point where I had to upgrade it (need +8GB ram) , so I tried to get my laptop to a service center and upgrade it, but all of them seem to be closed due to holidays, but I didn't want to waste my holiday free time (working on a project) , so I decided to do it myself.


my laptop : Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 i5(3230M) , 6gb ram , Nvidia 645m (full shit here)

The things I know :
1. I watched this video and some similar ones
2. I got this ram -> Geil CL11 DDR3 1600MHz Notebook Memory - 8GB + this toolbox -> Mega Tools M85205 ToolBox 10PCS
3.I have already fiddled with desktop cases but not to a pro extent, just replacing some ram, HDD, etc
4.I will mark screw's and put them in a good place so , I won't mess up when reassembling
5.back-uped my urgent data )

things that I don't know:
6. is this the ram I bought compatible ? I mean I checked everything I knew and could find on the net, but I'm a noob on this matter, asking just in case.
7. does it need to be the same brand as the other ones on my device? I don't know what kind of brand is inside , but what I think I'm gonna do is , open it , replace my ram with the 2gb ram inside , now I have a device with 12gb ram
8. any other things or tips that I need to keep in mind when doing it
9*. how can I know it if it was compatible , I mean suppose I installed my 8gb ram alongside the 4gb inside, how can I know if they are both working fine?

And Thanks a lot for helping me , sorry if the article is a bit long or my English is not good enough

 

[clarkjd]

My experience has been, that however hard it is to get different memory to work together(even same brand!) in a desktop system, a laptop will be 10 times worst. Look up the manufacturers website to see what ram it will work with.

 

[unKHEFTable]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from unKHEFTable : "do laptop memories need to be the same brand when upgrading?"

hey guys

short version : I'm trying to upgrade my laptop memory myself for the first time, and I'm not sure what to do , so I would be really grateful if you pro guys could help me.
long version : I'm going to buy a new laptop in a few month, but these days my laptop ram kept bothering me , and a few days ago , I finally reached the point where I had to upgrade it (need +8GB ram) , so I tried to get my laptop to a service center and upgrade it, but all of them seem to be closed due to holidays, but I didn't want to waste my holiday free time (working on a project) , so I decided to do it myself.


my laptop : Lenovo IdeaPad Z500 i5(3230M) , 6gb ram , Nvidia 645m (full shit here)

The things I know :
1. I watched this video and some similar ones
2. I got this ram -> Geil CL11 DDR3 1600MHz Notebook Memory - 8GB + this toolbox -> Mega Tools M85205 ToolBox 10PCS
3.I have already fiddled with desktop cases but not to a pro extent, just replacing some ram, HDD, etc
4.I will mark screw's and put them in a good place so , I won't mess up when reassembling
5.back-uped my urgent data )

things that I don't know:
6. is this the ram I bought compatible ? I mean I checked everything I knew and could find on the net, but I'm a noob on this matter, asking just in case.
7. does it need to be the same brand as the other ones on my device? I don't know what kind of brand is inside , but what I think I'm gonna do is , open it , replace my ram with the 2gb ram inside , now I have a device with 12gb ram
8. any other things or tips that I need to keep in mind when doing it
9*. how can I know it if it was compatible , I mean suppose I installed my 8gb ram alongside the 4gb inside, how can I know if they are both working fine?

And Thanks a lot for helping me , sorry if the article is a bit long or my English is not good enough


P.S: Thanks for merge

 

[unKHEFTable]

My experience has been, that however hard it is to get different memory to work together(even same brand!) in a desktop system, a laptop will be 10 times worst. Look up the manufacturers website to see what ram it will work with.

I don't know what exactly I should be looking for , everything I checked so far is the same , frequency , pc3-12800 thing , both DDR3 and SO-DIMM and 204 pins , only the brand could be different ( i don't know the brand it's currently using)

though there was a non-parity + dual channel capable thing in the sheet , and I have no idea what they mean
also voltage could be different the one I bought uses 1.5V as for the other one , I don't know

 

[clarkjd]

My experience has been, that however hard it is to get different memory to work together(even same brand!) in a desktop system, a laptop will be 10 times worst. Look up the manufacturers website to see what ram it will work with.

I don't know what exactly I should be looking for , everything I checked so far is the same , frequency , pc3-12800 thing , both DDR3 and SO-DIMM and 204 pins , only the brand could be different ( i don't know the brand it's currently using)

though there was a non-parity + dual channel capable thing is the shit , and I have no idea what they mean
also voltage could be different the one I bought uses 1.5V as for the other one , I don't know

And there you have listed some of the problems that you get when trying to mix memory, any one of which could cause it to fail. It's best to take out the original Ram and replace it with two new sticks.

 

[unKHEFTable]

And there you have listed some of the problems that you get when trying to mix memory, any one of which could cause it to fail. It's best to take out the original Ram and replace it with two new sticks.

1. if it fails, will it damage my laptop !?
and
2. ==> 9*. how can I know it if it was compatible , I mean suppose I installed my 8gb ram alongside the 4gb inside, how can I know if they are both working fine?

3. I'm not looking for easy way out, I want to know, how and why , I would appreciate it even if you give me little hints, so I can research it myself, all articles I read offered the easy way out or were too vague for me to understand :|

update :
found the answer to 2 first part:
1. if you are careful, and don't physically damage it yourself , the worst case could be your system, not booting (you can change things back , it will boot
2.well, I suppose if it boots, you try to run ram consuming programs, if it was ok and you could use all installed ram and faced no problem, you are good to go !?

 

[unKHEFTable]

I've done it!
And it worked! ))

and lenovo is using ramaxel brand rams