Counterfeit DDR5 RAM is circulating across online storefronts and gray-market retailers, and some fake modules are convincing enough to pass visual inspection — until you cut them open. According to Digital Trends, the chips installed on the fraudulent sticks aren't memory at all, but merely fiberglass boards shaped to resemble legitimate DRAM.
The issue was reported by a Japanese X user who purchased what appeared to be a genuine SK Hynix SO-DIMM laptop module and physically dissected it after becoming suspicious. Inside, they found non-functional fiberglass pieces where the memory chips should have been.
"At first glance, they look like regular memory sticks, but the chips actually installed on them are just bare circuit boards—plastic boards. I removed them and cut them open to check," reads a translation of the X post.
Some of these counterfeits are reportedly being sold openly on auction platforms like Yahoo Japan under listings marked "untested" or "junk," with sellers explicitly refusing returns.
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