Is a RAM upgrade enough to trigger a DCS activation issue?

G’day all, I’m planning to bump my RAM up from 8GB to 16GB (mainly for upcoming SBProPE 4.0) - has anyone done the same and did it affect DCS activations?

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If StarForce detects changes to your computer hardware/software as described below, an activation will be required.

An activation will be required if the hardware/software changes exceed 12 points as rated below:

CPU ID: 13

Windows PID: 3

Computer Name: 3

Hard drive volume serial number: 3

MAC address: 6

RAM amount: 6

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Thanks. I had read that, but didn’t understand it - can I assume I’m reasonably safe?

You are totally safe. But for the next pc-upgrade you must deactivate all your modules and then reactivate them (unless it’s one of the things that score only 3 points)

Cheers mate - thanks.

Your safe smithcorp. I did the same exact thing less than a year ago and everything worked lickity-split! No issues what-so-ever and you would not believe the performance increase. Beautiful.

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Yay!

Also, you will really enjoy that performance increase. It will be so smooth, so visually stunning for you as I shoot you down in air-2-air combat. You will be speechless. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I’ll be hapless.

Funny thing is, my RAM upgrade went seriously pear-shaped. No idea what could have happened, as I have done RAM changes before, but my power supply carked it, and some errors on my hard drive raised their ugly heads, so I am up for a new PSU, new hard drive and windows reinstall.

So welcome to reactivate and re-install everything city, population: me.

Shouldn’t have been - I grounded myself on the frame when I opened the box and I didn’t use any metal tools, but I’m guessing that must have been it.

I’m always a little bit terrified when I upgrade my PC. In high-school I watched a guy “test” a hard drive by connecting it up outside of it’s case, set on the static-safe bag to protect it from the wood table. That’s when we learned static-safe bags are very conductive and that fried hard-drives smell bad.

In college I saw a guy force RAM sticks in backwards to his new store-bought PC. It took a good 10 seconds to start, but the amount of black smoke that billowed out of that case was impressive.

I’ve never had any magic-smoke releases myself, but I have had strange failures that I’m sure were my fault - an HDD that suddenly wouldn’t boot after changing a PSU, a CD drive that wouldn’t burn DVDs anymore, but would still burn CDs after I swapped cases, etc.

As for the concern over DCS license activations, maybe I’m just not 1337 enough as everyone else, but I always have tons of activations left over when I do HW upgrades - so many that I don’t bother with deactivating. The one issue I did have is with the MiG-21bis module, which I still have occasional issues with, but this is a known thing that’s discussed on the ED forums.

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I love the smell of magic smoke in the morning. Smells like… money.

The amount of motherboard bending and force you need for a DDR seated ‘click’ is a truly evil invention of the PC parts trade. :slight_smile:

It may be a thing of the past with SSD’s etc, but I hope one day to get my Horror movie screenplay finished, where the protagonist turns on their PC just before handing in their PhD thesis and hears this ‘click, click, click’. ‘Hard Drive of Terror’ coming to theatres near you soon! :movie_camera:

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So far the Mig-21 activation issue hits me every time I update DCS. No clue how to fix it (and I use the ‘activation wiper’ thing that was provided when the problem first emerged).

How about when you mount one of those CPU coolers on top of the chip? It has those four prongy things and I swear I thought I was gonna break my mobo when I tried to push those pins in. Holy cow…

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