With memory prices remaining high, seemingly cheap second-hand goods are equally unreliable. Recently, a user on platform X posted about a severe counterfeiting case involving Kingston FURY series memory purchased from the second-hand market, where the counterfeiter relabeled DDR4 chips and soldered them onto a DDR5 PCB.
According to the images publicly shared by the buyer, he purchased a Kingston FURY Beast DDR5-5600 32GB memory module listed as "sold as-is" (no guarantee of functionality), with the model number KF556C40BB-32-SP. The heat spreader and anti-counterfeit label appeared normal upon external inspection.
After disassembling the memory, the buyer discovered significant flux residue on the PCB beneath the heat spreader, with some PCB pads left unused, clearly indicating manual rework and soldering.
Although the chips soldered onto the memory PCB bear Micron's exclusive FBGA code D8DDZ for DDR5 chips, according to Micron's official datasheet, this code corresponds to DDR5 chips with a single-chip capacity of 16Gb (2GB), a frequency of 5600MHz, and an operating voltage of 1.1V.
Legitimate DDR5 memory modules using D8DDZ chips also exist in the market, meaning the markings on this counterfeit chip were completely replicated from a real DDR5 component.
However, comparing the BGA contact array with genuine products showed that the number and position of contacts on these memory chips completely deviated from the DDR5 standard.
Technical analysis revealed that the counterfeiter selected Micron DDR4 chips with the same 9x11mm package size, ground down their surfaces, and re-lasered them with DDR5 markings. These were then forcibly soldered onto a DDR5 PCB, using the heat spreader to conceal the discrepancies.
Currently, such counterfeit products are commonly found in blind boxes or non-returnable/non-exchangeable items on personal second-hand trading platforms. It is extremely difficult to distinguish genuine from fake products based on appearance alone.