Help! Ram Upgarde Help!

Chuzzle

Ok I have an HP Pavilion 423.uk (i think from memory) it had 256mb ram :eek: and I decided to upgrade it to 1gb ram. Got the Ram through Crucial.

So last night I decide to give it a whirl and took out the original ram stick (256MB) and insterted both the new 512mb sticks. Switched pc on and the cd drive and dvd drive lit up briefly as is normal and the little light under the power button was a solid amber colour for 30 seconds and then went off and nothing happened, no noises/bleeps nothing on the monitor. So I tried the 256mb and one of the new 521mb and the pc booted up fine. I then shut down and swapped the 512 for the other 512 and agian it booted up fine. This morning when I went to switch it on i got a repeated continuos bleep. and nothing else. I decided to swap the 512mb back over and when switched on got nothing happening at all apart from lights coming on and going off as before when I put both 512 sticks in. I decided to put just the 256mb in there and got a repeated continuous bleep.

Have I done something really really awful? Would I be able to send the ram back and request replacements? Please help.

aliEnRIK

Are you sure the 256 is sat properly? Is it in the original slot?

Chuzzle

Hi AlienRick

I have swapped the 256 (and the 512) about in both slots and get the same response. I make sure the ram clicks down into place and then push the clips on either side. I did find I had to push really quite hard to get them in...have I damaged them by pushing in too hard?

DatabaseError

ram is quite resilient (I have a box with loads of older stuff just thrown in...and no worries at all about its safety)
motherboards are also quite strong...as anyone who's fit a stock socket 775 cooler in-situ will confirm.

The only damage I can imagine happening is bending of the pins on the motherboard from pushing the ram at a bad angle...but I've never come across this...

I'd be pulling out all the RAM, checking the slots aren't blocked with any dirt, checking the contacts on the ram itself are clean (I recently had similar issues...small piece of cellophane covering the contacts of the ram...took me about 30 minutes to diagnose the problem ) and try again, pushing the ram firmly, and squarely, into the socket..and the clips should close themselves as the ram seats correctly

aliEnRIK

Is it a desktop or a laptop?
Are you sure youve put them in the right way round?
(if you push REALLY hard its possible to fit the wrong way around)

get it working with the 256 first. Forget the others for now

Chuzzle

Database Error - thanks for putting my mind at rest about it being fairly resiliant. I'll check for dirt I did notice when I took the cover off there was an awful lot of dust in there!

Alienrik - Its a desktop. I'll try again when I pop home at lunchtime. Is there away of telling which way round it should go?

aliEnRIK

They technically should only go the one way. Theres slots on the ram so just make sure the slots line up with the motherboard properly.
Though I have seen someone FORCE one in the wrong way before today.

Get a sucker hoover on it and suck all the cr*p out with NO ram in and make sure its nice and clean before trying to seat them again

Chuzzle

IF I have somehow managed to force them in the wrong way round will it mess them up at all?

aliEnRIK

Doubtful ~ the one I saw worked fine when it was put in the correct way round. they do seem very durable

PeterPerfect

The computer is going through a set of POST (Power On Self Test) tests, hence the beep noise. You may need to check the BIOS every time you make a change in the hardware, and save the changes.

What is the BIOS manufacture?

The memory can only go one way because of the slot in the module.

Baldur

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Doubtful ~ the one I saw worked fine when it was put in the correct way round. they do seem very durable

I've certainly had to deal with a PC where the owner had inserted the RAM module the wrong way around - it burned out the RAM module and the RAM slot in the motherboard.