RAM Upgrade

khublaikhan

I have a couple of sticks of RAM lying around 512MB - PC3200 DDR 400MHz.

My desktop PC has the same spec RAM installed (2 x512MB PC3200 DDR 400Mhz). I thort I would install them in my PC (as advised in another thread) since Vista is RAM hungry.

When I install them in the two spare slots my PC keeps rebooting and never actually gets to the OS. The BIOS, however, does recognise that there is now 2048 MB installed??

Can someone help in diagnosing the issue - I am confident the sticks are ok since they run fine on their own in a friend's PC.

Thanks

joemaddog

if you go into the bios does the computer still reboot?

try running a memory test. memtest86 is a good one.

khublaikhan

joemaddog wrote: »

if you go into the bios does the computer still reboot?

try running a memory test. memtest86 is a good one.

When I hit Del and get into BIOS it does not reboot - only when I leave it to load the OS.

Running Memtest86 now...will report back. Thanks

khublaikhan

When I run Memtest86 with all DIMM slots full it immediately fails. When I run the test with the two original sticks in my PC there are no issues. Strange then that the two "dodgy" sticks should work fine another PC.....ah well..

Spank

Have you taken out the origional sticks & put the new 1's in those slots?

khublaikhan

Yes - I did that and all I get is a blank screen, not even the option to go into BIOS.

bengalknights

sounds like your motherboard doesnt support ram amount above 1gb, how old is the pc? as alot of early xp pcs dont support it

khublaikhan

bengalknights wrote: »

sounds like your motherboard doesnt support ram amount above 1gb, how old is the pc? as alot of early xp pcs dont support it

I ran a test using Crucial's system scanner tool - it said the MoBo would support up to 4GB. I think the issue is things like:

CL=3 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC

thanks for the suggestion anyway

Spank

khublaikhan wrote: »

Yes - I did that and all I get is a blank screen, not even the option to go into BIOS.

I take it that you left your origionals out of the machine, if that's the case & you tried the new sticks in known, good slots it must be them.