RAM upgrade A.S.A.P?

Did you add one bar of 1 Gb or 2 bars of 512 Mb each? Quite a few motherboards will not accept a single piece of RAM, so if you installed just one bar of 1 Gb, remove the two 512 Mb bars to see if your computer will boot with that. If it doesn't, I think you have your answer...

Hello,

(ANS) When you add extra memory to your computer there are a number of pretty strict rules that have to be followed.

No.1 Check your specific machine and its system board & bios do support the extra amount of RAM you wish to add. **OK!! looks like your bios supports the extra memory.

NO.2 Don't worry about Windows itself, as the OS can support much more than 4GB anyway. So windows support is NOT an issue here.

No.3 NOTE: You cannot mix and match RAM chips or RAM types. For example you cannot add SDRAM & RDRAM in one system as they wont play nicely together.

TIP!!

when adding extra RAM it must be the precise same type & speed of RAM i.e. if your machine came with DDR RAM what ever you add must also be DDR RAM. If your memory is PC 800 then what you add must also be PC 800.

**Check your system board for how many slots & banks you have for adding extra memory, (I use a helpful tool for checking my system profile, this is free-ware called the Belarc Advisor, see the web address at the end here).

**When you buy & add extra Memory they MUST BE added in matching pairs or according to the manufacturers directions. So for example I have a system with 512megs x2 banks of 256megs. Thus you may find that the 1GB is the right type & speed of RAM but in the wrong configuration. You may only be able to upgrade via x2 banks of 512megs to get the full 1GB.

**If the RAM chips are wrongly installed or wrongly configured windows will not be able to work with this and this sounds like your problem.

**NOTE: Simm's = single inline memory modules (stick with chips on one side only)

Dimm's= double inline memory modules (stick with chips on both sides).

**Check the "Crucial Memory"website for help with memory configuration.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

and

http://www.crucial.com/

Hope that helps?

PS: its windows (your OS) that cannot see the new memory. My guess is that you have the wrong configuration of chips.

Ivan

Computer veteran, MCSE trained.

Try putting the 1 gig in the first slot and the 512s next, largest needs to be first. If its ddr 2 they need to be paired, you will need another 1 gig, 2x1g and 2x 512mb. The slots will be color coded. It will run 1x1 gig and 1x 512 tho. You cant have 1 of 1 size and 2 of the other

I see from your edited bit of your question that you've tried to boot using just your new RAM ... and it doesn't work. This must mean that either the RAM is defective or it's of a type that your computer doesn't support.

Not only are there different speeds of RAM, but there are high-density modules and low-density modules. My own computer will only work using low-density modules which, for some reason, are much more expensive than high-density modules. (It's something to do with the tolerance of the memory chips used on the stick of RAM.)

step 1.)

Try the new 1 gig stick only and see if it works.....

step.2)

Try swapping the poitions of the ram, if the above test works, (this time placing the 1 gig stick in the first slot)...

You can also test to see if the slot #3 is working on the motherboard...if step 1 works but step 2 doesn't work this might be the case of a faulty memory slot....

Looks like your ram is faulty.....if you have another computer around try a temporary installation to see if it works...as a final test...

Don't reinstall Windows to make it work. There is no logic in doing that because if Windows does not boot with the current setup then it is unlikely to boot if it is reinstalled.

Try booting in safe mode to see if that makes any difference.

did you buy the right kind of ram? did you buy the right speed?

cause if you've got 1 stick of pc3200 and one stick of pc5300

the pc5300 stick has to clock down to pc3200 or you trying to mix ecc memory and non ecc memory?

are you sure that the ram is non-ecc if it is ecc that can mean the difference between it working or not, most computers do not support ecc.