Bah humbug! More PC problems!

[LordShard]

Hey I have a problem. I installed XP and installed the 2 new ram sticks, both PC 3200, 512. Which means I have 3x512, obviously that is a gig and a half, well I had problems getting my computer to boot up after installing the new ram sticks and had to reseat them 3 times before it would boot up. ANd everything "seems" to be working fine but winXP only detects 1gig of ram. Obviously somethin is screwed up. Any suggestions?

[Rand0m Profile]

Your motherboard may have been designed only to hold 1gig of ram, if this is so than you got yourself an extra paper weight. If that isn't the problem than maybe someone else can help you. Try and go to the companies site you got your computer from and get your system info on it, sometimes they tell you how much ram your computer can handle. If it was custom built find your mobo online and see what it can handle.

[Agent-Commando]

A BIOS update may be all it takes to solve this dilemma. Try the RAM sticks in different systems, could be the RAM itself.

[LordShard]

Originally posted by Rand0m
Your motherboard may have been designed only to hold 1gig of ram, if this is so than you got yourself an extra paper weight. If that isn't the problem than maybe someone else can help you. Try and go to the companies site you got your computer from and get your system info on it, sometimes they tell you how much ram your computer can handle. If it was custom built find your mobo online and see what it can handle.

No I checked before I bought my mobo, it can take up to 3gigs. But it runs best at 1.5 or is supposed to.

I'll try a bois update, I just hope it doens't go boom on me.

[LordShard]

It asks what format my bios is exe bin or zip. :S

[LordShard]

Ok, updated my system BIOS, still only sees 1GB of ram. :\ Should I try reseating them again?

[Agent-Commando]

Originally posted by LordShard
Ok, updated my system BIOS, still only sees 1GB of ram. :\ Should I try reseating them again?

Question:

Is the board designed to run dual channel? Which is a pair of RAM running at the same time for increase bandwidth...so the 3rd RAM maybe out of order here for dual channel operation..

[Cpl. Bingham]

One of the dirty secrets of memory capacity on motherboards is that they leave out crucial information.

While your mobo can use up to 3 gigs of ram, the memory would more than likely have to be "Buffered" or "Registered" memory if you want to use more than two sticks. And of course, registered memory costs more than regular memory, so it's a trade off on whether you want to spend that much to get that much extra memory.

Do a little digging and see if your mobo requires buffered or regsitered memory if you want to install more than two sticks. You may need to email the mobo manufacturer directly since many don't even list this requirement on their websites.

[LordShard]

Memory Description
Three DDR 2.5V DIMM sockets support up to 3GB with 266 memory setting. PC3200/PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 non-ECC, unbuffered DDR SDRAM memory

It supports PC3200 as long as you don't go over 1.5GB I think. But it says unbuffered so in general that means no parity, ecc or registered right?

[Cpl. Bingham]

I assume the third stick in an older stick of ram? Take one of the newer sticks out and see what the PC detects when you've got the old stick and a new stick in there. That'll at least tell you if the old and new sticks like playing together.

And what make and model of mobo is this?

[Bullhead]

Originally posted by LordShard
Memory Description
Three DDR 2.5V DIMM sockets support up to 3GB with 266 memory setting.

Not that this is necessarily the problem, but it caught my eye. This says you can only run 3gb at 266FSB, which would be PC2100, not PC3200 (which is 400FSB).

Try mixing the modules up, only running 2 at a time. Keep a close watch on which one is which (number 'em if you have to), and see if it picks up 1gb of memory with any combination, just to check for a bad mem stick. You said you bought two new ones, but have three, so you had an existing one. Even if they're the same brand/speed, they might be different revisions, and be having a compatibility issue.

What does your bios show as avail mem? Is it picking up all three sticks at 1.5gb?

As Bingham mentioned, what make/model/revision of mobo do you have?

[LordShard]

Nope, It's only detecting 1GB, and at this moment 512MB since I reseated. I'll try swapping them out again.

[LordShard]

Ok, using slots 1 and 3 using the new ram it detects 1GB.

Before I ordered the new ram I was using slot 2 , so all 3 slots should be working correctly right? It might just be incompatible ram?

The BIOS when it does the memory check reports the memory clocking to be 400Mhz also, which it should.


http://www.soyousa.com/products/proddesc.php?id=256
There is my link to my motherboard website.

[LordShard]

Finally took my lkast whack at it and shoved that last ram stick so hard in that it's actually working now.

BIOS says
Base mem 640K
Ext mem 1571840K
Total mem 1572864K

and windows detects it now too.

[LordShard]

But now I get problems with explorer.exe crashing. I'm running a virus scanner right now. And where is the utility to check for corrupted files?