PC Memory Upgrade Headaches
 

OK- here is the basic data-

My motherboard has 4 memory slots. Currently, 2 are filled with 512mB sticks.

From my boot menu, it indicates that it is PC2-3200 DDR2 memory @ 400MHz.

I bought 2-1GB sticks of DDR2 PC2-5300 which claims to be backwards compatible with PC2-3200 @ 400MHz. It also says 'dual-channel' on the box.

Long story short- it doesn't work. I tried a few configurations, but with the new ram inserted it simply doesn't boot. No boot. Even taking out the old ram altogether and leaving just the new RAM installed, no dice. Tried using the correct slots, tried the incorrect slots.

Is the 'dual-channel' part screwing me? I don't know if I have dual channel or not. I would have thought I did based on the 4 slots, with each pair color-coded, but perhaps not.


In other news, I installed a real video-card (e-GeForce 7600GT) and Warcraft looks AMAZING now. Unfortunately, in the process of installing it, my computer no longer finds the CD-Drive as a boot device, and warns me of this with every bootup. Nevermind the fact that the drive works fine, it just doesn't 'see' it on bootup anymore. ARRRRRGH!!!!

How old is the box?

What motherboard?

If it's too old it may not support 1 GB sticks.

As noted above, you need to find out what type of MB you have, and see what it will handle.

Make sure you find out which slots are 1 & 2 and use them first.

Then max it out with RAM.

If you have four slots, they are paired up. Should have colors like Slot 1 - black/blue, Slot 2 - black/blue. That type of MB needs to run *matched* memory in each slot. At least i stick in each bank (i.e. the two black slots). If you want to fill the other two slots in each bank (the blue slots), you would (more than likely) need to fill them with two 512 sticks of RAM.

If you have tried all available configurations, it could be that the memory sucks. What brand is it? You should at least be able to take the two new 1 gig sticks and put one into each slot like above. Probably really confused you on this....

The slots are labeled appropriately, as to which ones are which. Filled 1 and 2. The sites I have checked claim my motherboard will read 1 gig cards... currently in there are 2 512 sticks.

Again- coud it be something to do with dual-channel stuff?

What brand memory did you buy? What is the MB make and model?

Seriously, there is really crappy memory out there. I only try and buy Kingston, but Corsair and one more that is escaping me.

Also, the gig sticks. Are they ECC or non-ECC? If you happened to buy ECC memory, it won't work at all.

The memory I bought is non-ECC, for sure (it says so, and the number of chip thingies isn't divisible by 3 or 5).

The brand is PNY. The size of each stick is 1 GB. Model is DDDR2 PC2-5300, dual channel.

Here is my computer data:
Dell Inc. Dimension 4700
Board: Dell Inc. 0M3918
Serial Number: ..CN7082153300SW.
Bus Clock: 800 megahertz
BIOS: Dell Inc. A06 01/10/2005


1024 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'CHANNEL A DIMM 0' has 512 MB
Slot 'CHANNEL B DIMM 0' has 512 MB
Slot 'CHANNEL A DIMM 1' is Empty
Slot 'CHANNEL B DIMM 1' is Empty

Would a RAM analyzer program be of any help?

Best,

Kurt

Good call on the analyzer- I had used the analyzer on crucial.com to find out some stuff, and it told me:

Currently Installed: DDR PC2-3200 512MBx2

Then it goes on to say Each memory slot can hold DDR2 PC2-4200,DDR2 PC2-6400,DDR2 PC2-5300 with a maximum of 1GB per slot.


What is particularly perplexing about this is that DDR2 will not fit in a DDR slot, and the crucial system scanner claims my current RAM is DDR, and it obviously isn't because:
A) the DDR2 ram I bought physically fits just fine
B) my BIOS says I have DDR2 Ram

How about an analyzer that actually checks the integrity of the chips?

FWIW.

Best,

Kurt

How does that work? Never heard of it.... man, I thought I was gonna snap these in and be pimping one click later. Instead, now I have to cry. ;(

Can you burn an image from an ISO to a CD? Not an answer to your ?, but let me know.

The program will scan the RAM blocks in the chips and report problems if found.

Are you running XP?

I can look for a RAM tool.

Best,

Kurt

Here:
http://www.memtest.org/

I assume I am answering the question correctly- yes. I at one point downloaded an ISO burner to make a copy of something.

Here's one that's free: http://hcidesign.com/memtest/download.html

edit - Dave beat me to it! :p

Best,

Kurt

I am running XP.

If my PC won't even boot when I install one of these mem sticks, how would memTest be able to function...

I DO appreciate everyone's help. I just wish I was smart enough to figure this stuff out.

Yes, that's a problem.

Hmmmmm . . .

I dunno ? ?

Dave is smarter with this - I'm less than a Windows expert.

Good luck and sorry I couldn't help more.

Best,

Kurt

I'd suggest taking the PNY back. I don't care for it. You have a PM. Does the computer beep if you only have the 1 gig sticks in?

Yes, it makes terrible 'the world is ending' beeps when I boot with only the 1 gig sticks in. If I put them in with the original ram too, I just get silence. Checking my PM...

Yeah, return the PNY memory. Kingston or Corsair should work without a problem. If the MB is beeping with only the PNY me in, no diagnostic sw will help.

Dave

Have you tried pulling the 512's & just running the 1gbs?

Yeah, when I pull the 512s is when the hell beeps occur. :D

Dave- thanks for the PM- I am D/Ling it so if I need it I have it, but yeah, it probably can't help me.

On a side note- it definitely can't help me until I figure out why after I installed my video card that my CD boot device is no loner found... strange (especially because it works, so its not like I knocked a wore or something).

Thanks all for the help- looks like I will try going to the store tomorrow and exchanging for something else.

It's not just for memory. ;) It's bootable and you can also run it under Windows.

Eureka!
 

Thank you all for the help.

So here's the deal- my motherboard said it could support PC2-3200 and PC2-4200. The RAM I bought was PC-5300, but it claimed to be backwards compatible. Either it wasn't, or it was just bad ram (hard to believe BOTH sticks were bad though).

The solution was to exchange for two 1-gig sticks of PC2-4200 (this time brand is Corsair). Snapped them in, booted, and perfect.

The downside is that the 2 512 sticks are PC2-3200, which means they all run that way (I lose out on some speed). How much better would it be to upgrade the old ones too?

Anyhow, the difference is quite pronounced while gaming. The combination of a real video card and 2 more gigs of ram really pulled things together nicely.

As for the booting issue, for whatever reason the BIOS decided to start looking for a floppy drive on booting. I have never had a floppy drive. Anyhow, disabled that and for the moment it is smooth sailing.

You wrote"
Slot 'CHANNEL A DIMM 0' has 512 MB
Slot 'CHANNEL B DIMM 0' has 512 MB
Slot 'CHANNEL A DIMM 1' is Empty
Slot 'CHANNEL B DIMM 1' is Empty"

I am not sure that it matters anymore since the 4 sticks aren't matched. But it is best to keep the 512mb sticks in one channel and the 1Gb sticks in another channel.

It still matters supposedly- they are paired correctly (its even color-coded for guys like me). :D

I had a similar experience in the past. I bought memory that was a step faster than mine. Supposedly it was backwards compatible, but it didn't work in my comp. I got the slower memory and it worked fine.

I think it would be worth in to get two more of the same 1GB Corsair sticks!

Money well spent, IMO. Isn't that spec Corsair memory about $30 to $40 a stick?

Best,

Kurt

I got 2 gigs for $50 actually. So you think it would make a discernible difference?

I read that it would only be able to read another .5gig, because for some reason beyond my knowledge you have the have XP loaded in 64bit to read 4 gigs of ram.

That's beyond my knowledge too! I don't know how much RAM your current system can address. :(

Some one will chime in here to help, I bet.

Best,

Kurt

I'm glad you were able to get things working. It's not the the other RAM was bad (faulty), I have seen that happen too many times with some of the lower end memory companies. The RAM just sucks and causes many headaches.

According to Kingston:

Standard Memory: 256 MB (Removable) or
512 MB (Removable)

Maximum Memory: 4 GB

Expansion: 4 Sockets (2 Banks of 2)

CPU & ChipSet: Intel Pentium 4 Intel 915G

Bus Architecture: PCI Express; USB

Mfgr's System P/N's: N/A

Comments MODULES MUST BE ORDERED AND INSTALLED IN PAIRS for Dual Channel mode.

This system is configurable and may ship with either DDR2-400 (KTD-DM8400/xx) or DDR2-533 (KTD-DM8400A/xx). These are compatible and can be mixed, however when mixed they will default to DDR2-400.

If 4GB is installed, the recognized memory may be reduced to 3.5GB or less (depending on system configuration and memory allocation).

Maximum configurations require a 64-bit operating system.