BF2S Forums Need help FAST: RAM question.

paired same size together.

Check the mobo manual to see which goes where

Last edited by Morpheus (2008-10-08 23:44:47)

djphetal wrote:

Morpheus wrote:

paired same size together.

Check the mobo manual to see which goes where

Thanks.
Well, he got the computer from Dell, and he's had problems since day 1, and we finally just decided to check inside, and they paired the 1Gs with the 512s.

Also, the 1Gb sticks are not identical... they are both samsung, but they are not of the exact same make. Could this be problematic?
Even worse, the two 512 sticks are not even made by the same company.

Is Dell really that stupid?

Yes.


To all counts.

TheAussieReaper wrote:

djphetal wrote:

Is Dell really that stupid?

Seems that way. You'd expect ram of the same size, make and quality when buying a new pc.

Okay well let me take a step back.

He got a Dell factory outlet PC, meaning it was returned by a previous user. The previous user, it said, had ram problems. He's had a few physical memory dumps, and quite frequently he can't boot. It gets to the XP loading screen, then the screen goes black and stays that way for a long time... possibly forever, though he claims he's never left it for more than 3 minutes without restarting.

He has been afraid to open the computer in fear of voiding the warranty, but he's now too fed up to not open it.

So we opened it and discovered that the ram was paired strangely.

But we switched the ram and it still didn't boot... so we're running out of ideas.

Anyone?

djphetal wrote:

But we switched the ram and it still didn't boot... so we're running out of ideas.

Anyone?

So you mean by switching, you switched the 3gigs you have into different slots? Did you try booting the machine on one stick of ram alone, to try and determine if its a faulty stick causing the problem?

And the suggestion of trying different (known to be working) ram altogether is a good place to start also, you may have a faulty mobo.

You just gotta rule everything out.

djphetal wrote:

TheAussieReaper wrote:

djphetal wrote:

Is Dell really that stupid?

Seems that way. You'd expect ram of the same size, make and quality when buying a new pc.

Okay well let me take a step back.

He got a Dell factory outlet PC, meaning it was returned by a previous user. The previous user, it said, had ram problems. He's had a few physical memory dumps, and quite frequently he can't boot. It gets to the XP loading screen, then the screen goes black and stays that way for a long time... possibly forever, though he claims he's never left it for more than 3 minutes without restarting.

He has been afraid to open the computer in fear of voiding the warranty, but he's now too fed up to not open it.

So we opened it and discovered that the ram was paired strangely.

But we switched the ram and it still didn't boot... so we're running out of ideas.

Anyone?

I hope he got that machine for srsly cheap.

1. Download Memtest86+.
2. Burn to floppy/CD (according to which version you download).
3. Test each RAM stick individually - leave memtest to complete at least one full pass on each stick.
4. Then test those that pass in pairs.
5. Then in triples.
6. Then all four (if they all pass up to this point).

It's tedious and it takes some time, but it's the only way to figure out for sure whether they all work in combination with each other - oh, and if you find they all pass individually, but not in some combinations, then try different combinations of different dimms in different slots - some mobos and some ram dimms can be very very fussy.

As for which to pair up - 1GB with 1GB, 512 with 512 - if the slots are two different colours, the most likely thing is that each colour is one pair - if they're all the same colour then it's most likely to be 1st slot pairs with 3rd and 2nd pairs with 4th...

Last edited by Scorpion0x17 (2008-10-09 14:39:10)