Installing Ram

[910trx]

i had 4 sticks of 1g ram

1 snuffed it

had to remove 2 banks and run it in 2g in 2 channels for about a year

bought some ram the otherday (2 gig is ok but $70 for 2 chips is not bad to boost performance before i go gaming ram with less latency later on)

exact same partnumber but sticks are smaller

not as in width but height.

i have not booted up the pc as yet only trial fitted, and they fit beautifully

its just Kingston Value Ram 800mhz 240 pin 1gig chips

like i said partmumbers are EXACTLY the same

can i just put this down to better technology - since the release of the originals now we can haveo a ram chip with less circuitboard and has smaller processors on it?

2nd

can i hit the power button? - whats the worst that can happen... BOOM!

they are the same specs, same brand, same model...

Edited September 2, 2009 by 910trx

[pkblade]

If they're exactly the same specs (eg. 1Gb DDR2 800Mhz) there shouldn't be any issues and will operate as you had before. In regards to different sizes, yeah your assumption of improved tech and to cut costs seems practical for Kingston.

Prior to fitting the sticks and starting you may want to select optimised settings in the BIOS screen (usually pressing F1/ F2 or DEL) and save settings. Once you've got the new memory in, re-enter the BIOS screen and go to the memory menus to check if the mobo is reading all the same specs.

The worst things that could happen is one is faulty, or if the computer continuously beeps it means one of the sticks isn't properly seated or the latencies are different.

[R31Nismoid]

You can still run different sticks of ram, you have to downclock though im most cases so they simply all run at the same speeds.

I've have differing sticks in machines before that work fine

[nicr4wks]

New Kingston sticks are half the height of the old ones, don't worry about it.

[trance]

+1 nicr4wks

As long as they are same SKU its all good.

For Kingston RAM, DIMM information is included within the SKU ie: KVR800D2N5K2/4G is

KVR = Kingston Value RAM

800 = Speed

D2 = DIMM Type

N5 = CAS Latency

K2 = Kit of 2

4G = Total DIMM/Kit size

Ciao

[910trx]

New Kingston sticks are half the height of the old ones, don't worry about it.

cool they are in

except i started it up and it failed to boot after bios stage

saying it needed a boot disc

having no boot disc i dl'd a program to act as the startup disc from my fiance's laptop as it asked me to insert the disc into cd/dvd.

easy

burnt it and tried to wack it into my pc - except the drive wont open...

press the button on the front and the green light flashes, then nothing

force it open doing the paperclip trick slammed it and still wont read

any ideas?

can i somehow back it up to a usb drive and force a boot from that?

[trance]

if it is asking for a boot disk, the pc is trying to tell you there is no operating system (windows) found. make sure your hard drive connectors are in position firmly and that there is power to your hard drive(s). if your pc was working before you installed the ram (by working i mean going into windows), try removing the ram and try again. ram can cause post to hang and in that time the optical drive might not respond. /shrug

[910trx]

well first problem solved, the hdd has two connections for the data and i plugged it into the wrong one

changed the connection and started up fine

except cdrom still wont work, its like it has power but wont open up on eject command

so i shut it dwn and thought a cold boot by unplugging it may help started her up and started to load windows got a bsod but it flashes so quick i cant read it

tried again and reqests safe mode

but in any mode including recovery it wont load, i get the same message again and it restarts on its own , requests safe mode and restarts.

ive pulled out each stick of ram and have even ran each ram in single channel (1g) to see if faulty ram was causing it but does not work still.

worst is i cant tgetht e cd to sork so i can shove in a boot disc

i'm over my head on this one...

[nicr4wks]

Check to make sure all PCI cards and other connections are in firmly.

Is the HDD/CD IDE or SATA? if IDE are they both on the same channel? Does the IDE cable have a little notch on the plug so it can only go in 1 way?

Unplug the data cable for the CD so only power is connected, turn on the computer, does the drive eject now? If an IDE cable is plugged in backwards it can cause all of the symptoms you've listed. Try this even if the CD drive is SATA.

Did you touch or fiddle with anything else while installing the ram?

Also make sure the CPU heatsink is still firmly in place and hasn't been knocked.

You can also try booting the pc with only 1 stick of ram installed in DIMM 0 (it will be small print but the ram sockets should be labeled)

Post back with results and hopefully we can sort out some more troubleshooting steps from there

Edited September 3, 2009 by nicr4wks

[drift_dingo]

cdrom drive sounds like mine at home, I triued all that and all it was the 4 wires for the power to the dvd drive, one of them wasn't sitting proper so it would boot up the drive but just not eject. VERY carefully push the plug in and wriggle it AND the wires (yellow black red ywellow?)

[trance]

With the BSOD; After POST, spam F8 (In between the BIOS Screen and Windows Load Screen), select the option "Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure". Once the BSOD occurs, read out the error code.

As for the drive, it is very possible that if the power is connected correctly that the servo is stuck. Use a pin to open the tray but do not close it manually, let the drive retract the tray itself and after the load is finished (the activity led on the drive has stopped), try and open again. If that fails (and once we get past the BSOD), we should try an eject command inside windows.

[910trx]

thanks for the help guys i'll try the above.

sorry i have been interstate for a funeral.

before i left i grabbed the hdd out of the pc and stuck it in the carry on luggage

i took it to my old mans and i stuck it in his pc tower with just my hdd working.

started it up and told me to boot from disc etc restarted with a bsod, rebooted and came up with some windows recovery jargon

we chose the option to reinstall windows which we did (he had a win xp disk down there)

windows was installed and the hdd worked, all my stuff was on there (luckily)

returned home today and plugged it all in

straight away the same bsod and restat.

i took a vid of the bsod because it flashes so quick wiht a vid camera o see what it was.

sorry myt you may have to tone down the pc guru talk, i'm unfortunately very noob at pc hardware.

thanks for all the help so far, its great that some people are willing to help out a stranger,

Edited September 9, 2009 by 910trx

[R31Nismoid]

Im going to take a stab and say the two BSOD's are unrelated.

Your one is possibly related to the RAM. Especially if the HDD was working in another PC

[910trx]

my hdd is sata

i'm now running the original chip of ram in the ddr1 slot (so only 1gb of ram) still wont work

rom is setup with sata cable and hooked into power (pins checked they are connected) and still not ejecting or reading

the cd rom w just power will still not eject by itself, manual eject and she still wont go in after startup or when pressing in the button

the 0x24 or whatever fault code seems to relate to a hdd partition error?

is this fixable or is this going to be a take it into a bloke job - i dont want to spend money on the damn thing...

will photos of what i got be a help?

[TALBO]

I'm guessing it could be a shagged Power Supply. Have you tried resetting the cmos yet and running default settings?

[910trx]

well if it is a shagged power supply its the 2nd one i have been through in a year.

i also notice that when i turn it on the motherboard lights up a blue led and the graphics cards wind up and slow and another light lights up

this repeats 4 times before it beeps and goes into bios and the usual start up procedure

this only happens when starting the pc not restarting.

the old powersupply is no good to do a test as that sucker is well and truely blown - but can it be that simple - a power supply unit?

Might have to ask I.T. for a spare if they have one.

windows always gets to the same stage before going down so i'm thinking its os - but i cant get that to work untillthe cd rom works

[bozodos]

hmm when I've had similar problems its usually been related to the HDD being FUBAR or on its last legs :S

BTW I have run different ram sticks in the one machine before, albeit a Pentium 3 866 about 7 years ago lol

[910trx]

hmm when I've had similar problems its usually been related to the HDD being FUBAR or on its last legs :S

i hope its not that!

i got so much data on there!

trying to find a fix fo the error code is useless, all signs point to sticking in a backup disc...

i dont have a floppy drive...

[R31Nismoid]

Just check it with S.M.A.R.T - it will tell you if its got bad sectors and so on.

If its mechanical then it will just fail

[910trx]

my work it man is going to have a look at it for me,

he solved the last BSoD so hopefully he can fix this in his spare time.

i owe him a carton of tooheys old if he gets it humming again

better than some random bloke in a PC store i guess