HELP!! installed ram and now PC not working!!

[SuperBeatBoy]

Are you sure your pc can handle that ram? It won't boot up if it can't. But yeah, try 1 gb and 1 256mb.

How much ram did you have in it originally? Maybe your motherboard can't handle 1gb. If you still have the motherboard manual, have a look inside and find the spec. It should tell you how much ram it can handle and what speeds.

[abigsmurf]

could be dodgy ram, I've had dodgy ram before. May be worthwhile updating the bios (NEVER DO IT IN WINDOWS) to see if it adds better ram support. Also make sure in the bios that you're delivering a high enough voltage

[angelx]

even if you dont have the manual you may be able to find it online

[kyo_244]

333 266

The only two main differenced I can see between the old and new ram.. the old 256 sticks were 266 mhz.

The new 1 gig sticks are 333 mhz.

Would this be the problem?

They are both DDR, PC2700.. I dunno if mhz makes a difference.

Edit: oops hang on.. on one of the 256 sticks.. it says "PC2100u-25330-A1"

Seems to be a bit lower than PC2700.. but when i scanned my pc on the crucial ram site, it said that both slots can take up to PC2700 each. So i just went for that..

Anything sound off here?

[kyo_244]

OK, tried mixing a 1 gig and 256.. nope!

This time the pc booted up, but wouldnt load windows. Went to bios screen and said something about memory decrease, and start windows normally or exit..

I tried start windows, but it just repeated itself.. I just switched it off.

Hmm.. looks like my pc cant take it then.

Will ebuyer give me a refund?

[Dazzyman]

The speed wont be the issue as they would just default to a slower speed. It could be a number of things from 2 of the slots only taking a certain size ram or your board might not take that size to begin with (it can depend on how old the board is). It could be voltage issue that your board just cant take that voltage ram or you might need to up the voltage for it in bios or you might need to do a bios reset for it to take the memory (either do factory defaults in bios or short the board, dip switch or take the battery out again depends how old the board is). It might need a bios update to take the ram as when it came out their might not have been such a thing and so on and on and on lol

Graphics cards they can only go in one slot on a AGP card so its their for a reason.

Id start by putting one stick of old ram in each slot and turning the machine on each time with just that stick in to test all the slots. Then do the same with one stick of new memory only. If it does it in every slot then you know your board just isnt compatible with it (after trying to tweak the bios etc.. as a last resort).

The thing with the memory though is it will either work or it wont. It will show up in bios how much memory is their and if its missing then its not recognising it. If it shows it but then then when you quit out of bios its hanging going into windows then its a tweaking issue and not the memory so its more down to either bios issues so needs a firmware or voltage issue so needs increasing or the timings (best for timing issues to let it do its default sometimes the bios thinks its the old memory and keeps the same timings and thats when you get lockups and hanging so always best when adding new hardware to reset to defaults).

If you switch the PC on and its just beeping at you its either the memory stopping it booting or it could be something silly like the cable not connected for they keyboard.