Acer PC refuses to accept 3rd party RAM

[WilliamTM]

Right so uh, I'm having a bit of a problem - my uncle's PC* is a semi-recent Acer desktop PC, with a 3GHz Pentium 4 CPU and an Acer-branded motherboard with Acer-branded RAM. For what he uses it for (internet and email mainly), it's got plenty of power, however it only has 256MB of DDR2 RAM at the moment which is absolutely crippling Windows - it takes an AGE to start up and doing anything takes ages too.

I checked the RAM out in CPUZ and it's DDR2, so, having recently upgraded my own PC from 2GB of OCZ DDR2, I tried inserting it into his PC and...it didn't work. I know for sure it does work though as my own custom PC boots up fine with it.

With Acer RAM in: Plug in PC, it does nothing (as you would expect), hit the power button, it turns on. POST works fine, and Windows XP boots as normal.
With OCZ RAM in: Plug in PC, and the CPU fan immediately spins up to what sounds like 100%, without even pressing the power button. If I press the power button, it refuses to boot up, and it won't even POST.

I didn't think to note down the model number or anything either (I did look but I couldn't find any mention of it), as he lives a fair distance from me and I didn't have much time when I was there, so the most I can say is that it's an Acer tower. So what I'm wondering is if anyone has any ideas as to what's going on, because I honestly cannot figure out why it won't accept the OCZ RAM.

So...any ideas how I can get the motherboard to accept the OCZ RAM?


*I hate being tech support for my family. lol.

[jim]

Did you take out the Acer DDR2 and run it with just one or two OCZ sticks in total?

It is possible that the motherboard just doesn't support that RAM for one reason or another, compatibility issues, and another brand of RAM could work perfectly. No guarantees though, and I'm not really sure how you'd check.

[Jasp]

Its more likely to be a motherboard limitation for the amount of ram or the speed your ram is rated at, could be the board only accepts 1gb or 2gb split across the slots.

[WilliamTM]

Did you take out the Acer DDR2 and run it with just one or two OCZ sticks in total?

It is possible that the motherboard just doesn't support that RAM for one reason or another, compatibility issues, and another brand of RAM could work perfectly. No guarantees though, and I'm not really sure how you'd check.

Tried it with two sticks and one stick, both did the same thing.

Its more likely to be a motherboard limitation for the amount of ram or the speed your ram is rated at, could be the board only accepts 1gb or 2gb split across the slots.

Could be...I was hoping it wasn't though, I don't want to risk buying more RAM that it won't like...may as well just go the whole hog and get a new motherboard and CPU.

Talking of which, if I did get a new motherboard and CPU, could I get away with keeping the current XP install without needing to reinstall it all over again? I don't have any discs for XP, nor for Office (which is also installed), so can XP cope with a new motherboard and CPU if I just swapped them out?

[scaryjim]

... can XP cope with a new motherboard and CPU if I just swapped them out?

Probably not. If it's an OEM copy (which it almost certainly is) it's likely to be locked to the BIOS of the existing motherboard, which means it simply won't work with any other motherboard.

If it isn't BIOS locked you'll have the delight of trying to persuade Microsoft to reactivate it following a major hardware upgrade - maybe not such a problem but still a PITA, frankly. And I don't think you can tell if it's BIOS locked without trying it...?

[WilliamTM]

Probably not. If it's an OEM copy (which it almost certainly is) it's likely to be locked to the BIOS of the existing motherboard, which means it simply won't work with any other motherboard.

If it isn't BIOS locked you'll have the delight of trying to persuade Microsoft to reactivate it following a major hardware upgrade - maybe not such a problem but still a PITA, frankly. And I don't think you can tell if it's BIOS locked without trying it...?

Lovely. I think it might just be worth it to get a new machine then.

[Ciber]

Maybe try one of these in there instead see if it works: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119258. If it works, great, if not ebay it and you've not lost much.

[Lucio]

One possibility is that the RAM you're using isn't the same specs as the sticks your taking out, particular the voltages or the density (Dell machines for example don't always take high density RAM).

Best bet is to visit crucial.com's memory checker and let it make a recomendation to see what works