Ram Help please

[PC4Free]

So I decided to upgrade my old rig and give it to my brother for Christmas.
Now to the chronology of the ram:
Started off with 2x512mb sticks
Upgraded to a single 2gb stick.
The 2gb stick seems to have broken or stopped working a long time ago along with one of the 512mb sticks (few months)
So, this week i bought a 2x1gb Crucial kit off ebay. It arrived, fits and doesnt work :'( I cant see anything on the screen

I know its the RAM as the last working 512mb stick works in both ram slots.
I have tried resetting CMOS, but to no avail.

Any help will greatly appreciated and help save my gift to my bro
Cheers

[Pob255]

what motherboard?

[MikeCorruption]

Hmm have you tried just one RAM 1GB stick in one slot? or have you had both in at the same time?

I reccomend you try just the one 1GB RAM stick in one slot and see what happens

[PC4Free]

Abit NF-M25 - I did say it was old

And yeah, i tried one at a time with both slots and both sticks

[Legthigh]

So...

It works with your old 512MB stick in either slot?

I'd see if you can find someone who has a PC that takes DDR2 ram and is willing to try the Crucial stuff for you - Just to eliminate the new stuff being faulty.

I believe that board will take a maximum 2GB of either 533/667 or 800Mhz DDR2

[PC4Free]

Yeah, I had 2gb in it before, so that should be fine and the 512mb works in both slots.

[PC4Free]

Sorry to revive this, but I gave my bro the ram for christmas so if anyone has any ideas it would be fantastic!
(I gave him a wireless mouse and speakers aswell )

[planet436]

Did you check the memory in another board? Failing that check the timings and voltages recommended on the crucial sticks and enter those manually into the bios.

[Predator]

Did you check its compatible?

DDR/ddr2/ddr3 or 1600 MHz in a board that will only accept up to 800mz

If any of these factors don't match it will not work, which may explain why it didn't work on toe board but does on your bros (either that or you gave him a broken birthday present )

[PC4Free]

1. I dont have another board to test it in unfortunately. I cant fiddle around in the BIOS because nothing is displayed at all.

2. The RAM runs at 667mhz which my board supports - lucky i got him the mouse and speakers as well....

[Pob255]

Did you try resetting the CMOS?

Try with one stick of the 512 and one stick of the 1gb and see if you can boot it?

Give the memory slots a good clean out with compressed air, you can often get dust building up on the sticks which have been in a system for a while, which gets into the slots when you remove it, which can cause contact issues.

[PC4Free]

Did you try resetting the CMOS?

Try with one stick of the 512 and one stick of the 1gb and see if you can boot it?

Give the memory slots a good clean out with compressed air, you can often get dust building up on the sticks which have been in a system for a while, which gets into the slots when you remove it, which can cause contact issues.

oh, Pob

Yeah i had been resetting CMOS.

So i tried the stick of the 512 with the 1gb and to begin with i got a Paul Smith pattern on the monitor. Forgot to reset CMOS -d'oh.
Reset.... JOY, it posted. So i can now use both sticks to get 1.5gb, but not use both of the 1gb sticks at the same time.

Thanks so much mate

Is it bad to use the RAM mismatched?

If anyone has any ideas on getting up to the 'full' 2gb they would be greatly appreciated.

[Pob255]

Have you tried each individual 1gb stick in each slot?
Also try swapping the 1gb stick that worked with the 512mb stick for the other 1gb stick and try again.

If both 1gb sticks work individually with a 512mb stick then it's probably a ram setting being applied automatically that's causing the issue (automatic settings tend to run off the lower of the two sticks)
Once in windows run cup-z to see what it's actually running at and the various settings of the 1gb stick.
Try manually setting the ram settings to the current working numbers then swap the the 512mb for the 1gb and see if that works.

[PC4Free]

Thanks for your patience and knowledge Pob
2Gigs up and running.
Cheers matey