Little Ram Trouble

S

Stiffy

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 3, 2006
Messages
278
Hi all,

Ok so I have an MSI K8N Neo 4 Plat MB which supposedly supports up to 4gb of ram.

Well, currently I have two 512mb pc3200 nanya chips in slots 1 and 3. I say 1 and 3 because if I try to use them in 2 and 4, the computer spins but it doesn't post or beep or anything. I dont care that much, I can manage with two gigs. So i go out and buy two 1gb sticks of Patriot pc3200.

I stick them in slots 1 and 3. Posts fine, but it only detects 512mb of ram. I tried just one, alternating between the slots. Still, only detects 512mb. For a second I thought maybe another slot blew. I'm stuck with these two darn 512 sticks, which together show 1g. Why won't two 1gb sticks show 2gb?!@!?

Thanks if you can help.
 
Stiffy said:
Hi all,

So i go out and buy two 1gb sticks of Patriot pc3200.
I stick them in slots 1 and 3. Posts fine, but it only detects 512mb of ram. I tried just one, alternating between the slots. Still, only detects 512mb. For a second I thought maybe another slot blew. I'm stuck with these two darn 512 sticks, which together show 1g. Why won't two 1gb sticks show 2gb?!@!?

Thanks if you can help.
Click to expand...

Your post is a bit confusing... I'll try to sort it out. So you should be seeing 2gb... You put 2x1gb sticks in slots 1 and 3 and it only shows 512. Have you run memtest86? Called Patriot to trouble-shoot? Both of these should be done at some point either way.
You probably can't put the sticks in just slots 2 and 4. It's an old dual-channel DDR1 config. It's assigned slots for the initial ram. (all this is in your mobo manual) You can add to 2 and 4, most likely, 1 and 3 have to be filled with memory first however.

Try leaving your original ram in slots 1 and 3 and then add the new ones to 2 and 4. If you still see only a 512mb gain, most likely you have some faulty ram. Either way I'd run Memtest with those configurations.
 
I got the ram from a friend, so Patriot can't help me. I did however see his computer, he was my roommate, so the ram is good. Anyways, I'll run memtest and get back to you. Thanks for helping.
 
Stiffy said:
I got the ram from a friend, so Patriot can't help me. I did however see his computer, he was my roommate, so the ram is good. Anyways, I'll run memtest and get back to you. Thanks for helping.
Click to expand...

Not a problem. Assuming the ram is good because it ran good last week (let alone a while ago) isn't a safe bet. There's are a ton of possible things that can happen that cause ram to go bad. And the one thing you see more often than not is, "it worked fine yesterday, nothing changed... now it doesn't work."
A memory diagnostic is the only way to begin the steps of trouble-shooting to determine whether or not the chips, slots, etc are good or bad.
 
well this is weird. I put the two 1gig sticks in slots 2 and 4 and it booted up!
However it is only showing 2gigs, which should show 3gigs. I never did run memtest, that site confused me. However I did run CPU-Z and it showed that the 1gig sticks were being recognized as 512mb.

My two 512 sticks were showing make and model and all the other information on there, but with the "supposed" 1gig sticks that showed 512, it was all blank.

My motherboard claims that each slot supports 1gig, and these sticks of ram have shown as 1gig a piece in a seperate system. Is there something I can change to allow my slots to support 1gig?

F'ing weird.
 
Try checking to see if your motherboard manufacture has a BIOS update. That may fix the problem.
 
That does sound like a bios issue. So yeah get the updated bios. It might also be a banking issue with the motherboard maker. Check the manufacturer's web site for support or a forum page to see if it's a known issue with that model.
 
Look under the heat spreaders at your 1GB modules. Are they single sided or dual sided? How many total ICs are on them? This could be a density issue with the NForce4 Ultra chipset as it is an older chipset.
 
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