Old gateway doesn't accept memory upgrade.. please help

M

Matt126

Gawd
Joined
Aug 13, 2001
Messages
812
Ok I do freelance computer repair and I've been doing it for a few years now.. I thought I had saw it all until now. I have been messing with this computer for 3 days now and I've exhausted every possible option that I can think of, including googling for answers.

The computer itself is a 950mhz Athlon, with a kt133a or kt133 chipset, not sure which. It came stock with 64mb of ram, and obviously you need more than 64mb of ram for windows XP to run decently. So I got XP installed with the 64mb until I got the upgrade. I aquired 2 sticks of pc133 256mb, one micron, the other generic. When I install either stick I get the same symptoms, no matter what configuration I try. Leaving the 64mb in or taking it out doesn't make a difference. But here's what happens.. The BIOS detects it fine, but when I try to boot into windows, it does the loading screen, the keyboard and mouse initialize, blah blah, but then it looks like it's going to go into windows, but alas a black screen appears for about 20-30 seconds, then you can hear the hard drive give out, and the computer restarts. Booting in safe mode works PERFECTLY. It see's the ram, everything runs fine. This computer is worthless without a memory upgrade, but alas, it cannot be upgraded. I am using the specs that gateway recommends for this machine.

ANY IDEAS would be absolutely appreciated

Thanks,
Matt
 
In my experience, most older machines will not take PC133 RAM, try PC100. Else it may be a Gateway that takes a specific memory module to work and not generic Ram.
 
Could it be a high density/low density issue?

Some mobos could not handle high density chips so you needed to be sure to get low density RAM.

BB
 
Well, one of the sticks is double-sided, the other one isn't. I assume that mean I have both varieties, neither of which work properly. Do you think it would be worth it to try and install Win2k and see if that does anything different? Safe mode works for god sake...

-Matt
 
Get memtest86+ and run that with one of the sticks in and then the other. If you get any errors try changing the memory timings in BIOS if it will allow it.

Also, next time you do something like this, go to Crucial's site and get the RAM from them. They will guarantee that it will work with the system you have. It's usually the best way to make sure you get RAM that will work with the system. You can also go there now and see what it says about what RAM you can and cannot put in the system. That may help you solve incompatibility problems.
 
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