Maximum RAM crashing PC

Graham00

Graham00

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Graham Mc
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My motherboard i know will take 3GB ram at the most having 3 slots.
I've been running 2.25GB for a while and decided to upgrade with another 1GB stick and it started crashing the system by rebooting without warning :(
So i have reverted back to as follows 1GB, 1GB, 256MB and all is working fine.

Does anyone have an idea of why the former setup upsets my PC, thanks.
 
Did you check if all memory sticks are OK?

If you had made changes to your BIOS connected to your memory at some points you may need to revert them to default factory settings.
 
make sure they are all matching speeds too,

What OS you running and when you say crashing what is happening?
 
plamen_gb said:
Did you check if all memory sticks are OK?

If you had made changes to your BIOS connected to your memory at some points you may need to revert them to default factory settings.
Click to expand...

Haven't touched BIOS settings, Windows automatically recognises ram on boot up.

david_voodoo said:
make sure they are all matching speeds too,

What OS you running and when you say crashing what is happening?
Click to expand...

Running XP, all memeory modules are DIMM DDR 333mhz PC2700, i suspect these are old now and wouldn't be used in newer PC's, mine is 7yrs old
 
have you checked that the motherboard supports 3gb? Some don't support that much even though they can take the chips.

Are all the chips the same make.

You can always run Memtest86 to make sure the chips are actually okay too

http://www.memtest.org/
 
Graham00 said:
That's just it Neil, all 3 were 1GB in 3 slots :shrug:
it's a Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo 600
Click to expand...

just because they're the same SIZE doesn't mean they're the same SPEED. But having said that normally if a slower module is inserted, all of the ram will run at the lowest speed.

Might be worth running memtest, you just download it and burn it to a CD and boot from it. It will stress the RAM and report any defects.
 
Olly_K said:
just because they're the same SIZE doesn't mean they're the same SPEED. But having said that normally if a slower module is inserted, all of the ram will run at the lowest speed.
Click to expand...

true but youve got CAS, latency etc to concider. some with different ratings just dont work well together.

but yes memtest might be worth a run to check for faulty sticks.
 
Quite often you've got to up the RAM voltage in the BIOS to run maximum memory
 
As above, Memtest86. Also put in 2 1GB modules (leave out the 256MB) and swap all 3 one at a time, this should show up any compatibility issues and isolate it to one particular stick.
 
amjad175 said:
As above, Memtest86. Also put in 2 1GB modules (leave out the 256MB) and swap all 3 one at a time, this should show up any compatibility issues and isolate it to one particular stick.
Click to expand...

Never had much faith in that Memtest doo-dah, after it failed to find a fault in one of my knackerred sticks!

I agree, sounds like one of your sticks is faulty and swapping them about should do the trick.
You may need to run each combination on an intensive game or program to find out though.
 
Mikesphotaes said:
Never had much faith in that Memtest doo-dah, after it failed to find a fault in one of my knackerred sticks!
Click to expand...

There's no guarantee it'll find the fault every time, will any software do that? Prime95 will stress test the CPU & memory and is very good at finding unstable/overheating setups.
 
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