3gb of RAM works 4GB nothing happens

jordan282 · 28 Nov 2009 at 11:27

i have windows 7 pro 64 bit
I had 2 x 1 gb sticks
Bought another 2 x 1 gb sticks
3gb works fine / 4gb the fans etc turn on but the screen remains blank

quyeno · 28 Nov 2009 at 11:34

have you tried booting with just the 2 new sticks? could be a faulty stick in there.

sorn21 · 28 Nov 2009 at 11:35

Could be a possible faulty stick or a faulty socket on the motherboard.

Best thing to do is try booting with one stick at a time, that will eliminate them from being broken.

TUNSTALL_NICK · 28 Nov 2009 at 13:00

all the same ram?

siumatfung · 28 Nov 2009 at 13:02

flash the BIOS

rodo · 28 Nov 2009 at 15:11

TUNSTALL_NICK said:
all the same ram?

RavenLunatic · 28 Nov 2009 at 15:20

Sounds like a memory timing problem to me. I had a similar problem with an ASUS P5N-E SLI which had a nVidia chipset. Memory controller could not handle 4 sticks of DDR2 800 at the rated speed and would not post. Dropping the Memory speed down to DDR2 533 Speeds and it worked great. I suggest putting in 3 sticks then go into the BIOS and drop the memory speed to 267Mhz or 533Mhz if the bios requires the DDR2 frequency. Then put in the 4th Memory stick.

What motherboard are you using?

RJC · 28 Nov 2009 at 15:26

Check each module with mem-test, what board are you using? as the MCH voltage may need to be increased.

rodo · 28 Nov 2009 at 15:30

Can you give the model number/reference of the board in question?

jordan282 · 28 Nov 2009 at 22:25

im using an abit ip35 pro
I have tried all the sticks and they are all working fine
so im geussing the problem is the 4th slot?
how do i change the bios thingy? im not really familiar with the RAM only cpu and hard drive stuff

IAmATeaf · 28 Nov 2009 at 22:32

You probably need to bump up the north bridge voltage, also check the memory timings and voltages to ensure they are correct.

engstrom0304 · 28 Nov 2009 at 22:34

Hi,
I had this problem one time, i tried everything there was to try. Then i realised that one of the pins had a wafer thin bit of plastic or somthing on it, used some toilet paper and cleaned it off and it worked. Just check all the pins are ok.

jordan282 · 28 Nov 2009 at 22:43

UPDATE

increased the north bridge by 0.04 and worked fine
computer recognises 4gb of RAM and so far so good
the only problem was a slight delay at the boot up?
Maybe i should increase it a bit more? im not sure

rodo · 28 Nov 2009 at 23:19

is the Ram voltage correct? It'll probably say the recommend voltage on a small sticker on the stick

StevenRaith · 28 Nov 2009 at 23:32

rodo said:
is the Ram voltage correct? It'll probably say the recommend voltage on a small sticker on the stick

+1 - I had some minor stability issues with my 8gb of 1066 RAM [4x2gb] when running at full whack - upping the volts to the recommended 2.1v solved the problem entirely.

jordan282 · 29 Nov 2009 at 00:06

are we still talking about the northbridge voltage?

jordan282 · 29 Nov 2009 at 00:40

here is my RAm btw

http://www.geil.com.tw/products/showSpec/id/65

Tuvoc · 29 Nov 2009 at 06:15

jordan282 said:
here is my RAm btw

http://www.geil.com.tw/products/showSpec/id/65

That's nice RAM, my brother's P5N-E SLI has had 4 x 1GB of that stuff in a P5N-E SLI for nearly 3 yrs now, running 24/7. It does need 2.1v from memory, that is what we have it set at anyway (2.0875 in the ASUS BIOS). As has been mentioned, with the right memory voltage and northbridge voltage it should be OK. It may not need the full 2.1v, experiment

jordan282 · 29 Nov 2009 at 11:28

my ddr2 voltage is 1.8
my northbridge voltage is 1.29
so im thinking maybe juice up RAM to 1.9?

please note everything appears to be working fine now since i increased northbridge by 0.04 justa bit sluggish at startup

Tuvoc · 29 Nov 2009 at 12:01

If you are running at DDR2 800 at 4-4-4-12 timings, I very much doubt if 1.8v is enough. If you ran memtest I reckon you'd get errors. My first advice would be to burn a memtest CD and boot up with it, and see what happens. If it is error-free, then the memory is running fine