[padlock13]

Hi all,

Let me start by saying I used to fix PC's and this one has me stumped so now I must humble myself and turn for help.

THE ISSUE:
I had 4x 512 DDR 400 ram stick in my MSI K8ngm2 mobo, I wanted to get more bang on the RAM side and bought 4x 1GB DDR 400 sticks, installed the RAM as I have done thousands of times and to my surprise the monitor stayed black no connection signal. I Pulled the GB sticks out and put one 512 in the DIMM 1 slot perfect startup then tried an alternating config 1x512 DIMM1(green slot) and 1x1GB DIMM2(purple slot), here is where it gets worse the screen came on I went into BIOS settings and only the 512 stick was being recognized. So what the heck am I supposed to do now? The mobo supports the ram according to MSI product site "MOBO Specs Here" I checked the DIMM configs (did I read them wrong?), and as additional info I am running a 500W PS so that should not be an issue. Do i need to adjust the voltage settings perhaps? or are my GB modules just hosed and I should contact the supplier for warrantee replacement? Any help would be great, as I have no clue right now. Maybe I overlooked something simple who knows. Thanks.

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Most likely the ram is bad. You can have a problem that your motherboard does not support more than 2 gigs of ram anyway. I would download the MB manual and have a look see of how much ram it can see. Another problem is that windows XP will not use any more than 3 gigs of ram anyway. So any more extra ram is just wasted. Most ram just works or not, if the ram is correct for the computer.

SRX660

[SRX660]

Most likely the ram is bad. You can have a problem that your motherboard does not support more than 2 gigs of ram anyway. I would download the MB manual and have a look see of how much ram it can see. Another problem is that windows XP will not use any more than 3 gigs of ram anyway. So any more extra ram is just wasted. Most ram just works or not, if the ram is correct for the computer.

SRX660

[SOORENA]

I have had motherboards where the memory slot stopped working after I upgraded, its kind of confusing but there are a million things that can go wrong which cause this, one being the fact that you may have pushed the new memory in too hard. One quick question, have you tried to put all 4 old sticks back in to see if they still work? This way we know that slots are fine. According to THIS your mobo seems to support 4Gb ram.

Soorena

Edited by SOORENA, 01 March 2008 - 10:40 PM.

[padlock13]

I have had motherboards where the memory slot stopped working after I upgraded, its kind of confusing but there are a million things that can go wrong which cause this, one being the fact that you may have pushed the new memory in too hard. One quick question, have you tried to put all 4 old sticks back in to see if they still work? This way we know that slots are fine. According to THIS your mobo seems to support 4Gb ram.

Soorena

Well in short answer to your question I am running all four sticks now with no problems. I contacted the company where I purchased the RAM and it they said something about it may have been RAM that wasn't designed for my NVIDIA Chip set or something like that. I didnt know they had started making RAM for specific chip sets or maybe the dude was full of crap either way I arranged to have it sent back so hopefully once I get some new sticks they will work for me.

[SOORENA]

Hopefully everything will work out and if not then you know where to come . Oh and how could I have forgotten, WELCOME TO GEEKS TO GO!!!

Soorena

[james_8970]

If you are still having problems when you get back, I'd like you to answer/do the following.
1. Are you mixing and matching RAM kits?
2. Can you give me a link to the set(s) or RAM you have purchased.
3. Let me know what voltage your RAM is running at. If you BIOS has it listed as normal, that would be 1.8V.
3. If you are not mixing and matching kits, boot into BIOS with 2 sticks of RAM, up the north bridge voltage +.05V. Try to boot. If it still fails, take 2 sticks out and then boot into BIOS again and up the voltage another .05V bringing the total to +0.1V. When you run 4 sticks of memory, your north bridge is under a large amount of stress and in often cases don't boot.
Please post your results and answer your questions here afterwards.
James

[padlock13]

Thanks for the help james just to answer your questions, the RAM was all the same. My brother bought the RAM as a packaged deal i am not really sure who. I had him call for a return and I will try different modules. The BIOS was not running stock voltage and i even spent about an hour switching to the 512 stick changing voltage then switching to the 1gb stick to no avail. I could not even get to post with one of the 1gb sticks installed, in fact i got nothing unfortunately, just a black screen w/ no connection, but i really appreciate the suggestions. Hopefully the next set of chips from a possibly more reliable source (newegg or such) and I will have better luck.

Edited by padlock13, 04 March 2008 - 11:43 PM.