Bill, let's try and reboot our conversation. I'm not trying to be offensive to you, and I appreciate that you (and everyone else here) volunteer whatever help you offer. Let's try and stay specific, and let's try to avoid antagonizing each other.
In my original thread-starter, I wrote:
I attempted a memory upgrade with x4 instead of x8 sticks. When I powered up the sys, it complained with lots of short beeps. I uninstalled the new sticks, replaced them with the old ones, and restarted.
Let me be more specific. I took out the two 256M factory-original sticks, and replaced them with the 2 1-G sticks I linked to below. The attempted upgrade didn't work, and so I removed the two 1G sticks and reinstalled the originals. I'll say more about this in a moment.
What I meant, in asking about whether a "Continuity Module" (which I called a "jumper stick", apparently incorrectly) is needed, is that I contemplated attempting a boot with just one original 256M stick installed (in hopes of ruling out a potentially damaged stick or socket), leaving one DIMM slot open. I did a similar memory upgrade on a (newer) Gateway a few months ago, and I remembered needed a continuity module for that machine. I don't know very much about the various memory configurations (that's why I'm here!), and so I didn't know whether or not I would damage the system by running with an open slot. I apologize if my terminology or tone offended you, I meant no offense. It seems clear enough that the Powerspec is fine with open slots.
Therefore, not only would it never need CRIMMs, they would most likely damage the board as you used a hammer jamming the 184pin modules in the 168pin SDRAM slots!
I contemplated running with 1 256M original stick, and wondered if I needed something to fill the empty slot. No hammers. Even I would not attempt to force a 184pin module into a 168 pin slot.
According to your motherboard link, it supports two slots. You said you plan on installing 2 X 1Gb - so where were you planning on sticking the CRIMMS? Slots 3 and 4?
I not only planned, I
did remove the two original sticks, and replaced them with the 2 1-G sticks I linked to. So the specific answer to your question is that I inserted the 1-G sticks into slots 1 and 2 of the motherboard.
Earlier, you asked:
BTW, did you know the pattern of the beeps is a code? How many beeps? 2 longs and a short? 4 shorts? Constant longs?
Yes, I do know this. When I powered the system up with the upgrade installed, the system emitted a constant stream of rapidly repeating short beeps -- "dit dit dit dit dit ..." until powered down (which I did as quickly as possible).
You wrote:
According to your motherboard link that is the right stuff. Will it do damage? In theory, and if the memory modules are not physically damaged, no. It would just not work, or would keep crashing the system (which could result in a corrupt hard drive, and lost data, however).
Fortunately, you seem to have made the same mistake I made, and come to the same conclusion (corrupted hard drive and lost data).
As it turns out, the memory on these particular 1-G sticks is organized as 64M x 4 (after the failure, I called the supplier, their tech support agent looked at the motherboard spec, and explained the problem. They're shipping compatible sticks next week). The motherboard requires memory organized as 64M x 8. That's why it didn't work. Sadly, the memory organization is not specified in the upgrade memory spec sheet that we both looked at; I guessed (as did you, apparently) and guessed wrong. Oh well.
I also share your opinion that it probably did not do any hardware damage (thankfully). The physical modules were not damaged. It appears that they corrupted the hard drive.
I hope we're still on the same page with all this. While we've been corresponding, I booted and ran a memory diagnostic with both of the original sticks installed, for a total of 512MB of RAM. All seems well, which is a good sign.
So I think we've eliminated hw issues as a source of the problem that remains.
I've run the restore CDs multiple times, in both "destructive" and "non-destructive" modes, and the system won't boot from the hard drive. As I wrote below, I've tried loading the MBR from the WD Data Lifeguard utility, both before and after running the restore, and the system still won't boot. I've also tried swapping out the factory-original 60MB WD hard drive with a new 500MB WD hard drive, and attempting the restore to it. The behavior is the same. This leads me to wonder about state information kept somewhere other than on the HD. I haven't been able to find any helpful information in the BIOS. Does the system keep state information somewhere else?
As nearly as I can tell, when the 60MB drive is installed the system has the same hardware configuration as when it was shipped (with the exception of the video card that we've already discussed), and yet restoring from the manufacturer's restore CD's doesn't work.
I'm therefore wondering what my next step towards fixing this apparent hard disk corruption issue should be.
I really
do appreciate the time you've invested in this thread. I understand that you're a volunteer, and at no time did I mean to insult, attack, or denigrate you. I apologize for giving you the wrong impression about my attitude.