Win 7 Pro won't boot after RAM upgrade, common fixes not working

ttruex · 10 Jan 2016

Hi All,

First post, and my apologies as this is surely a common topic, although my searches here came up empty.

I have a Toshiba Satellite A505-S6020 running Win 7 Pro which has 2X2Gb RAM sticks, which I tried to update to 2x4Gb. I purchased the RAM off the Toshiba website, which matches it to this specific model.

When putting in the new RAM, Windows refuses to boot, I get the recovery screen. It won't load into safe mode, or any other mode.

When I switch back to the old RAM, it boots as usual. I can go into system configuration, and click the max memory box in the advanced boot tab, set it to 8192 bytes, and it will then boot with the 2x4Gb sticks.

Unfortunately, Windows will only use 3Gb of the 8Gb installed in this configuration. The BIOS shows 8192 bytes of RAM, Windows shows 8 Gb installed, but only 2.97Gb usable. ~5100 bytes are hardware reserved.

If I uncheck the Max memory box and restart, windows again will not boot. I have to swap RAM again to get it running.

My Bios version is 1.40, the latest Toshiba says is available for this machine. It does not have any provision for memory remapping that I can find.

Any ideas?

Mellon Head · 10 Jan 2016

When you put the new RAM in do you get any beeping on bootup? Can you get into BIOS? If you can, can you see the full 8 GB of RAM there?

ALso, you shouldn't have to go into system configuration for the lappy to boot. That's usually only used for testing and debugging.

ttruex · 10 Jan 2016

Yes, I can catch the config menu on startup, and the BIOS shows all 8 Gb of Ram. After I exit the setup menu, windows tries to start, and gives me the "failed to start" menu, asking for safe mode, etc. Any selection from there yields an endless loop back to that menu.

Unchecking the "max memory button in the system configuration menu was the most common suggested fix, and it seems to work for many, however, in my case, it just fails the safe mode start menu again.

ETA- Beeping, Not sure, will have to reactivate the beep setting in BIOS.

Mellon Head · 10 Jan 2016

That is really peculiar. Maybe we'll get a beep code when you enable beeping again. That would at least give us something to work with.

So if I read you right, you can get into safe mode with the new RAM?

ttruex · 10 Jan 2016

No, haven't tried that. Using old RAM, I run Configsys, and go the boot tab, then advanced, then select the "max Memory" box, then set it to 8192. Shut down, swap RAM, it fires up, but only uses 2.97Gb of the 8Gb it says is installed.

So long as I leave the box checked, I can do anything I could do with the old 2x2Gb RAM, (expect use the other 5Gb). Uncheck it, and it's a goof loop to the unsafe shutdown menu (asks if I want safe mode on restart). Still can access the BIOS on startup, but any selection on the windows recovery menu results in fail and restart

ttruex · 11 Jan 2016

If it matters, this was originally a windows Home edition, which I upgraded to Pro as I need theXP VM capabilities for some other programs I run.

ttruex · 12 Jan 2016

OK, turned the beeper back on, shut down, installed 2x4G RAM, and got nothing. I get the black "starting windows" page, then before the 4 little colored squares appear, the restore menu appears. Hit any selection, it goes through the same loop, back to the restore menu. hitting power button shuts it down instantly, instead of having to hold it 5 secs.

shut it down, put the 2x 4 G back in, and it fires back up just fine.

**Pauly** · 12 Jan 2016

Are you 100% sure you have 64bit OS installed as 3GB usable ram is not uncommon on a 32bit system

ttruex · 12 Jan 2016

Well, it says it's a 64 bit OS....

Mellon Head · 12 Jan 2016

I'm starting to wonder if you have a bad stick of RAM. Maybe try the 4GB sticks one at a time and see if it will boot. I checked and the laptop is supposed to support up to 8GB. It only has two memory slots, right? Not four? I ask because some newer laptops have four RAM slots, and two of them are located deep inside the machine, under the keyboard. The would mean that each slot can only handle a 2 GB RAM stick.

I don't know, it's a bit of a guess at this point.