Win 7 laptop freezes on boot with 2 sticks of ram, but fine with 1

Yeah I'd have to agree.

I'm so mad because when I first bought this laptop (I got it really cheap because the power board was blown.) I replaced the power board and all was fine except I had issues with it switching off when ever the battery was inserted. I bought and tried a second battery but it was the same, so I bought another SATA MOBO but still the problem persisted. After googling around some more, I convinced myself to try a third battery. Then I saw a bundle of parts for this laptop on ebay including an IDE MOBO, battery, screen, HDD and a few other peripheries, all going for £25 so I snapped it up. True enough when I tried the third battery everything was fine and it was the old battery that was faulty.

Then foolishly I resold the SATA MOBO on ebay, man I wish I hadn't now. But this is why I have all these spare parts for it.

Sigh, looks like I'm gonna have to keep an eye out for another SATA MOBO now.

Thanks for you help.

If the RAM sticks were common to both mobo's you tried and the problem returned, maybe you can resolve it by cleaning the slots even better, or testing RAM - Test with Memtest86+ again to isolate the stick that is bad.

Are you sure the RAM is spec'd exactly for the mobo?

sparkes81 said:

You are not going to believe this but after removing and replacing the IDE MOBO and HDD with the original SATA MOBO and HDD, and reassembling the laptop, I thought I would give the two sticks of RAM another try. And its just booted up fine.

How bizarre is that? I'm back to how the machine was before I foolishly tried to install Win7 64bit. I think I'm going to leave well enough alone now.

The only thing I did was to blow some air between the connections in and around the ram slots, as I could see some dust between them. Fingers crossed this will be the end of my issues now and the laptop will continue to function as it always has.

Will keep you posted.

gregrocker said:

If the RAM sticks were common to both mobo's you tried and the problem returned, maybe you can resolve it by cleaning the slots even better, or testing RAM - Test with Memtest86+ again to isolate the stick that is bad.

Are you sure the RAM is spec'd exactly for the mobo?

sparkes81 said:

You are not going to believe this but after removing and replacing the IDE MOBO and HDD with the original SATA MOBO and HDD, and reassembling the laptop, I thought I would give the two sticks of RAM another try. And its just booted up fine.

How bizarre is that? I'm back to how the machine was before I foolishly tried to install Win7 64bit. I think I'm going to leave well enough alone now.

The only thing I did was to blow some air between the connections in and around the ram slots, as I could see some dust between them. Fingers crossed this will be the end of my issues now and the laptop will continue to function as it always has.

Will keep you posted.

hi mate as I posted previously, the laptop has been running win 7 32bit for over a year without issue. The ram is definitely the correct type for the laptop. I have run memtest for over 8 hours without errors and have run the laptop with a substitute IDE MOBO with both sticks of ram without issue. The laptop ran fine for a few boots after putting the original SATA MOBO back in but then sadly reverted to freezing again.

I will try cleaning the slots tho, good idea.

Thankyou for your thoughts, all help gratefully received.

Remember that RAM isn't properly tested in cases like these until its really stressed for 6-8 passes or overnight, and that testing the slots is equally important.

Well I dont understand it but after many hours trying to get my system working with both sticks of ram with Win7, I've given up.

I have now installed windows 8 with no hardware changes and its running fine with both sticks of ram. And its 64bit too.

Thanks for all your help guys.

While we cant really call this one resolved, I have a certain sense of satisfaction now.