Won't start after RAM upgrade

[Selig]

Greetings

After a bit of fun today I got Windows 7 loaded to my system, upgraded from XP. I was running it with an Athlon 64 X2 6000 with 2gb Abit ram and everything was running just fine. Then I decided to install the Corsair XMS 2 2gb sticks that I just bought last week. I reboot and I get to the Starting Windows screen and it just hangs there frozen like a side of beef. I thought well, maybe it's the RAM so I put my original Abit sticks back in there and added a couple of 1gb sticks I'd just removed from the wifes pc after putting Corsair in hers. No luck again.

Is there anything I can do to check if windows just doesn't like my RAM? It shows up just fine in the BIOS but windows just isn't liking it.

 

[Selig]

Did a bit of research on my hardware

I have the following
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H motherboard
AMD ATHLON 64 X2 6000+
580W power supply


I also did a bit of swapping with my ram last night and found that I can use the 2gb Corsair sticks one at a time and it works fine. So it seems that when I exceed 2gb of ram then Windows freezes at the Starting Windows screen.

Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

 

[H2SO4]

Did a bit of research on my hardware

I have the following
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H motherboard
AMD ATHLON 64 X2 6000+
580W power supply


I also did a bit of swapping with my ram last night and found that I can use the 2gb Corsair sticks one at a time and it works fine. So it seems that when I exceed 2gb of ram then Windows freezes at the Starting Windows screen.

Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

The most likely explanation is some type of hardware-level incompatibility. I hear what you're saying about the POST registering all 4GB, but unfortunately that's not enough to guarantee that the memory is matched, the voltages are correct, the timings are right...

My suggestion would be to flag your own post (triangle icon in the upper right corner) and thus ask one of the moderators to move the thread to the "hardware" section of the forum. You're more likely to find expertise relevant to this issue over there.

 

[ldillon]

Same problem

I've had the same problem on two different PC's with different RAM.
The BIOS sees the RAM fine and I can boot Linux live CD's without issue, leading me to believe that it's not a hardware issue.

 

[fseal]

Did the Linux live CDs actually see/use all 4 gigs though? Sometimes they are kernel limited to 2 gigs or even less in order to be more reliable on boot.

Mixing brands/specs of ram is always a bit dicey...

Windows doesn't know or do anything about the ram modules itself, but it does USE the ram more than XP and Linux do. It will precache stuff to ram a lot more aggressively and put it to better use. On Linux or XP you may have to load a big file in photoshop or blender or some other ram hungry app before the crashing started ocurring, but the bottom line would still be that the ram is either incompatible with the MB or with the other two sticks...

You can run a bootable Memtest86 disk to check for sure...

 

[ldillon]

Fseal, thanks for the reply.

Ran memtest 86+ on both boxes and it came back OK.
Linux live CD saw all 4gb.

If the RAM was actually bad, I would expect Windows to boot, but lock up some time later as Windows tends to "fill up" the first modules before it fills the next. (I realize that memory allocation isn't like a gas tank, but to prevent memory fragmentation, it does tend to utilize lower RAM first)

Also, if the memory was bad, swapping the modules around in the slots will change where or when the lockup occurs (if it's just a bad cell).

I've probably done over 100 RAM upgrades and I've never seen any OS not like something the BIOS was OK with, aside from bad cells, which memtest86 catches.

The first time it happened, I called it a fluke. Now that it's happened twice on different hardware ... I'm posting because I'm stumped.

 

[fseal]

K, sounds like you got everything covered... :/

My current computer had an odd problem where if I swap modules in slots 0 and 2 with 1 and 3 it wont boot, but putting them back does. All 4 modules are the same ram bought in "matched pairs". Computer never crashes and I frequently fill ram to the 7.5 gig mark. But that's how touchy those things are

If it is caused by windows I'd bet it's because of some side effect of using the ram faster or in different places or using more threads acessing it "at once" than XP or Linux ever did. Thus exposing the chipset to more work and more likely to fail due to ram voltage sagging or whatnot. Dunno...

 

[dwnelson166]

I'm experiencing the same issue.

I'm experiencing the same issue. My Intel Q965 motherboard is expandable up to 8GB RAM using 4-2048MB PC5300 DDR2 667MHz DIMMs; I'm currently using 4-1024MB PC5300 DDR2 667MHz DIMMs - the original manufacturer's set up and that works fine.

I purchased 2-2048MB DIMMs and paired them:

Channel A - Slot 0 = 1024
Channel A - Slot 1 = 2048

Channel B - Slot 0 = 1024
Channel B - Slot 1 = 2048

The BIOS (with most recent update from 9/2007) recognizes 6GB paired correctly, however Windows 7 Ultimate x64 hangs indefinitely at the "Starting Windows" screen while the computer makes absolutely no attempt at any activity.

Has this issue been resolved? Does anyone have any suggestions?

The DIMMs I purchased are definitely compatible with my motherboard.