RAM problem.

[Gordon-Shepherd]

I just bought two gigs of RAM so I could play l4d. However, when installed, upon startup, after the windows XP loading screen, my screen just goes black.
I checked online and apparently my motherboard supports a max of 2gb. I tried 1.5, using my old RAM, same result.

Would DXdiag help you help me?

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

What kind/brand/model/speed/etc. of RAM (2 X 1gb sticks, or 4 X 512mb sticks?), and motherboard model/brand?

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

http://www.measham.force9.co.uk/advent/pc/3316.htm

my pc/motherboard. However, my video card is now a radeon x1650 pro.

the new RAM= 2 sticks of 1gb PC2700 333MHZ DDR DIMM

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

Have you done any overclocking/tweaking on the CPU or old RAM before?

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Nothing apart from changing my video card a year ago to the aforementioned radeon.
I wasn't there when this happened tbh- I don't know how longi t lasted. Could this have been some sort of installation period? Maybe I need to update my video drivers?

 

[giant384]

"FSB533 CPU is required in order to choose DDR333 selection in the BIOS setup"

saw this on that site, is there an option for you to be able to use ddr333 ram?

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

Did you try taking the new RAM sticks out and trying just the old stick of RAM by itself again to make sure it has to do with the new RAM sticks?

If it works good with the old RAM, take it out and just install 1 of the new sticks of RAM, try it out in one memory slot, and then the other, and do the same thing for the other new stick or RAM.

Also, try booting up into safe mode.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

"FSB533 CPU is required in order to choose DDR333 selection in the BIOS setup"

saw this on that site, is there an option for you to be able to use ddr333 ram?

From my dxdiag-
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.06GHz (2 CPUs)
This sounds good enough
As for the other thing I'll ask now

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

Looks like this is your CPU:Pentium 4 Northwood (3.06GHz, 512KB, 533MHz, Socket 478)

Just make sure your RAM is set to DDR333 in the BIOS.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

the ebay page has little more info, just that it's two samsung 1gb 1 module pc2700 333MHZ DDR 184 pin DIMM
Sir phoenixx, I'll try that. How does one do that?

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

Keep pressing F8 as your PC boots up, choose safe mode with networking.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Okay, much love
sorry I ninja edited that last post, you preposted me. How does one change it to ddr333 in the bios?

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

On my other PC (asus motherboard) I would go to Advanced, CPU Configuration, DRAM Configuration, and change "Max Memclock" to DDR333. Yours is probably setup/worded differently. Press Delete after your PC boots up to get into the bios.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

do you mean before it gets to the windows xp loading screen?
Im sorry Im being so nitpicky here, I really appreciate this.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Nevermind, problem solved on another forum.
Much love!

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

Disregard that, and please excuse the triplepost, I plan on deleting this thread when the problem is fixed anyway.
I checked my BIOS menu (it was del, by the way) and there was no option to change my DRAM clock or anything similar.. people have said they don't think that's the problem anyway. I have to put my old RAM back in to come on here for support, even safemode won't work..

 

[giant384]

did you try the method that phoenix suggested with the switching out ram? thats the really only sure fire way of finding out the problem right now. put different ram in different slots, different combinations until you can see if you have a bad ram stick or not.

 

[Gordon-Shepherd]

The problem definitely seems to be with the new RAM. It only ****s up with the new RAM.