M17X r2 - Ram upgraded, windows fails to boot

Hi guys,

New to posting but have been lurking through upgrade posts for a while and really need some help!

Not great with these things.. but I bought two sticks of 8gb ram today (overkill, I know, but it wasn't much more expensive so went with it, going to get hopefully a new processor and ssd in the next couple of weeks). I've put the two sticks in and upon booting bios is not registering either stick (total memory 0MB), windows doesn't start and simply switches off again. Got a blue screen error with one of the tries saying ACPI_DRIVER_INTERNAL.

I can put the two older sticks in fine (a 4gb and 2gb stick), computer boots up normally.

Kingston KVR16S11/8 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL11 SODIMM is the ram I bought.

Not sure what other information is useful, but the processor is i7 M620 2.66ghz and I'm running on Windows 64bit. BIOS version A10.

Thought maybe because its a 1600mhz card maybe its not working? But from what I can tell in other posts it should just auto downgrade to whatever my computer handles.

Is it simply that I need a different type of ram and this one is incompatible?

Thanks..

 

Windows 7 sometimes has issues if you suddenly change the type and amount of RAM. I had similar issues myself, had no clue what was going on until out of pure desperateness I reinstalled Windows, and it solved.
I believe it has to do with memory allocation, and the sudden inability to decently access the memory due to other sticks/speeds/brands and especially amount of memory.

My advice would be, to easily check this without having to reinstall your system without knowing this would actually solve it:
- you can't get into windows now. Plug in a Windows DVD and boot to it and enter setup. If you are able to get into the setup, then i'm inclined to say 99% certainty that a reinstall will fix your memory problem.

Something else also you could just doublecheck, prior to the above, is typing msconfig in your prompt in windows, Select the 'boot' tab and then Advanced Options.
Check the value of Maximum Memory here, sometimes this for instance stands at 4096Mb (4Gb) or 8Gb, and gives problems when inserting more. This could potentially also be related to your problem (though I think my first option is the best guess atm)

 

Its not the ram, its your cpu, technically its an i7 but it is not capable of higher than 8gb of ram all together, so your going to have to do deal with 8 gb total as your max till you get a true i7 quad core. had the same problem with my i5 520m essentially the i7 620m is just a rebranded i5 520m with a slightly better overclock

 

Hey, thanks - super helpful! Especially glad that I don't have to reinstall windows, was getting a bit bummed out by the prospect

Dammit, so it will just not work unless the processor is upgraded as well? That's a shame.

PS Do you have any recommendation on which processor to get if I don't overclock btw?

Thanks

 

Hey, I also realised that if I just use one stick of ram, it doesn't get recognised either. Looks like it's a combo of the two issues above, which is a real pain!

 

ARK | Intel® Core

Codemanefa was 100% right

 

Great input. Thanks for clarifying. +1 Rep!

 

Just thought I'd add that not only can this processor not support more than 8gb, but it cannot support more than 4gb per stick, which is why a single 8gb stick wasn't working!


Thanks for the help guys

 

Will i7 740qm processor in alienware m17xr2 be able to support 8gb stick and handle 1600MHz? From what i read here ARK | Intel® Core, it stated that it can only handle 1333MHZ max, but i saw someone here their i7 740qm can handle up to 1600Mhz.

 

pretty confusing