memory put in both slots cause OS to freeze

Hi everyone.
Is this the 3rd attempt to have an Averatec forum? Hopefully, notebookreview won't be forced to shut this part of their site down.

I was just getting into the 1st forum when it went down, then into the 2d, when it went down. I'm glad I found this one.

Here's one of my problems with my 2300 (or is it 2370?).

It has that dumb hidden partition that contains the OS (Windows XP Media) and other stuff. I hate it. Why didn't they supply us with CDs?

Anyway, when I bought the computer from Office Max, I also bought an extended warranty. As it turns out, I found out yesterday what was told to me by the OM manger is covered, is not covered. I'm a bit upset with OM.
But that's another thread to be started.

Problem: I pulled the original mem. and put in 2, 1G sticks of Crucial.
It works fine as long as only one stick is in a slot, but put in both sticks and the system freezes.

It goes through post and get to the log in screen, but as soon as the hard drive has stopped doing its thing, keyboard, mouse, all, is frozen. Don't have time to put in a password, but that wouldn't matter anyway, since everything is frozen. It also freezes when I try to start from Safe Mode.

I called Tri... and they have no clue. I called OM and they suggest blow away the system and reinstall the OS from my CDs--which of course I don't have. --just the dumb, hidden partition, that gives me a popup that says it is damaged and needs to be reinstalled.

I'm not too keen on blowing away everything and starting over. What do I do with my 80 gigs of info that I want to keep?

And OM says since I am making an "upgrade," my warranty doesn't cover any problem--if there's a motherboard problem when trying to install 2 mem sticks. They say that since only one slot worked when I got the system, that's all they cover--1 slot.

To try to get away from a potential reinstall, does anyone have ideas of what might be the problem? I'm thinking chipset or video drivers are corrupt or need an update? but who knows.

Since boot in safe mode also froze, maybe it isn't a driver problem? I guess I won't know until I reinstall XP media. Which may or may not reinstall from the hidden partition.

Last night, I put both sticks of mem in the computer and started and ran from a CD, Memtest, overnight. With both sticks in, Memtest came up with 0 errors.

So, the memory is fine. And Crucial confirms that it is the correct mem for this laptop.

Any ideas, so I don't have to blow away the OS and all my data/software?

The tech support at Crucial suggested if Safe mode worked, it'd be a driver and the easiest fix is to reinstall the OS (although the popup says that needs to be reinstalled--the hidden partition.)

He also said if Safe mode did not work, it could be the BIOS. But the BIOS is so poor, there isn't anything to play with.

What are your ideas?

Thanks,
Bob

 

It is possible that your RAM is okay but that your motherboard is choking on it. Do you know which motherboard you have or what the specs are? Did you buy 2 exact the same modules?

 

Each stick of memory is the same.
I don't know what motherboard the Averatec 2370 has in it.

Since memtest, with both sticks in the computer ran all night and I got no errors, would that mean the motherboard is okay?

Something is certainly choking on the additional mem, when the system brings up the BIOS, HDD, OS, and peripherals.

Memtest was run from a bootable CD, so it bypassed all of that, with the exception of the display running in VGA mode and having keyboard control on the space bar, CR, Esc, up/down arrows. Everthing else is off.

 

Could be a graphical driver issue if your graphics card is using shared memory. Have you tried installing the latest graphics drivers? To be clear about this your system has so far only freezed in Windows?

 

Yes, the freeze is only in Windows. I have no way to check anything else.

I could make a bootable DOS CD. I guess if that goes, with both sticks in place, then the issue is the OS & drivers.

I thought though that in windows "safe" mode, most of the drivers, even the graphics was disabled. Not so?

We know the mem works when system runs from a cd, does not work when boots from the HDD and goes into windows, either to the regular GUI or the VGA GUI in safe mode.

I tried to locate the graphics drivers, but haven't been able to. They must be hidden, so even if I get updates or reload what's on, I'm not sure where to put them.

I don't know if the control panel can be trusted to blow away everything, then put the new drivers where they are supposed to go.

I guess all I can do is try?

Wish I could Ghost this before I do any of that. But with only 1 partition and it being NTFS, I don't know how to do that. Would just a backup of the OS onto CDs, put the drivers that are on now, back on, in case the new ones crash?

 

Okay i did not read that the system freezes in Windows as well. I find it cheap from the support service that they say that you have bought it with only 1 stick and that you don't get support for 2 sticks.

Have you tried a BIOS update? Could just be that the RAM is not fully compatible with your motherboard.