4gb ram Problem Vista 32 bit Wont boot

M

MacMastaMcConnel

New Member
Hey,
I got a Toshiba Qosmio f40. I have 2gb of ram that came with the laptop standard and i wanted to bump it up to 4gb of ram. When I take the old stuff out and put the new stuff in it runs BIOs and then goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner...if i open the boot menu it shows 4098 mb of ram but it wont boot the computer I know its the right ram because i got it from Crucial and i registered my comp and they said this is the ram for my computer...
Any tips?
 
Thats exactly what happened to me! Ive been told you have to reinstall the OS with the full four gigs in to make it work, but even then Vista only sees 3. Pull one out and it will work temporarily.
 
yea i did that once but i heard that using 2 diff brands of ram even if they are the same speed and such can result in even slower speeds than you would originally obtain
 
^^ That would be a myth. As long as the 2 that are the same are in the dual channel slots then you are fine.
 
there is always the unlikely possibility that the computer is actually reading all 4096mb of ram causing an integer overflow.

2^32 = 4,294,967,296
4,294,967,296bytes = 4096mb

just a thought..
 
^ heh... I'm very, very convinced that this kinda scenario is theoretically impossible... in addition (yes I like picking on little details ;)), "integer overflow" actually is a situation where an integer variable is assigned a value larger than it can hold.

@OP... so you're saying that the computer POSTs but the OS fails to run? Just out of curiosity, if possible, I'd run a linux distro to see if the problem's with windows (I'm assuming that you're running windows here), like ukulele ninja said windows (vista?) is sometimes kinda cranky with this memory stuff. Also, did you try running both sticks separately to see if they're faulty?
 
Thats weird that it wont boot. Usually if you have 4gb it will still boot and the OS sees all 4gb but, the 32bit OS can only take advantage of something like 3.3gb.
 
ok we have a development... I tried both new sticks again and it recognized 4gb but wouldnt boot, tried each individual new 2gb stick and recognized 2gb but wouldnt boot, tried 1 new 2gb stick in slot a (front slot) and a old 1gb stick in slot b (back slot) recognized 3gb wouldnt boot. BUT put old 1gb stick in slot a and new 2gb stick in slot b, recognizes 3gb AND boots....but it seems slower than before with the 2 old 1 gb sticks...
any ideas???
 
ok we have a development... I tried both new sticks again and it recognized 4gb but wouldnt boot, tried each individual new 2gb stick and recognized 2gb but wouldnt boot, tried 1 new 2gb stick in slot a (front slot) and a old 1gb stick in slot b (back slot) recognized 3gb wouldnt boot. BUT put old 1gb stick in slot a and new 2gb stick in slot b, recognizes 3gb AND boots....but it seems slower than before with the 2 old 1 gb sticks...
any ideas???
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top