"Bad" Memory Stick Question

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Peachesbackwards

Member
I'd appreciate someone giving me their opinion on this, in case the Ebay seller of
my memory stick upgrade, tells me I'm nuts. I ordered from this guy 2 used, 512 mb RAM sticks so I could upgrade my Thinkpad T23 from 512 to 1Gig- the highest it allows. Rather then put both new 512 sticks in at once, I checked them out one at a time. Thus I replaced one of my 256 sticks with his 512, giving me 768 RAM & the results were great. Everything ran significantly faster. However, when I then added in his other 512 stick to replace my other 256 one, giving me 1 GIG of RAM, my laptop slowed down significantly. This stick of RAM did however read on my laptop as 512 & was the same exact brand stick as his other one, which is fully compatible with my laptop. I rebooted several times & the results of my laptop slowing down were the same each time. Can someone please explain what they think is wrong with the stick as it does read on my laptop as function as 512? I'm just going to ask him to replace it & am not anticipating a problem as this guy sells used memory on Ebay.
 
check each stick or ram. dont put the 256 back in. put in 512 AT a time and get memtest86. if the cmoputer isnt freezing, crashing, restarting, or shutting down randomly, then its not a RAM problem. are you sure your laptop can take 1gig?
 
With the 512 stick of RAM you know works, put that within every RAM slot you have within your laptop and when placed in each individual slot run memtest at least twice. Repeat for each slot when you move the RAM module. If it passes within each slot that pretty much eliminates the laptop itself having a faulty RAM slot. Do the same with the other stick of RAM you purchased (The other 512) and repeat the steps above. If that passes then it most likely isn't your RAM that you purchased.

Trial and error is the only method to take with such an issue. Believe me I had nothing but problems with RAM within one of my mother machines. I literally spent hours running memtest and moving the RAM modules about etc.

Let us know if you get any errors etc. If your laptop doesn't support 1gig of RAM try checking the manufacturer website. As they may have released a new BIOS or something which will allow it to.
 
or just put both 512 in and get memtest. if you have a bad slot or ram it wont start, or wont boot well, crashes, restarts, random shutdowns, freezes, and files starting to get missing on your hdd : EX my 400MHz with bad ram : "your computer is missing a file : c:something/ntfs driver. please load the windows xp disc and press r for repair"... when i take that ram out it works like a charm
 
Well. I had a bad memory module within one of my computers and it started fine, ran fine, loaded things fine, it's only when something used around 75% + of the RAM amount that it started to crash. Doing the steps I suggested was the only way to figure out which stick it was as running memtest with both in told me that a stick was faulty but it never helped me determine if it was the mobo itself or which of the sticks of RAM.
 
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