Upgraded RAM; Vista won't boot

[Adam]

I have been running Vista Ultimate for 6months now with no problem. I
ordered 2 gigs of the same exact memory I had installed on my computer to
upgrade my computer from 2gigs to 4. I installed the new memory in the
remaining two slots and tried to boot the computer. I enabled Memory
Remapping on my motherboard, and it recognized all 4 gigabytes of RAM.
However, when I try to boot, windows errors out before I see any load screen
and I either get a message about bad checksums, invalid signatures, or that
some system file is corrupt/missing. When I take the new RAM out it works
fine. I tried going to msconfig, boot.ini, and setting the MAXMEM to 4096,
but that didn't help. I tried installing Microsoft update that addressed
Vista not installing if you had 4 gb of RAM, but that didn't work either.

I tried booting from the DVD, but after Vista loaded into memory, it would
error out as well and never get to the Vista Boot screens.

My specs are:

P5N-e Motherboard
Corsair 5400c4
Western Digital 320GB HD
Nvidia 8800GTS

Any help would be GREATLY appreciate.

Thanks.

 

[LouB]

I have been running Vista Ultimate for 6months now with no problem. I
ordered 2 gigs of the same exact memory I had installed on my computer to
upgrade my computer from 2gigs to 4. I installed the new memory in the
remaining two slots and tried to boot the computer. I enabled Memory
Remapping on my motherboard, and it recognized all 4 gigabytes of RAM.
However, when I try to boot, windows errors out before I see any load screen
and I either get a message about bad checksums, invalid signatures, or that
some system file is corrupt/missing. When I take the new RAM out it works
fine. I tried going to msconfig, boot.ini, and setting the MAXMEM to 4096,
but that didn't help. I tried installing Microsoft update that addressed
Vista not installing if you had 4 gb of RAM, but that didn't work either.

I tried booting from the DVD, but after Vista loaded into memory, it would
error out as well and never get to the Vista Boot screens.

My specs are:

P5N-e Motherboard
Corsair 5400c4
Western Digital 320GB HD
Nvidia 8800GTS

Any help would be GREATLY appreciate.

Thanks.

Memory might be bad.
If you can you might take out existing memory and putting the new stuff
in its place. If machine fails then new memory *is* bad.

Lou

 

[Adam]

I will try this, but since I just pulled the memory out of the package
yesterday I doubt that is the problem.

Assume the memory isn't bad, is there some other configuration problem I
need to address with Vista?

 

[SCORPIO]

This problem is not occured because of memory only.
There are some problems in Windwos Vista with NVIDIA chipset
and 4 GB ram.
Check NVIDIA site about Vista.

Find Answers (Page 1 of 26)
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php
Hotfixes
http://www.nvidia.com/object/windows_vista_hotfixes.html

Please check out the following article of Microsoft :

You randomly receive a "Stop 0000000xA" error in Storport.sys when you start
Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930261/en-us

I don't know if you have error messages but read it. It will be helpful.

Stanos

 

[LouB]

I will try this, but since I just pulled the memory out of the package
yesterday I doubt that is the problem.

Assume the memory isn't bad, is there some other configuration problem I
need to address with Vista?

Just cause you have new stuff does not mean it could not be bad.

Lou

 

[jabloomf1230]

Adam,

Try using Google with "Vista x64 4 GB RAM" as keywords. It is a common
problem, especially with the 8800 GPUs. I'll give you a short summary.
First, you need to go into your BIOS setup and look for an option that
is called "Memory Hole". If this option is not enabled, the BIOS maps
the GPU and some other hardware memory addresses to just above the 2 GB
limit. That means that you will encounter problems with more than 2 GB
RAM and this BIOS option disabled. I can't tell you exactly what the
BIOS option is called, because it is called different things by
different mobo manufacturers. If you enable this option in the BIOS, the
memory locations reserved for the GPU etc. are remapped, so that Vista
can use the full 4 GB of RAM without conflicts.

Second, search the internet for the NVidia 4GB memory x64 hotfix. Here's
a typical discussion that covers your mobo:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=45109

Lastly, make sure you are running the most recent nVidia drivers. I use
the 169.13 beta driver, because I am playing Crysis and have an SLI setup.

Personally, I would take out the new 2GB of RAM, boot up Vista and make
all those changes above first. Then shut down. Boot into the BIOS setup,
check that you are showing all 4 GB RAM and the RAM timings are all
correct. Then boot into Vista and everything should work.

JB

 

[ato_zee]

Just cause you have new stuff does not mean it could not be bad.

There are a number of floppy based memory checkers, I use
DocMemory which runs a repeating suite of test patterns to
find addressing problems and stuck bits. Takes about 10mins
a pass then it repeats, all day if needed.
I always use it with new RAM, even Crucial out of the
antistatic pack.

 

[David B.]

Having something new in a package does not guarantee it is not defective, in
fact in your case it is very likely it is bad or not compatible as the
problems started as soon as you installed it.