XP Home fails to boot with 3GB of RAM

[Guest]

Hi,

I've got Windows XP Home edition, and I had 2.5GB of RAM in my computer.
I've upgraded from that to 3GB, but now XP won't boot up. The windows loading
screen never appears, instead a couple of small boxes appear on the screen,
one is filled in grey, and the other is filled in red. These boxes are small,
and far apart, each is the size of a character place in a DOS prompt.

It can't be a BIOS or Motherboard issue because the motherboard supports up
to 3GB of RAM, and the BIOS recognises the RAM. Indeed, I can press F8 on
startup and get to the menu allowing me to choose whether to boot normally or
try safe mode. When I try safe mode, it still will not boot up, the same
problem occurs.

I read somewhere about editing the bios.ini and adding the /3GB switch, but
this did not help, the same crash occurred.

If anyone could shed any light as to what the problem might be, I would be
most appreciative.

Thanks in advance

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

If the RAM is not matched, while the BIOS will recognise it, Windows may
elect not to run with it.. remove the RAM recently installed and try to
reboot..

 

[Guest]

I tried removing the RAM before, sorry for not specifying. The system did
succesfully boot up again. To clarify, this is the way the RAM was installed
(there are 3 RAM slots, up to a maximum of 3GB):

Originally: 2 x 1GB RAM, and 1 x 512MB RAM.
With the new RAM: 3 x 1GB RAM.

When this failed, I took out the new RAM, and booted just fine.

Next, I put the new RAM in place of one of the other 1GB DIMMs. The system
booted just fine.

So I've ascertained that the RAM is not faulty, the motherboard recognises
the RAM (I checked the BIOS setup program), the memory check came through
clear on startup, and I can boot up to the OS selection screen, should I
wish. But I can't load XP.

Is this anything to do with allocation of memory with the windows kernel?
Such as video card drivers are trying to load into the memory space the RAM
occupies, and won't load into the space reserved for the kernel? Don't know
if that makes any sense or not!

Any other suggestions would be great.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Obviously, one stick does not like working with the other two, which ever
the other two are..

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I tried removing the RAM before, sorry for not specifying. The system
did succesfully boot up again. To clarify, this is the way the RAM
was installed (there are 3 RAM slots, up to a maximum of 3GB):

Originally: 2 x 1GB RAM, and 1 x 512MB RAM.
With the new RAM: 3 x 1GB RAM.

When this failed, I took out the new RAM, and booted just fine.

Next, I put the new RAM in place of one of the other 1GB DIMMs. The
system booted just fine.

So I've ascertained that the RAM is not faulty, the motherboard
recognises the RAM (I checked the BIOS setup program), the memory
check came through clear on startup, and I can boot up to the OS
selection screen, should I wish. But I can't load XP.

Is this anything to do with allocation of memory with the windows kernel?
Such as video card drivers are trying to load into the memory space the
RAM
occupies, and won't load into the space reserved for the kernel? Don't
know
if that makes any sense or not!

Windows XP is very fussy about all sticks of RAM matching each other exactly
with respect to all their specifications, and sometimes even brand. Almost
certainly, your new RAM doesn't match the old.

 

[Guest]

Hello again,

I've been doing some more matching with the RAM. It's odd, because I've
tried every combination of the RAM possible now. All of the 1GB DIMMs work
together so long as there are two of them. They all also work with with two
of them and the 512MB DIMM. As soon as I put all three 1GB DIMMs in together,
XP won't boot. The same crash always occurs, as described before.

It even happened when I put the Windows XP CD-ROM in the drive, and booted
from that, as a test. The setup program started just fine, loading all of its
drivers. Then, as soon as it had done that, and the bottom line says
"Starting Windows", the same old crash occurred, with half of the screen
going from blue to black, and, like before, two boxes appear in this top
half. One grey, and one red, with a black "c" in it. These two boxes are the
size of one character space in a DOS prompt, like before.

It's peculiar, I don't understand why it's happening. Could it be that these
three RAM just won't work all at the same time? And I need to replace the new
RAM with another one? Or will the same thing just happen again?

I also believe that it has something to do with the graphics card. Purely
because as soon as the Windows XP loading logo would usually come up, the
system crashes. And the system crashed as soon as windows was supposed to
start in the setup program - you know, when the display changes from the blue
screen loading the drivers, to a graphical environment. Or I could be barking
up the wrong tree.

Any ideas?