Inspiron 5100 RAM upgrade freezes Windows from booting

Hey everyone. I went out and bought some new RAM for my Inspiron 5100- I purchased from Fry's Electronics in Southern California two 1Gb PC-2100 266MHz CL3 (and then returned for CL2.5) from Patriot memory, SoDimm's and attempted to install that, after I flashed my bios up to A32 from A28 to A32 down to A22 back up to A32 (troubleshooting the bios upgrade).

After installing my new RAM, the BIOS saw that there was new RAM, which I checked and verified that I had the 2Gb available. (I should also say that I recently put Windows 7 Pro on this tank, which has been working fine with the A28 bios and original RAM.) Once I get past the bios boot sequence, Windows 7 starts up, but it soon freezes at the loading splash page with the glowing Windows flag. After trying each Dimm separately, I confirmed that they both are functioning on their own and I am able to get all the way through the Windows boot sequence and am able to see that I have 1Gb available in my system properties, but the second I add any RAM past 1Gb the thing freezes.I should also mention that both of the original 256 and 128 DIMMs worked fine, its not a bad DIMM seat, or whatever you call it...

Can anyone shed some light on this subject for me and help me get that 2Gb RAM I so desparately need? Ive read that people are able to get 2Gb working in their 5100, but I am starting to suspect that they have the 5150 which says it can max out at 2Gb, where as the 5100 has a max of 1Gb. Could I just be seeing people not knowing what model they really have, or do I need to do something else?

cheers!

Jadan