Help - Dimension 4100 boot problems

Question

I recently installed an additional 256m of RAM and upgraded the PC from ME to XP. Everything seemed to work OK for the first few days but now I am getting an error at startup. XP will not boot and the PC starts beeping, gives me a message about memory reduction and brings me into the dimension 4100 bios. Do I need to update something in bios for the upgrades that I made?   When I exit BIOS, the computer will boot up but it does so very slowly. I just printed out the clearing NVRAM instructions but I'm not sure if this is what I need to do or not. Please help.

mombodog · Answer

I would reseat the Ram modules first, then if no joy, remove the one you added and see if that cures it, if it does, then suspect a bad stick of new ram.

hoyakoni · Answer

yup, its the ram alright,  check the back of the tower, look at the quad pack,  if 'CD' is lit up, then its the memory,  try reseating it, its the best solution

lowman · Answer

Thanks, I'll try reseating the memory over the weekend. The 4100 has two memory slots; when I added the 256 stick, I moved the existing 128 stick to the other slot and put the 256 stick in where the initial 128 had resided. Could this have caused the problem? Should I switch them around and put the 128 stick back to where it was?   Thanks

hoyakoni · Answer

swapping the rams is also good so that you can determine if the card or hte port itslef is defective

lowman · Answer

Yes, reseating the memory did the trick; computer running better than ever.   Thanks for the help!

lowman · Answer

Alright, it's happening again. Everything worked great after reseating the memory until today. Does this mean that I've got a bad memory stick? Any recommendations on how to rectify this situation would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve

hoyakoni · Answer

try running a test on the system memory

lowman · Answer

Please explain what steps I should take to test the memory, I can't seem to figure it out.

lowman · Answer

I downloaded memory diagnostics tool from microsoft and it found numerous errors on the 256mb memory stick I bought from Memory Ten; my existing 128mb stick was fine. Taking the matter up with memory ten.

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Help - Dimension 4100 boot problems

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