Inspiron 1420 RAM stick issues

Question

Hello everyone. I'm trying to gather the proper solutions for the issue I am having now. Please excuse the informal language or my poor English.   I have a 3-year old Dell Inspiron 1420 with Windows Vista Basic, Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.50 Ghz, 1024 MB RAM, 120 GB disc space partitioned into two drives. Or I should say, I used to. Around 8 months ago I started to have BSODs with the errors 'MEMORY_MANAGEMENT', 'PAGE_FAULT_IN NON_PAGED_ERROR', and 'IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL' at random. That plus having programs freezing out of the blue without any error message and having to shut them down via Task Manager told me there was something not ok with my RAM memory. I ran Diagnostics and presto, RAM error came up. So I decided to not stress my laptop more than it was already and removed a bunch of memory-consuming programs, plus getting rid of all the unnecessary visual candy of Vista (leaving it with the Windows 98 look). It seemed to work well, as the BSODs stopped altogether. One week ago I noticed my laptop getting slower at startup/shutdown and taking longer to do everything. Thinking it was because of my hard drive's saturation, I cleaned it up in an attempt to reverse the sluggishness. Yesterday the hard drive started to make incessant clicking noises shortly after booting up. Fearing the worst, several hours ago I ran Diagnostics again, and I got the next results:   WCMch Test ERROR CODE 2000-0123MEMORY INTEGRITY TEST FAILEDADDRESS = 0_3190c064HACTUAL = DBFBFBFBhEXPECTED = FBFBFBFBh   Running Diagnostics on the partition drive threw this on the same test: MEMORY COMPARE ERRORDIMM_B    So it was very obvious by now that one of my RAM sticks was going downhill... or perhaps it was something worse. Making a bit of research on the internet about the previous error code, I learned that in order to know what was going on for sure, I had to test each RAM stick to discard socket failures. I also read on several places about a memory diagnostics tool called Memtest86, so I grabbed a copy, burned it on a CD and tried running it with both memory sticks. Some errors came up in the different tests, but it was until it reached the 'Random number sequence' one when things got very, very ugly. Literally I got thousands of errors; I stopped all and restarted it, this time testing each memory stick sequentially. To make it short, the thing was so bad that it froze the test. I proceeded next to open the hatch and release the faulty stick indicated before, and then tested the other one. Everything went perfect. I tested the other socket swapping the stick left, everything was good. When I tried the removed stick on either socket, the laptop simply didn't boot; the Caps Lock LED flashed around ten times, I could hear the hard drive spinning, but soon came to a shutdown. At this point I had clearly identified the cause of my problems... but here comes the strange part (at least for me, I hope someone can explain this): I tried reinserting both RAM sticks, and the laptop didn't boot; swapped them, didn't boot. Removed faulty stick, booted up like nothing happened, except slower (as expected).   Right now I'm using the laptop with only one RAM stick; needless to say, it's slow as hell, but so far the abnormal hard drive clicking has stopped in its entirety. I want to think it is safe, but I want to be sure; that's why I come today to this board to ask: Is there a way my laptop can get to boot with both sticks inserted, or is the non-booting the way to tell me the faulty one has gone to greener pastures? Is it safe for my hard drive to run with only one memory stick? Is there something else I should do or set up (e.g., BIOS, etc.) to adapt my laptop according to its current situation? Should I format my laptop to get a clean drive and make the load easier for the remaining stick? Should I downgrade to Windows XP to lessen the RAM consumption? (This point in particular worries me, as I fear of driver incompatibilities - Factory Vista, that's why...) And last, but not least... If I want to get new RAM sticks, do I have to replace both? Given my laptop's specifications, which RAM sticks are the best for it?     Thank you very much in advance.

ejn63 · Accepted Answer

You've pinned one problem down to a bad memory module - just replace it. Crucial.com is one good source of guaranteed compatible RAM.

The other problem you have is a faulty hard drive. You'll need a new, 2.5" 9.5 mm or slimmer SATA notebook drive.

Korscha · Answer

Regarding the status of my hard drive, I tested it with the diagnostics tool from the manufacturer (Western Digital) and a third-party one, and both gave me the same result: The drive is OK, no errors or faults of any kind, which is a big relief.

Thank you for the website, I'll take a look!

ejn63 · Answer

Diagnostic utilities are about 90% accurate. In 10% of the cases, the drive can be bad without showing a diagnostic fault.

At minimum, make sure you have a backup - it sounds like your drive isn't long for this world.

Korscha · Answer

You're right, I just finished backing up my data and I'll get another HDD.  Thank you very much for your answers!

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