"Jeff" said:
Follow-up
I switched the modules....Now it reports it as 2 gigs.
Does that mean they just were not seated right or did physically switching
them have something to do with it?
Can Iassume that if 2 gigs (2048 Mb) are reported, that all is well?
Tia,
jeff
The inquisitive side of me says "swap them back and
see what happens"
Before you do that, the first thing to try, is get a
copy of memtest86+ from memtest.org . That will allow you
to test all of the memory. I'd let it run for a couple
of complete passes, just to see whether the memory is
worth keeping. If the memory is error free, then it would
be a bit safer to try booting into Windows.
You could also try dumping the contents of the SPD
EEPROM (that is a little chip on each DIMM, that records
the timing parameters, serial number of the DIMM, and
so on). Programs that access the SPD are CPUZ from
www.cpuid.com
and Everest Home Edition from lavalys.com . (Sisoft
Sandra used to come with a separate program that could
access the SPD, but I haven't been following development
of Sandra, and cannot tell you whether their program has
been kept up to date or not.) If you bought matched DIMMs,
this might give you a chance to see if the SPD contents
on the two DIMMs match.
Chances are, the DIMM wasn't seated, but you'll know for
sure if you try a few more configurations.
I had one board, where I had to insert my DIMM into the
socket a few times, to clean some crud off the contacts.
Personally, I do not recommend the use of erasers or
cleaning solvents to solve problems like that, as erasers
can remove any useful plating on the contacts, and cleaning
solvents could leave more residue behind than was on there
in the first place. That is why I only suggest repeated
insertion and removal as a way to clean the thing.
Occasionally, a motherboard will have a "bad socket", and
that is one reason, when you get a new motherboard, it is
a good idea to try a single DIMM in each of the four
slots. That way, there won't be surprises later, if you
decide to fill all four slots. Returning the mobo to your
vendor now, is bound to be easier than trying to do an RMA
a year from now. (There is one situation where that won't
work properly, and that is mixing older steppings of Athlon64
processors with new AMD motherboards. The older steppings don't
have the flexible single channel options of the current rev.e
version, so two of four sockets won't work with a single DIMM
by itself. You can only thoroughly test such boards in dual
channel mode, with two DIMMs.)
Paul
