Need a little help with my PC after changing the ram
 

I have an HP Pavillion 9755 and just changed the ram to upgrade it to 512. It's PC133 SDRAM and it was one chip piece added to my PC to make it a total of 512mb. The problem is that my PC will not boot up. It stops the boot up after checking if everything has power. After that it does nothing at all. It just has the fan moving.

Any help will be greatful.

Many times RAM can be fussy. The thing about many PC companies is that they use parts from all over the place. Sometimes it works great with other/new parts, othertimes not so great. I'll bet if you take the RAM out it will boot. The other question is, how many RAM slots do you have? If there are more than 2 did you place the ram side by side? Try switching positions.

I have three spots and placed them next to each other with the older one in the front one as if it was never moved. The newer one was behind it.

Stupid question: For it to be a DIMM chip, it should have those mini black modules on both sides? This new chip calls it self a DIMM with those black modules only on one side of the chip.

Take out the new ram module and try to boot it again...you should expect that to work. If it doesn't you have other issues beyond your new ram chip. IF it does, then take out the old ram module and stick the new one in that slot, does it boot? If no, then take the new ram chip back where you bought it and exchange it. If it does work, then stick the old one into the other slot (the middle one) and boot it up.

Dimm is a reference to it's length in pins. Dimms are 160 something pins if I recall correctly. DDR Dimms are
180 something pins. Really old stuff was 72 Pins

At any rate, try swapping th enew one into the other empty slot. Often, the BIOS has a check order for the dimm slots, and you may be failing there if the order is full-empty-full. In theory, your user manual should tell you the order to install memory in the dimm slots.

Are there any beeps? I think there might be a way to turn them on and off in the BIOS, just make sure that option's turned on, because there might be a clue there. Otherwise I think the most likely thing is that something got loose when you put the new stick in, or it might just be a dodgy chip.

I tried with only the old chip and it might be something loose, the bios screen doesn't even boot up. It cuts off before then.I will try to reinstall the chips. Plus, I hear one beep before stops doing anything.

You may have jarred something else loose as well, try reseating all off the cards, especially the video card. If there is only one beep that's supposed to signfy a normal POST test. (Would you believe that the beeps were actually an audio troubleshooting code way back when?)

You'll also want to check the connections on the back of the tower and make sure that all the cables are secure, again paying attention to the monitor cable.

If you have a can of air it wouldn't be a bad idea to remove the expansion cards and the RAM, shoot everything clean, and then reseat them.

As for DIMM it means Dual In-line Memory Module, and refers to how the chip handles instructions and should not have any connection to the physical setup of the chips or boards.

The last thing to consider is that there are quite a few SDRAM chips that only run at the 133 MHz speeds (the PC133) and if your board only supports 100 MHz (PC100) then the chip will cause the bootup process to fail, but if you've already tried it with just the older module that shouldn't be a concern.

Its PC133, 133MHz, 256MB, 1.5GB Pent 4, HP Pavillion 7955 and I am trying to build up the RAM to 512MB. I also tried reseating everything and that was not working, I will try again and pay attention to all the POST sounds from the BIOS.

How old is it?

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I can't run anything since it wont load up past the power test. After that it doesnt work. I don't know if it is the RAM or the motherboard. The old RAM doesn't work anymore, so it could be the motherboard now. I don't know how to test to see if the RAM or the motherboard is the problem. Everything else seems to work and the hard drives still work. Is there a way to check if the motherboard itself is getting the power to boot up?

If it's an ATX system (the newer single block power feed from the power supply) if it responds to the power switch it's getting power to the board otherwise it wouldn't respond at all.

I don't suppose that you have a second tower available that you can use to troubleshoot individual components? Short of discharing yourself into the motherboard it's not very likely that's the problem.

I don't, I put in a new RAM chip so I know it isn't the RAM. I know it isn't the motherboard as I see the fans running. The only link left is the processor. Could that just die out?

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be the video unit .. but if the old RAM won't work, maybe you f'd up the DIMM slot.

remove all cards but the video.
remove all drive cables from the motherboard.
leave one ram chip in place.

does the boot process go farther now?

can you get into the cmos menu and look around for a problem?

... one thing I like to forget after instaling new compounds:

get that BIOS to load the defaults ....

Then the mainboard is reading out all the information from the "SPD-EPROM" on the RAM ... in the SPD is all the information about the RAM itself: timings, voltages, hertz-speed, etc.

If these settings are changed in any way manually .... for overclocking for example ... u have to set them back before installing new RAM .....

too, a BIOS update could be a good idea if u have problems with ya RAM ...
I had a lot of trouble with my NForce2 when it was brand new ... just after a bios version update its been getting better ... and solved ...

nforce still is the fasted chip for AMDs ...
but it sucks when its about RAM compability ...

greetz, Citrid