Running XP, I have just recently increased ram from 1.5G to 3G. Menawhile trying to formay my HD (which I ahve done several times in the past so know how to do also using ghost with boot disk) 1st time trying to format since I increased ram to 3G & when I insert ghost boot disk it gives me some kind of ram error message: AUTOEXEC: ABORTED..... Setting up Ramdisk at drive q: Error Message below. XMS get free mem error After doing some reading on web & different forums it seems many people have experienced this & solution is either to change some setting in BIOS or decrease memory to MAX 2G..........does this make sense? I also noticed that going from 1.5 to 3 is almost unnoticed.......computer does see/detect 3 ram but did it make difference......I would have to say NO...........is this normal? Tks for your input/comments
I will try when I get home from work in about an hour........lets see what happens........I will go back to my originl 1.5G of ram & try boot disk again & re-install everything from scratch..if it does work should I put RAM back to 3G or just leave it as 1.5 becuase I might have same problem if I ever have to format again
If it works I would suspect that the RAM is bad and you are going to have other problems, such as random BSOD or application errors.
Also what is your motherboard, make and model# How much RAM will the mobo support? What is the make, model, speed of the old and new RAM? Ever use Memtest? http://majorgeeks.com/MemTest_d350.html
I had 2 x 512 & 2x 256 for total of 1.5 I replaced 256 with 2 x 1G so now I have 2 x 512 & 2 x 1G for total 3G ram I could not use boot disk with 3g ram so I switched back to my original 1.5 & it worked no problem so obviously something doesn't work properly when using boot with 3g ram It seems many have had this issue & get exact same error message I indicated........apparently for some reason boot disk fails when system detects more than 2g ram........anyhow as mentioned I switched back to 1.5 & boot disk worked like a charm & were able to use ghost image to put everything back, after doing so I changed memory sticks back to 3g They are all Kingston memory sticks.......my motherboard is 5 years old.........Intel 875PBZ, it's dual channel & supports to 4G ram. But using XP & apprently XP works to a maximum of 3, even if I use maximum 4g ram only 3 will be used becuase of the OS My question is how do I make sure if all 3G ram are working (specially 2 x 1G ram) purchased couple of weeks ago....system does detect 3 but does that mean it works just becuase it's being detected??? do i need to switch back to 2 or less next time I need to do ghost / format hd???
Just out of superstition I try to NEVER mix RAM module sizes, especially on a dual channel configuration. I would run memtest on 2 x 1GB ONLY, the 2 X 512 only, then on a full load. Are you running the RAM smaller then larger, or larger then smaller? Again, it may just be superstition, but I when I have to run mixed size RAM I run small to large.
I am not sure I follow your question but if you are asking how I have placed memory sticks in the slots this is how I have them. There are 4 slots correct.......slot 1 & 3 are the 512 slots 2 & 4 are the 1G If it's in any other way I.E 512 in 1 & 2 followed by 1g in 3 & 4, it will not work..I will get error message So I need to paid them
The slots should be color coded. I would be willing to bet that 1 and 3 are the same color, as are 2 and 4. Regardless, one pair is a lower bank and the other is an upper bank. Without looking at the mobo manual I would guess that 1 and 3 are the lower and 2 and 4 are the upper.
Can you make another ghost boot disk while you have your 3GB in the board then try to use it? I dont use ghost so this may not be realistic but it seems maybe the fact your hardware changed it wont let you use the same old image? Your mobo's manual http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d875pbz/bz_English.pdf page34 says you are correct in using slots 1&3, 2&4 with your matched pairs. Use memtest to see if it passes with the 3GB and if it doesnt then test a stick at a time till you find the bad one. The crucial system scanner just tells you what RAM your board will accept, it doesnt actually do a stress test like memtest does.
Problem is not tyhe ghost disk but the boot disk....this process involves 2 disks.........boot disk followed by ghost image....I get the error message while it reads the boot disk........I am 95% sure it's not the stick..I will rum memtest & see how it goes..... I will keep u posted....tks for your input/comments
