Dell Memory - Quirky slots and such? Anyone experience this?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

So I got a refurb Dell and it had bad memory. Went to Compusa who
verified mem was bad. I bought and put in new memory - all is fine.

So finally got Dell memory in the mail. Put it in and get beep codes
with no boot screen.

Okay, so I take the Dell DDR2 memory out and it boots okay.

I put one stick in (now 3 sticks in ) and it boots fine. I add 4th
stick (power off and unplugged of course) and get beep codes again. No
boot.

So I screw around again and finally all beep codes go away and things
seem okay.

Are these machines that freakin touchy or is it just this Dimension
8400? Jeeesh


DO not ask what happened when I enabled hyperthreading in the BIOS even
though there is one physical processor. WOuld not boot at all. Had to
completely clear BIOS. Man oh man.... What a mistake of a
machine.........Proved my own point.

Patty.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Did you read the specs for the memory setup of the 8400? Does it require
matched pairs of DDR2 memory? ... Ben Myers

On 7 Apr 2005 17:54:54 -0700, pattyjamas@hotmail.com wrote:

>So I got a refurb Dell and it had bad memory. Went to Compusa who
>verified mem was bad. I bought and put in new memory - all is fine.
>
>So finally got Dell memory in the mail. Put it in and get beep codes
>with no boot screen.
>
>Okay, so I take the Dell DDR2 memory out and it boots okay.
>
>I put one stick in (now 3 sticks in ) and it boots fine. I add 4th
>stick (power off and unplugged of course) and get beep codes again. No
>boot.
>
>So I screw around again and finally all beep codes go away and things
>seem okay.
>
>Are these machines that freakin touchy or is it just this Dimension
>8400? Jeeesh
>
>
>DO not ask what happened when I enabled hyperthreading in the BIOS even
>though there is one physical processor. WOuld not boot at all. Had to
>completely clear BIOS. Man oh man.... What a mistake of a
>machine.........Proved my own point.
>
>Patty.
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Yes they like a matched pair. And William you are right, I think they
buy memory from some guy in a back alley who cannot spell "memory".

Patty

 

[Fixer]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Yes they do require a matched pair and of course you took Anti Static
precations when handling them , didn't you ?
<pattyjamas@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1112972988.976912.229390@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Yes they like a matched pair. And William you are right, I think they
> buy memory from some guy in a back alley who cannot spell "memory".
>
> Patty
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Fixer wrote:
> Yes they do require a matched pair

Actually they don't.

> and of course you took Anti Static precations when handling them , didn't you ?

Of course

 

[Fixer]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Dell will always replace as a matched pair
"Sparky Spartacus" <Sparky@spartacus.galaxy.org> wrote in message
news:9HK5e.541$dx2.532@fe09.lga...
> Fixer wrote:
>> Yes they do require a matched pair
>
> Actually they don't.
>
>> and of course you took Anti Static precations when handling them , didn't
>> you ?
>
> Of course

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Fixer wrote:
> Dell will always replace as a matched pair

That's a different matter.


> "Sparky Spartacus" <Sparky@spartacus.galaxy.org> wrote in message
> news:9HK5e.541$dx2.532@fe09.lga...
>
>>Fixer wrote:
>>
>>>Yes they do require a matched pair
>>
>>Actually they don't.
>>
>>
>>>and of course you took Anti Static precations when handling them , didn't
>>>you ?
>>
>>Of course
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I too recently purchased a refurb Dimension 8400, with 1G memory. When
I was not as impressed as I had hoped with performance, I checked and
discovered it was only recognizing 512M ram. When I opened the case i
discovered Dell sent it to me with two 512M memory but they were not
installed in correctly paired slots. I move the second one to a proper
paired slot and restarted and everything ran fine. Now how did that
escape the Dell QC team?

I do run hyperthreading on, but I have never turned it off to do any
sort of comparison.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Fixer" <steve.h1@ntlworld.com> top-posted:
>Dell will always replace as a matched pair

Indeed they will. This is a good thing, because when one of your
matched pair is bad and one of the matched pair they sent you is bad,
you can mix and match and get one good pair and send them one
completely defective pair.

Wonder if that's how they have so much dead stuff in their inventory.
[Test these memories, knowing that one of the two sticks is bad. If
you find the one bad one, immediately put the other one into the
"known good" pile...]

I have to wonder if Dell is using antistatic precautions.