Vista wont boot with 2x 512 Ram modules

Hi

I have a Athlon Xp 3200 NForce4 Chipset main board with 2 512 Ram modules.
During install Iw ould get the usual problems that perople have where it
will get to various stages and then freeze/reboot/fail.

Thinking it might be device related I removed usb devices/hard disks etc...
finally arriving at the RAM where I discovered that all my problems went
away when only one 512 module (pc3200) was present.

I have tried 3 other ram modules together and in different slots and no
combination works (together) however all modules work when only one is
present.

Using the one 512 module Vista Ultimate installed no problems. All drivers
found and installed and everything works fine. After a while I found Vista
too slow and so thought I would try and resolve my RAM issue and place one
of the other modules in. In doing so, Vista will boot but somehwere , at
random intervals, during the progress bar load phase the screen will just
lock up. Rmoeving the 2nd module makes the problem go away

Has anyone else come accross this issue? The same RAM works fine with
Windows XP pro . The only avenue I have left is to think that somehow ASLR
is very picky about the RAM and where it loads the windows files randomly.

Is there a way to turn off ASLR to test this theory?. I have the latest
drivers and bios updates and still no luck.

Thanks
Jason

 

Did this motherboard work with the two modules installed prior to your Vista
upgrade?

Who manufactured the motherboard and what is it's model number? If your
board has memory slots of alternating color (blue-black-blue-black, for
example), try installing the ram in the 0 and 2 slots (blue & blue in this
case).

 

vista is more memory intensive then previous os.
found during testing that I occasionally got memory errors when running the vista memory diag.
running the same diag on xp , no errors.
eventually found one of the memory sticks was bad. replacing the 2 to keep a matched set, solved the problems.







Hi

I have a Athlon Xp 3200 NForce4 Chipset main board with 2 512 Ram modules.
During install Iw ould get the usual problems that perople have where it
will get to various stages and then freeze/reboot/fail.

Thinking it might be device related I removed usb devices/hard disks etc...
finally arriving at the RAM where I discovered that all my problems went
away when only one 512 module (pc3200) was present.

I have tried 3 other ram modules together and in different slots and no
combination works (together) however all modules work when only one is
present.

Using the one 512 module Vista Ultimate installed no problems. All drivers
found and installed and everything works fine. After a while I found Vista
too slow and so thought I would try and resolve my RAM issue and place one
of the other modules in. In doing so, Vista will boot but somehwere , at
random intervals, during the progress bar load phase the screen will just
lock up. Rmoeving the 2nd module makes the problem go away

Has anyone else come accross this issue? The same RAM works fine with
Windows XP pro . The only avenue I have left is to think that somehow ASLR
is very picky about the RAM and where it loads the windows files randomly.

Is there a way to turn off ASLR to test this theory?. I have the latest
drivers and bios updates and still no luck.

Thanks
Jason

 

I had a similar issue which kept me from upgrading. On my system I had 2.5gb
of ram. The extra 512mb was keeping my install from starting. Now the system
works fine with just 2gb of ram.

 

Hi

Yes the main board worked fine with Windows XP Pro installed.
The main board is a WinFast (Foxconn) NF4K8AB with the latest BIOS update
installed.

I have also tries the ram modules in the various slots, same colours Vs alt
colours and I still get the same problem.
The only way I can get into Vista is to

a) Boot with only one RAM module.
b) Boot into Safe mode.

Curioulsy, if I boot into safe mode with the 2 RAM modules it works. However
I cant use Vista in safe mode all the time. Becasue Safe mode with the 2
modules works, this leads me to believe that maybe the ALSR technology is
not inboked during safe mode and thus it works?

Thanks for your help so far.

Jason

----- Original Message -----
From: "news.microsoft.com" <>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.vista.installation_setup
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 1:06 AM
Subject: Re: Vista wont boot with 2x 512 Ram modules

 

Thanks

I am going to try later today a single 1GB pc3200 Ram module to see if the problem is just having more than 512mb ram (I cant see this being a problem) or the 2 individual 512mb modules.
vista is more memory intensive then previous os.
found during testing that I occasionally got memory errors when running the vista memory diag.
running the same diag on xp , no errors.
eventually found one of the memory sticks was bad. replacing the 2 to keep a matched set, solved the problems.







Hi

I have a Athlon Xp 3200 NForce4 Chipset main board with 2 512 Ram modules.
During install Iw ould get the usual problems that perople have where it
will get to various stages and then freeze/reboot/fail.

Thinking it might be device related I removed usb devices/hard disks etc...
finally arriving at the RAM where I discovered that all my problems went
away when only one 512 module (pc3200) was present.

I have tried 3 other ram modules together and in different slots and no
combination works (together) however all modules work when only one is
present.

Using the one 512 module Vista Ultimate installed no problems. All drivers
found and installed and everything works fine. After a while I found Vista
too slow and so thought I would try and resolve my RAM issue and place one
of the other modules in. In doing so, Vista will boot but somehwere , at
random intervals, during the progress bar load phase the screen will just
lock up. Rmoeving the 2nd module makes the problem go away

Has anyone else come accross this issue? The same RAM works fine with
Windows XP pro . The only avenue I have left is to think that somehow ASLR
is very picky about the RAM and where it loads the windows files randomly.

Is there a way to turn off ASLR to test this theory?. I have the latest
drivers and bios updates and still no luck.

Thanks
Jason

 

Ok - So I tried the 1GB ram module and it works fine no problem.

I then added another 1GB ram module and got the exact same problem with my 2
512MB modules....
So, im at a lost now as to what the cause could be. This happens on two
mainboards, the only component which is the same now is my AMD Athlon XP
3200 chip....

Could this be at fault?

 

.... reading all this I think I'll keep my Vista Ultimate DVD in the
bookshelves for quite a while.
All these people having those problems (including me), I'm just wondering
why these problems didn't show up during beta-testing.
And if they showed up: Why in hell doesn't that glorious upgrade-advisor
tell you to keep away from Vista?
For the time being a really had enough of Vista!

 

I have 2 512MB memeory sticks and installed just fine, (2nd attempt).
You are right about the upgrade advisor, it has a pretty face, but
underneath it is mostly brain dead.

Are you getting specific error messages related to memory?

 

Jason,

Have your checked with the motherboard maker to see if there is a BIOS
update that might resolve the problem?

Also, you can go to this site, http://memtest86.com/, to download Windows
Memory Diagnostics (memtest86) to check your RAM for errors. The program has
to be burned to CD and then used to startup your computer (put in CD drive
and reboot).

 

Hey Adam,

not I'm not getting any specific memory-related error messages.
I only get a disc-read-error upon first reboot (after expanding files)
because Vista quite obviously fails to install a proper boot-sector after
removing the old XP-Boot-sector.
Why that happens? Who knows?
But since this hardly can be any error due to driver issues or installed
software it must be something hardware-related. I don't think it's the drive
itself, because Vista does create those temporary $-directories.
So I joined this discussion about memory-sticks. That might be the problem
since some people could install Vista after removing part of their
memory-sticks.
I didn't try that yet (I actually need my computer running right now), but I
might later on. On the other hand: Why reduce my wonderful 2GB of ram in
order to get an OS running that actually needs more ram than the old one?
Maybe wait for another - really working - upgrade advisor that is able to
find the real issues??