[Alacazam_]

Hello everyone. One of the of the memory slots on my laptop recently gave out on me and I've run into some difficulties in trying to remedy the situation. For starters, my laptop is pretty old by today's standards and only has a maximum of 512MB of RAM split between two sticks of 256MB. After I found the slot to be defective I was left with only half of the available memory which made everything run painfully slow. To compensate, I went to my local electronics store to find a replacement. After installing the new, slightly larger, stick of RAM I started to experience some issues. Upon booting up Windows I was greeted with a BSOD with the following message: "The BIOS in this system is not fully ACPI compliant. Please contact your system vendor for an updated BIOS."



Since then I've tried formatting my HDD and reinstalling a fresh copy of Windows, but sadly that didn't help matters at all. I guess it would seem obvious that the culprit is the new piece of RAM I installed, but given the specs of my laptop shouldn't it be compatible? Any assistance would be much appreciated. Thanks.


BSOD: BSOD.jpg


Laptop: http://www.toshiba.ca/web/product.gr...t=1695#spectop



Replacement RAM: http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ...22c54348a8en02

[black-wolf]

Your laptop takes PC 2100 (266mhz)
The link that you gave is for RAM that is 440/333mhz

[Alacazam_]

Oh, I see. I'm by no means an expert when it comes to computers, but would this discrepancy be the root cause of the problems I've been experiencing? If so, then I'll guess I'll have to start looking for an appropriate substitute.

[black-wolf]

That is definately the problem. You have to have RAM that is 266mhz or it won't run.

[Alacazam_]

Alright, thank you very much for the help.

[Alacazam_]

Sorry, just one more thing. Would this piece of RAM be sufficient? Just want to be sure, you know?

RAM: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1GB-DDR-PC21...item2a1142d1d8

[black-wolf]

That should be good.

[Alacazam_]

Ok, thanks again.

[black-wolf]

Your welcome and good luck with it.

[Alacazam_]

Sorry to re-open this thread, but the stick of memory I linked to in that auction over ebay doesn't work either unfortunately. After receiving it this morning and completing the installation my laptop refused to boot to windows. Though, after putting back the stock 256MB Kingston RAM everything returned to normal and I could reach the desktop, albeit very slowly.

To be honest, I'm really confused as to why it didn't take. I mean it's the exact same type of RAM so what gives? Does the brand have something to do with it not being compatible? Could it even be that the stick itself was just defective from the get-go or is it possible that my laptop just doesn't support a single stick of that size? Once again, any help would be much appreciated.

PS. I know at this point I should probably just buy a new laptop, but that option just isn't feasible for me at this time. Plus I'd like to put an end to this problem and find an answer for curiosities sake.

[dustyjay]

The problem is more likely that the ram you are trying to use exceeds the maximum ram allowable per slot. On a lot of older laptops (and PCs for that matter) the maximum allowable is all that will work.

Also buying any computer component from eBay is a gamble that is usually not worth the possible headache.

[black-wolf]

Any piece of hardware can come DOA, You know you have one bad memory slot, could they both be bad.
You can test the memory with memtest86 http://www.memtest.org/
You can create an ISO (boot disc) with Imageburn if you don't have software to do it with.
http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

[black-wolf]

Originally Posted by dustyjay

The problem is more likely that the ram you are trying to use exceeds the maximum ram allowable per slot. On a lot of older laptops (and PCs for that matter) the maximum allowable is all that will work.

According to the link he gave for his laptop it's able to take 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1024MB* PC2100 modules in each slot (max 2gb both slots)

[Alacazam_]

Thanks for the quick replies fellas. Anyway, is there somewhere I can go to check how much RAM is allowed per slot for my laptop, assuming that's the problem here? I'm pretty sure the stick I got over ebay is functional, but I'll try to test it if I can in case it isn't. I don't usually order this type of sensitive hardware over a site like ebay, but I just didn't know where else to get such outdated components.

[black-wolf]

The link you provided for your laptop in the first post tells how much RAM is allowed per slot.