ram upgrade - boot problems

[kamel0]

I am working on a computer for a friend. HP Pavilion 6745C. I placed new HD (80GB) in and put winXP home edition on the new drive. Performed all updates and got all working properly, then went to upgrade memory. Had 256MB and owner wants 512. Bought several new chips, none worked with old memory. Bought a 512MB chip and received bios beep codes, could never get past beeps. Returned the 512MB chip and went back to 2 - 256MB chips. Both chips will work individually in either bank, but not together. MoBo is supposed to be able to handle the 512MB memory. What happens with both chips in: post messages display okay, get the one beep, and when it transfers to the HD to boot to windows, it fails and restarts with the post test again. Sometimes will get the "windows failed to start properly, select the desired option (SAFE MODE, SM with command prompt, etc.)" screen. Doesn't matter which option is chosen, it starts all over with post test in that endless loop again. Have replaced the new chip with several brands (started with PNY, Comp USA generic, Kingston. Then went to Crucial's website, as the first chip is crucial, went through the configurator and bought the suggested chip.) Still get the endless loop with post tests reading okay. I can get into BIOS. I have changed the order of boot up, disabled power mgmt. Have also entered BIOS, saved and exited just in case this step was needed. Memory reads fine (256MB in bank 0, and 256MB in bank 1) for total of 512MB. Computer will boot to floppy - windows 95 start up disk. What I don't understand is why the computer will boot fine with only one chip installed, but not with two. Original power supply was 100W, changed that to 200W. No change. I have also tried the memtest. No errors are found. I have also tried resetting the CMOS, but that was ineffective as well.

Here are the specs:

Trigem Cognac MoBo
Intel i810 chipset
Intel Celeron CPU 700MHz
PhoenixBios 4.0 Release 6.0 (version 2.02)
floppy & cd-rom


Here is what post test shows:

CPU = Intel Celeron(TM) processor 700MHz
511M System RAM passed
0128K Cache SRAM passed
System BIOS shadowed
Video BIOS shadowed
UMB upper limit segment address: E807
Mouse initialized
Fixed disk 0: ST380013A
ATAPI CD-ROM: CR-4804TE

After this, the floppy engages, finds no disk and the hard drive is tried next. The light comes on, then goes off and begins that endless loop. I have tried all the jumper settings for the hard drive, reseated the cables many times, and reseated the memory many times.

I am baffled and do not know what to try next. Thanks for any help you can offer!

kamel0 :confused:

[ski]

Another user also had problems upgrading a HP system to 512MB of RAM, and could not get it working either. A HP tech said it was a MB problem.

See if removing all drives, except the boot HD, and cards, except the video card, gets it working. If so, then a bigger PS is needed.
If not, then.....

[kamel0]

Finally got this one figured out. Tried Ski's idea but was a no go. Got a flash on HP discussion forum that RAM should be upgraded before upgrade to win XP. Tried to reinstall XP as per suggestion from HP site, but got an error regarding BIOS not being fully ACPI compliant. Required a BIOS update and after that completed, XP loaded without any problems. Lesson learned!

Thanks for the attempt Ski. I really appreciated the advice as I was stumped!

kamel0 :D

[ski]

You're welcome.
Glad that you got things sorted out, and thanks for posting the solution.