Hoping to get some good answers here for this problem, mainly because im a bit of a novice when it comes to troubleshooting.

With both sticks in, my System Information says that I only have 1gb of RAM in when there are 2gb plugged in. A program called ASTRA32 says that there are two sticks of 1gb RAM, and an online scan says I have a stick of 1gb and a 512mb..... Confused........

Basically, I wanted to increase the RAM on my computer from 1GB to 2GB so I bought another stick of 1GB from Novatech, and eventually I got it today.

When I first looked at my new RAM stick, it was different to the one that I already have in the sense that instead of 16 'squares' on the stick with 64mb , the new one had 8 squares with 124mb written on them. Thought this may not be a problem because its the same amount at the end of the day, but is this the problem?

On ASTRA32 is says one stic has 2 Rows, 4 Banks, while the other (new one) has 1 Row, 8 Banks. Do they have to be identical in this sense to work?

On my desktop Im using the new stick on its own and it works fine, and vice versa with the other stick but together the computer doesnt register 2gb of RAM, and I get a combination of frozen bootups, black screens and the good old Blue Screen.

If it comes to it I guess I will have to order the same stick again if having identical sticks is the case but is there a solution to this?

Im running Windows Vista which sometimes says when first booting up that the sytem failed due to a hardware change which would make sense but I dont know how to solve this.

If any relevance my Motherboard is a Foxconn RC4107MA-S2 which I bought about a yare ago so its not old.

The RAM is 1024MB DDR2-666 SDRAM (Crucial Technology), which is what ASTRA32 says for both of these sticks when I loaded the program up with both sticks plugged in.

Appreciate any help!

Hey there and welcome to PCHF,

What is the RAM type of the old sticks? Should be DDR2 <numbers> or something of the sort, or maybe PC <numbers>

Also, does the computer work if you just put the stick which it doesn't recognize if you have all 3 in?

Before I bought the new stick I only had one stic that was in the computer.

So now I have two sticks of 1GB RAM, which are DDR2-666mhz SDRAM

hello matt. try running just the new stick of memory by iteself. and also download Everest from my signature, and look to see what it says.

Right, can you tell me the model/rating of the old/new stick? It should say either "DDR2 667" or "PC6400" or something of the sort (may have different numbers)

Well with the new stick just on its own it says there is 1024MB in there, might put the other one in and see what happens. Any reasons you can think of why its not workin?