building my rig, having a few problems

[pushVTEC]

1st, I think I may have a bad stick of ram. One works, fine I throw the other in, it recognizes it's there and says the check went ok, but it doesn't ever get down to checking for hard drives etc... I was reading somewhere that sometimes the motherboard detects the wrong timings etc and maybe while it may not be a problem for the one stick, it is for the other. I have a gigabyte ds3 so any suggestions. Also when I install XP it only detects my drive as being 130ish gigs, not the 320 it is, is this normal?

 

[pushVTEC]

Just read that prior to sp1 windows couldn't format anything larger than 137ish gigs which would explain my problem.

 

[Atheus]

Are both your RAM sticks exactly the same? Are you able to get into the BIOS with the bad stick installed?

 

[pushVTEC]

yeah they are the same, they came packaged together. No I can't even get into the bios, it comes up like press del to get into the bios but it like freezes at the memory detected 2g OK and it just stays there. And if I just put the suspected bad one in there by itself it detects the gig of ram and freezes at OK. I've heard of bad ram, but everytime ram has gone bad it has never detected or if it did I would just get weird errors in the OS.

 

[pushVTEC]

Another side question I have an xp disk with no sp, and a windows disk with sp1a, but I can't find the key for the sp1a (downloaded through school, no disk provided) will the serial from the xp with the no sp work for the sp1a installation? I would think it would unless the key is hard coded somewhere for each installation, but I don't know how likely that is given I downloaded an iso to get the sp1a disk, and they don't keep an iso for each copy. thanks.

 

[pushVTEC]

Updated from the f4 bios to the f6 hopefully taht may help

 

[imported_nocturne]

First of all, we are going to need more of your system specs if we are to help you. Sometimes, knowing the platform or mobo can make all the difference...

As for the installation of the memory stick, I'd try resetting the BIOS before installing it and once the computer starts enter the bios and set up some modest timings/speeds. Also try booting up with just the stick you think is bad. Also, slots can be all the difference with installing two memory sticks, so expirament with all the different slots.

In regards to your question about the service pack, I think it's time you're introduced to nlite ( nliteos.com ). nLite allows you to easilly slipstream a service pack directly into a windows installation, along with helping you disable unncessary xp features and customize settings by default in the installation (plus, you can integrate hotfixes (RyanVM releases a complete pack of hotfixes often)). Basically, you copy all the contents of your XP cd to a folder on your HD and download the service pack (I got a SP2 cd for FREE from MS by signing up on their site, since I have dialup), and once you set all the settings and edit the installation, nLite can create a bootable ISO cd image to install XP from (new nlite even has CD burning builtin). Then, just run nlite to customize the installation (it's pretty simple, but there are many guides available if you do a search).

edit: If the stick is bad, it's bad. Almost all memory has a lifetime warranty, so you'd be best to just rma it. Seeing as it won't boot by itself, it is unlikely the BIOS that's the problem.

 

[pushVTEC]

Alright, the plan is I'm ordering another 2 gigs from newegg, then once I receive the new 2 gigs of ram, I will rma the old ram as the one strip obviously isn't working. That way I can run on the 1 gig that is still working right now and don't have downtime for another 2-3 days.