[PlayWithFire]

I am trying to upgrade the memory on my Toshiba Satellite A105-S171 laptop.

The current memory is one stick 512MBs DDR2 533FSB. I am assuming that last part means 533MHz.

I am attempting to update the laptop to 2GBs, so i purchased 2x1GB Kingston sticks.
It's also DDR2, and on the box it says compatable 533MHz (PC2-4200).

When i put two new sticks in, the computer turns on for a few seconds, and then reboots.
When i try just one of the new sticks, the same thing happens.
But, when i keep the old 512MB stick in, and insert the new 1GB with it, the computer boots up, but only shows me around ~900 of RAM available. I've done this experiment with both slots, and both sticks, so i think i can rule out faulty hardware.

According to the specs on Toshiba's website the laptop should support up to 2GBs of RAM. And just in case somebody will find this useful, here's the memory i bought http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/se...C7BBTkwCjCECjCE

Thank you in advance!

[Ponch]

PlayWithFire, on Jun 28 2009, 10:14 PM, said:

When i put two new sticks in, the computer turns on for a few seconds, and then reboots.

Can you get (and stay) into BIOS screen or does is reboot before that ? Or does it reboot once the OS (which is ???)starts ?

[PlayWithFire]

It reboots before anything shows up on the screen.

[Cee-Kay]

When you had the laptop open, did you happen to notice the bios battery? If you are able to access it perhaps allowing the battery to drain may clear any problem?

When you say the laptop boots when you keep the old module in one of the slots are you able to boot Windows successfully or run some kind of offline utility for veriying the integrity of the new ram (i.e. Memtest86+?) Perhaps verifying both new modules in turn will help you diagnose the issue?

Perhaps the ram is showing around the ~900 MB range due to some of ram being used as video ram?

This post has been edited by Cee-Kay: 28 June 2009 - 04:23 PM

[PlayWithFire]

I didn't see a BIOS battery, but i did make sure to download the latest bios from Toshiba's website. That didn't help. I am running memtest as you suggested, but i doubt it will help with anything.
I will try a different RAM tomorrow.