I'm going to put my system specs first:
Emachines C2160, about a year old
Windows XP Home Edition
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ Processor, 1.72 GHz
(came with) 256 MB of RAM, PC133
128 MB GeForce FX 5700 video card
I just bought 256 mb of RAM for my year-old Emachines PC, first time I've ever bought RAM. The RAM's instructions, after telling me how to put the RAM in the computer, told me to "consult my motherboard manual for instructions on how to get your computer to recognize the new RAM". Well, I don't think my computer actually came with a "motherboard manual", or maybe I'm not sure what one is. The closest thing I've got is a setup and maintenance manual for the computer itself, but all that tells me about RAM is, again, how to put it in. Okay then. So I put the RAM in, right next to the old 256 mb stick, and turn the computer on. During the booting process, it would make it to about halfway through the windows startup screen, then reboot itself. After starting up again, I would be promted to choose whether I wanted to boot Windows normally or in safe mode. I booted it normally, and it made it to the same place and rebooted again. I tried this about six more times, when it finally worked and loaded Windows. I logged on, and started my web browser (Mozilla), which promptly crashed. I tried Mozilla again. It loaded my homepage, then crashed. I tried Mozilla a couple more times (I'm persistant about that kind of thing), and at one point, got it to stay up for a couple of minutes before crashing. I gave up on that, and tried to run World of Warcraft (the reason I got the RAM in the first place). That crashed, giving an error message saying that it couldn't read the memory at a specific location. Ugh. So, I shut down my computer, and decided to experiment with the placement of the RAM sticks again. My motherboard only has two RAM slots, so I took out my old RAM and put the new RAM where the old one originally was. I started the computer, and found that everything ran fine. I tried the new RAM alone in the second slot, and again everything worked fine. Same with the old RAM alone in the second slot. I tried switching them, putting the new RAM in the first slot and the old RAM in the second slot. That turned out pretty weird. My computer displayed the Emachines logo, then went to a screen that was completely blank except for a strange blue icon in the upper-left hand corner, which was only fully visible when I changed the size of the display on my monitor. While at this screen, the orange light on my computer was going, so I left it there for a couple of minutes. Nothing happened, so I shut it down. And... that's about it.
Now, I'm pretty sure it's just something I'm doing wrong, maybe just something I have to change in the BIOS. It's possible that I actually did have a motherboard at one time, but I have a friend with the same computer who "saved all his manuals", and he didn't have one either. Calling Emachines isn't really a possibility either, because they charge you some ridiculous amount of money to talk to tech support if you're computer isn't in warranty, and mine went out of warranty about two weeks ago. All I can really say is "what should I do?" Ask me questions if you need to.
Emachines C2160, about a year old
Windows XP Home Edition
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ Processor, 1.72 GHz
(came with) 256 MB of RAM, PC133
128 MB GeForce FX 5700 video card
I just bought 256 mb of RAM for my year-old Emachines PC, first time I've ever bought RAM. The RAM's instructions, after telling me how to put the RAM in the computer, told me to "consult my motherboard manual for instructions on how to get your computer to recognize the new RAM". Well, I don't think my computer actually came with a "motherboard manual", or maybe I'm not sure what one is. The closest thing I've got is a setup and maintenance manual for the computer itself, but all that tells me about RAM is, again, how to put it in. Okay then. So I put the RAM in, right next to the old 256 mb stick, and turn the computer on. During the booting process, it would make it to about halfway through the windows startup screen, then reboot itself. After starting up again, I would be promted to choose whether I wanted to boot Windows normally or in safe mode. I booted it normally, and it made it to the same place and rebooted again. I tried this about six more times, when it finally worked and loaded Windows. I logged on, and started my web browser (Mozilla), which promptly crashed. I tried Mozilla again. It loaded my homepage, then crashed. I tried Mozilla a couple more times (I'm persistant about that kind of thing), and at one point, got it to stay up for a couple of minutes before crashing. I gave up on that, and tried to run World of Warcraft (the reason I got the RAM in the first place). That crashed, giving an error message saying that it couldn't read the memory at a specific location. Ugh. So, I shut down my computer, and decided to experiment with the placement of the RAM sticks again. My motherboard only has two RAM slots, so I took out my old RAM and put the new RAM where the old one originally was. I started the computer, and found that everything ran fine. I tried the new RAM alone in the second slot, and again everything worked fine. Same with the old RAM alone in the second slot. I tried switching them, putting the new RAM in the first slot and the old RAM in the second slot. That turned out pretty weird. My computer displayed the Emachines logo, then went to a screen that was completely blank except for a strange blue icon in the upper-left hand corner, which was only fully visible when I changed the size of the display on my monitor. While at this screen, the orange light on my computer was going, so I left it there for a couple of minutes. Nothing happened, so I shut it down. And... that's about it.
Now, I'm pretty sure it's just something I'm doing wrong, maybe just something I have to change in the BIOS. It's possible that I actually did have a motherboard at one time, but I have a friend with the same computer who "saved all his manuals", and he didn't have one either. Calling Emachines isn't really a possibility either, because they charge you some ridiculous amount of money to talk to tech support if you're computer isn't in warranty, and mine went out of warranty about two weeks ago. All I can really say is "what should I do?" Ask me questions if you need to.
