Hey, guess who needs help again 

So I bought some matching RAM for the PC, two cards 2GB each.

The plan was to move me up to 8GB from 4GB.

Inserted the RAM and at first the PC would not boot.  It did the next go but then I got blue screen of death.  Every boot after is the same thing, blue screen.  Windows did just about load one time but then it was BSOD again.

I removed the new memory and the PC is back to good health.

Apparently this memory is in working order, I got it from eBay as it is not available now.

Could I be overlooking something simple, like a Bios setting ?

In BIOS the new extra memory is detected fine, it's just not working when windows try to load.

MB : P5QL-E

Ram : OCZ2P10664GK

I'm thinking about removing my old ram and trying to boot with the new ram, just to see if it is faulty.

Any thoughts ?

Cheers

I don't have much time right now, but yes Freddy try it just with the new RAM and put them in the same sockets as the old RAM.

It could be a bad socket or RAM so first lets see if the RAM is good.

Got to go on a callout, back later.

Well I tested the 'new' RAM and the PC would not boot again, so it's obviously faulty some how.  I have contacted the seller and have asked for a refund, hopefully they will be reasonable.

I broke my rule of not buying second hand PC stuff, silly me.

Do you know of any places where you can get discontinued items ?

Well it's good news and I got lucky in that he was an honest seller.  He refunded me in full so no harm done.  Nice to have my faith in humanity refreshed once in a while.

Maybe I should put that towards an SSD instead 

Sorry to hear that you got bad ram sticks, but glad to hear your able to get your money back.

QuoteDo you know of any places where you can get discontinued items ?

have you tried Amazon or you could try typing in the name of the ram into Google and select shopping from the side search filters.

QuoteMaybe I should put that towards an SSD instead  Tongue

this option has my vote, just be sure to get one over 40gb. I got a Intel 40gb and I am kicking myself in the rear for not getting at least a 60gb.

Oh well it was not to be..

Yes I have tried most places for the RAM, I found it for about £90 or so, which is double what I paid for the second hand set.  I think I am going to give up on that idea now.

The SSD I have my eye on is the same one Data got, it's 120GB.  My main partition with OS and most of the programs weighs in at 83 GB.  But there is a lot of junk on there.

My games partition is about 35GB, so I would be looking at moving my games onto the SSD.

Things like utilities, office programs and my programming stuff could be put on normal HDD.

I'm wondering if 120GB is enough 

I remember reading a SSD does need free space to move data block around, the operation is sorta like defraging.  I don't remember how much free space is recommended though.

I would take the time to add up the space that all my programs and games need/use, then add the space of the os and space it needs for upgrades. then go from there.

my system crashed when I first got my SSD for I was close to 38gb once everything was installed. then my os downloaded service pack 2 and started installing. that info was to much for the drive with the space I had left  So after a fresh install I was forced to moved a lot of my os onto 1tb HHD.

Yeah sounds like dead RAM, glad you got the money back.

Now about that RAM
Firstly I strongly recommend only ever using two of the RAM slots, I have seen too many problems when using 4 slots, you double the chance of getting a bad connection, the Ram will have less room to breath and get hotter and also the RAM will run slightly slower when using two dual channels, so I only ever tell people to have two sticks.

Secondly, I am yet to see a desktop computer actually using more than 4 GIG so in the real world we don't need any more than 4 at the moment. Severs would need more RAM but not a desktop.

The SSD
A 120 is easily enough for me, I partitioned the drive to a 40 GIG for windows and a 70GIG for games and programs and I have plenty of space left over, there is quite a lot you can do to windows 7 to take less space which is what I did.

In the attached image C: and D: is the SSD, C: has windows and D: has the games and programs, if I need more space on D: I would uninstall some of the games.

Over all Freddy you will notice a much greater performance boost with an SSD than you would with more RAM, infact I don't think you would have noticed any improvement with 8GIG.

Now don't go out and buy stuff for that PC unless you run it by us first, naughty boy  .     

Haha, yup I should have asked first 

Don't worry I wont do it again 

I will put that £40 away, so that's one third of the way there

Might be a silly question, but as we are talking about RAM you do have them in the correct slots and running in dual channel?

As in the sticks shouldn't be next to each other but should have a socket between them?

Yup. 

Excellent 

So SSD next and you will love it     

Data what program you using to take pictures of your desktop?
This pc needs a light footed program to do that, my SSD is down to 14.4BG atm and I would like it to stay around there if possible.

QuoteSo SSD next and you will love it Kiss

I can second that, Trinity and I both loves having a SSD.   

Quote from: sybershot on February 08, 2012, 19:47:34 PM
Data what program you using to take pictures of your desktop?
This pc needs a light footed program to do that, my SSD is down to 14.4BG atm and I would like it to stay around there if possible.

I use the print screen key on the keyboard, then you can paste it into whatever program you like,  using an old version of Photoshop 6 here, really you just need a basic image editor that can output a jpg, or here's a thought paste it into windows paint save it as a bmp and use a free image converter on the web, no program needed     

My Print Screen on keyboard does not take a picture of the desktop as far I can tell. If it does I can't find the image I thought I might need a program to use actually use the print screen. would you happen to know of the directory the images are supposedly save in?

I have Adobe CS5 Master suit on my laptop, plenty of programs in there to alter images. I just need the Image itself