dahlarbear, (and others)I am finally in a position to try the "memtest' route re the problems of my 2 stick memory ram difficulties.However i would appreciate some clarification re the manner of testing.As previously stated when either stick is is used alone all the parameters of it's existence (both from within the computer's own recognition devices --and as well from Everest) indicate it to be working fine and within capacity limits. It is only when they are combined in the computer that a problem arises. Therefore given that as i understand it the Memtest can take a long time to produce whatever it does (it seems to be recommended to run the test overnight). Is there really any point or advantage to running the tests on the 2 ram sticks when they are in the computer individually? Don't we already know they are fine by virtue of their performance? I guess the remaining question i would have re the Memtest is; is it likely to actually do anything if the effect of having them both in for the test causes the computer to be inoperable beyond the error message previously denoted?truenorth
P.S. Because i have other computers in the house i decided to try an additional experiment on the "new" PQI 512MB memory stick. I placed it in a Dell XPS Model WHL with win-xp-home. This computer also has 512 already in it (2x 256) PC3200 ddr SDRAM. After installation and reboot a notification of "increased ram' appeared in an early DOS page at start up. Did a system check with Everest and it shows a memory capacity of 1024MB of PC3200 DDR SDRAM. So i think it is now probable that a defective ram can be put to rest. I would suggest that as Patio has earlier pointed out what we had in the Sony is an incompatibility of ram sticks due to their being of different manufacture. Even though a similar difference is also present in the DELL. Suggesting to me that the SONY has a different tolerance for RAM than does the DELL.
