Doubling Ram -

[Riley'sLife]

I have just upgraded the RAM on my Asus A8Sc laptop at Panthip. When they opened it up I was surprised to see that instead of having a matched pair of 512 RAM as stated in the original Asus spec for the laptop, it had only one slot in use with a 1GB Nanya RAM..

Anyway, I proceeded with the upgrade, and as no shop had 1Gb Ram in Panthip (Ngan Wong Wan branch, not the one at Panthip that perhaps most people know), I had a new 2GB Kingston RAM installed in the second slot, to run with the original 1GB Nanya RAM, giving me 3GB total. Cost 1,150Baht. Great price!

However, on returning home and using my laptop I had several problems caused by the upgrade when running 32 bit Windows XP.

1. Nvidia Geforce 8400m graphics card didn’t work and screen graphics were useless.

2. Google Earth wouldn’t open - “Direct X not supported” It worked fine before.

3. Bit Defender anti-Virus was disabled.

4. ACDC couldn’t browse my photos folder

5. Ableton Live 8 couldn’t access my music production library, plug-ins etc.

6. Most installed Games (snooker etc etc..nothing sophisticated!) ”blinked” randomly and not seamless how they were before.

7. Numerous other Apps not working how they should.

So, not much change from my usual experience in Thailand where every job I have done causes another problem to appear!

After playing around with the RAM, I discovered that using just one RAM slot with either the original 1GB Nanya RAM, or just the new 2GB Kingston RAM most of the problems were solved, but not all. So I’m now running with just the new 2GB RAM installed.

As I only really needed 2GB RAM I suppose it’s OK, but I now face the mammoth task of re-installing all my software so it will work properly, and of course I’m in my Bangkok apartment and all my software is at home in Songkhla!

[astral]

It sounds like the two RAM cards are not compatible with each other.

However you will be OK with just the one 2Gb

There should not be any need to reinstall the SW after the RAM upgrade.

Are you sure the new RAM is compatible with your machine?

This link may help you, though it is quite technical. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2187411

Running Sisandra http://www.sisoftware.net/ will help you identify the memory type installed.

[bobo42]

Sounds like the person who did the ram install for you may have done something else to your machine... just a guess. Installing ram should only entail opening up the ram access panel and popping in the chip, that's it.

Just about all your issues sound like they are related to your video driver not working. I would recommend going to nvidia.com, downloading and installing the latest driver for your video card. That will likely solve at least some of your issues (and probably the major ones).

Its not surprising to me that there was only 1 ram chip installed, as manufacturers do tend to change such things depending on their suppliers at the time. Some motherboards require that the chips match if installed together, so that may be why your chips won't work together. Unless you're using a 64bit OS, you can't address much more than 2GB anyway, so probably not much difference even if the extra GB was working.

[d0ndela]

You can try have a look at crucial.com they have an excellent tool for guiding you on which RAM your computer takes.

[Riley'sLife]

Thanks for the input fellas.

I actually had the guy install the RAM at the counter so I could watch - the way d0ndela does with his customers at his shop in Hua Hin. Interesting to see and took the mystery out of it all too! Anyway he was very careful and precise, except he dropped one of the screws from the cover plate (Jeez how can people work like that?). He didn't touch anything he wasn't supposed to I'm sure.

When he'd finished he started the laptop and I immediately noticed that the desktop icons and text were of much lower quality etc., and so he changed that, showed me that the 3GB was recognised. Job done. Today it is working normally, and Nvidia is operating well, after downloading the drive- thanks for that tip bobo42, although I can't use some apps properly..still can't access my sounds library from Ableton Live 8 and VSTi Plug-ins and ACDC won't allow browse to get photos etc., but at least I can scroll and move panes, and Google Earth opens.

When I bought the laptop 2 yrs ago it had Vista installed. and I found it to be annoyingly slow with the 1GB RAM it was shipped with. As I bought it for the graphics card, with games in mind, as well as for the main use of music production, I asked about upgrading the RAM at that time but didn't do it because I had just spent 44k on the laptop and they wanted 13k for the upgrade to 2GB, which I thought was a complete rip off.

So, as an alternative I got the shop to install XP as it uses less RAM, and that seemed to work fine until I just bought $200 worth of new music software that requires 2GB RAM which prompted the current upgrade.

Thanks to all for the links, which hopefully others will find very useful too. All the online souces say the Kingston RAM I used is correct - actually d0ndela kindly gave me the correct RAM details in another thread. After reading the helpful responses here, maybe the way forward is to try another 2GB Kingston RAM to work alongside the newly installed one, giving me 4GB -as a matching pair this time, and, as I am going to have to re-install software that aint working properly anyway, maybe install 64 bit XP, or 64 bit Vista before I re-install the software, so the 4GB can be fully utilised.

Does this sound like a plan, or am I pushing my luck?

[losworld]

Thanks for the input fellas.

I actually had the guy install the RAM at the counter so I could watch - the way d0ndela does with his customers at his shop in Hua Hin. Interesting to see and took the mystery out of it all too! Anyway he was very careful and precise, except he dropped one of the screws from the cover plate (Jeez how can people work like that?). He didn't touch anything he wasn't supposed to I'm sure.

When he'd finished he started the laptop and I immediately noticed that the desktop icons and text were of much lower quality etc., and so he changed that, showed me that the 3GB was recognised. Job done. Today it is working normally, and Nvidia is operating well, after downloading the drive- thanks for that tip bobo42, although I can't use some apps properly..still can't access my sounds library from Ableton Live 8 and VSTi Plug-ins and ACDC won't allow browse to get photos etc., but at least I can scroll and move panes, and Google Earth opens.

When I bought the laptop 2 yrs ago it had Vista installed. and I found it to be annoyingly slow with the 1GB RAM it was shipped with. As I bought it for the graphics card, with games in mind, as well as for the main use of music production, I asked about upgrading the RAM at that time but didn't do it because I had just spent 44k on the laptop and they wanted 13k for the upgrade to 2GB, which I thought was a complete rip off.

So, as an alternative I got the shop to install XP as it uses less RAM, and that seemed to work fine until I just bought $200 worth of new music software that requires 2GB RAM which prompted the current upgrade.

Thanks to all for the links, which hopefully others will find very useful too. All the online souces say the Kingston RAM I used is correct - actually d0ndela kindly gave me the correct RAM details in another thread. After reading the helpful responses here, maybe the way forward is to try another 2GB Kingston RAM to work alongside the newly installed one, giving me 4GB -as a matching pair this time, and, as I am going to have to re-install software that aint working properly anyway, maybe install 64 bit XP, or 64 bit Vista before I re-install the software, so the 4GB can be fully utilised.

Does this sound like a plan, or am I pushing my luck?

13k for 2 gigs? Probably should have been around 8k at most. In the u.s. kingston is around 800 baht per stick at present.