Can anyone help with this ram problem?

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Ok, I used the crucial.com scanner to find out the correct ram upgrade for my pc., installed the ram now my pc wont boot. It turns on for about 2 seconds, then downs for about 2 seconds, then back up again without booting, and all I have is a blank screen. I currently have 1 256mb chip in slot 2, that seems to work fine, I tried the new 1gb chip in slot 1 and get nothing. Pc still reads only 256mb ram. So I remove the 256mb chip and put the 1gb chip in its place and thats when the pc wont boot. Any help would be great.
 
Can you give some ideas, I also tried updating the system bios from the dell website. I think I read somewhere to try that.
 
If it won't detect the 1GB module alone in the first DIMM slot, the module is likely defective or not compatible with your PC.
 
Yeah I thought the chip might be bad, so I tried it in another pc and it worked fine.
Also if the ram is not compatible would I get error beeps when powering up?
 
Ah, I wasn't saying you were guaranteed to get beeps, I thought you wanted to know if BIOS beeps were a possible side effect of incompatible RAM, which, they are. That doesn't mean you will always get them.

It might appear to be compatible on paper (specification-wise) but your motherboard still might reject it. Get your hands on another 1GB module that your motherboard will accept specification-wise, and see what happens.
 
Could the crucial system scanner returned the wrong upgrade?
I also used the dell ram upgrade tool and it came up with the same results as crucial, but the crucial ram was alot cheaper so I went with that.
Also I have a pc2100, 1gb chip that I bought on ebay that also wont work, even though it seems like an exact match, pc2100, 266mhz, non ecc low density.

This is driving me crazy, i have 2gb of ram here and neither will work.
 
Ok I tried resetting the bios, still not working. It seems that slot 1 is not working at all. right now the 256mb chip is in slot 2, no problems. If I put it in slot 1, I get error beeps and system wont boot. I put it back in slot 2 and everything is fine.

Is it possible the 1gb chip has to be in slot 1 and slot 1 is not working for some reason or should it work in either slot.
 
Try the 1GB module in slot 2, if it works, leave it there and install the 256MB module in the following slot.

Technically, it should work in any slot, but perhaps DIMM slot 1 is defective or dirty etc.
 
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