Windows won't boot after memory upgrade!

[Still_learning]

Hello! I am new to the boards but from what I have seen this will be the place to come from now on

I upgraded my memory tonight from 128 to 512 (rambus). Install was of course easy and had no beeps at start. Now windows will not boot all the way. If I hit restart it takes me to the options page (safe/normal/ect). I hit f1 at start to check my settings and all seemed fine so I continued from there and after getting to the windows page it errored out and said that windows did not load properly! I replaced the old memory and am now getting the same result as with the new. I did not change anything before or after installing the memory. if anyone has an idea of what went wrong here, please let me know thanks!

 

[Goalie]

Can you boot into safe mode?

Do you get any error messages/text??

Can you tell us what operating system?

BTW- Welcome to Techspot! :wave:

 

[xcks]

My thoughts

http://www.aumha.org/win4/a/memmgmt.htm
http://www.aumha.org/win4/kbhrdwar.php#ram look under MEMORY (RAM)

ONLINE TESTER http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

THIS IS A "MORE THAN LIKELY" POSSIBILITY
As you add RAM, two things happen. The memory system slows a little and the power supply needs are higher. Unless you have a power supply of at least 100 watts more than you think you need, the issue is typical. If the power is sufficient, and it fails the initial POST, then you call the motherboard supplier and have them swap it out.
Some articles note that 400 (and other) Watt power supplies are not really 400 and also degrade quickly in the first year.
. Light reading.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/

Without a complete list, I can't tell what to pick, but I find adding 100 to what people think they need keeps the machine from showing up again.

No computer info given, most awnsers will be usless. Then again I may not know my way around here yet. Good Luck!

 

[Still_learning]

Sorry for getting back to you all so slow (work has been hell)

The oprating system is xp and it was able to go into safe mode. Only error message it gave was when it attempted to load xp normally it would give me a windows didn't load properly, please start in safe mode. Now here comes the odd part! The next day I was going to give up and reformat the system just incase it was an os problem. I put the new memory in and powered up.....and low and behold xp loaded and all seemed fine! But now it occassionaly restarts itself after I clos out an application??? This is annoying but exceptable atm seeing that I am too busy with work atm to spend alot of time troubleshooting it :/ Thanks for your tips.....I will cross ref. them when I get alittle more time

 

[Goalie]

You need to disable automatic rebooting on system failure to read the blue screens (and start to determine the cause).

To do this, right click on My Computer (on your desktop), chose properties. (You can also go into the control panel, chose classic view if it's not already there, and double click on "system")

In there, Chose the advanced tab. Under startup and recovery, click settings. Then under system failure, uncheck "Automatically restart." Click OK, Apply, then OK. Reboot if it asks you to (I don't think it will.)

Get three or four blue screen messages, and post the relevant information and we'll see if we can't link the cause.

EDIT: I also recomment www.memtest86.org for a memory tester. You can get a prebuilt image that boots on a floppy, let it run overnight without changing anything, and then see the errors in the morning (if any.) This also lets it make multiple passes- the more passes the more likely you are to catch an error if it exists.