Upgrading memory in an HP Pavilion zd7000

[JosephD]

So I was planning on upgrading this old laptop (HP Pavilion zd7000) that I had long ago. It had 1 GB of ram, and I was checking the max supported ram using this command

wmic memphysical get maxcapacity

in cmd, and apparently it can support up to 4gb of ram but on the manual webpage, they say the max is 2GB. So I bought two 1GB 333MHz DDR 200pin SODIMM PC2700 RAMs

Picture of the New and the Old RAM Modules from the front and the back

Anyway, the memory sticks arrived and I removed both of the 512mb rams from the 2 slots the laptop has, and I installed both 1GB sticks. the laptop was stuck on the load screen of windows 7. I tried booting the laptop with 1 GB ram + one of the old ones, but it didn't even boot at all. it was stuck on a black screen. then I tried each 1GB stick alone and every time on a different slot, and it worked completely fine with only the 1GB. I don't know why it wouldn't boot when both 1GBs sticks were installed. I checked multiple articles before buying the RAMs, and asked few people about it, and those were the only ones compatible with the laptop.

Another thing, the laptop had Windows XP Professional but I upgraded it to Windows 7, could it be a reason why it wouldn't boot? When I upgraded it, few of the drivers didn't install, because they are only available for Windows XP.

Any idea of why I can't install a 2GB ram on it? Is there a fix for this? If the max capacity the laptop can handle is 1GB, then why did that command give me 4GB? Should I downgrade to Windows XP and try with 2GB ram?

Thanks for any help.

 

[JosephD]

Anyone has any idea? ??

 

[Endymio]

When you say you upgraded to Win7, I assume you mean at some point substantially prior to upgrading the memory? In that case, I can't really suggest much. Have you ensured the bios for your mobo is up to date? I would say that your mobo isn't supporting dual channel memory, but you say it works fine with two sticks of the 512M ram? Other than that, I would if possible try a clean boot of WinXP (or, failing that, Win7) off a USB recovery drive.

 

[JosephD]

Well yea, I upgraded to Win7 prior upgrading the memory. and it worked fine with Win7.
I don't know if there is an update for the BIOS, I will check that later when I get back home. And yes, it worked fine with 2 sticks of 512Mb ram.
I will also try the clean boot of WinXP later, gotta find the CD first...

 

[bazz2004]

It's at least 15 years old and originally cost a lot of money. A reinstall of XP will take you a very long time with all the service packs and updates available but I'd be inclined to do that. Consider how you are going to use it because it's not going to be secure even with Windows 7. XP will run much faster - at least that's the case with my netbook which came with W7 Starter.
The laptop should handle 2Gb of ram without any flashing of the BIOS. I remember having issues with ram stick compatibility years ago with my XP desktop. Sticks that should have worked according to the spec weren't compatible but fortunately sellers were helpful.