Dell Inspiron 570 RAM Upgrade Problem

[Qui-Gon John]

So I was helping at a small business, they have (2) Dell Inspiron 570 Desktop PC's and wanted to upgrade the memory. This is to support Sage Accounting. Both PC's are identical. They currently have 4GB (2 x 2GB). And 2 open slots. They bought (2) 2GB Memory Chips, per the Dell User Guide, 1066Mhz, DDR3, non-ECC. I installed them. The BIOS does not see the extra memory (even after a BIOS Update). Windows does see it, but will not use it. They have Windows 7 Home Premium x64 Bit Edition. Which means they should support up to 16GB. I did numerous Google searches and tried all I saw, changing the Boot Memory in MSCONFIG, doing the BIOS Update, etc. Nothing worked. I even tried placing all (4) new chips in one computer (taking out the original 2), in this configuration I got the memory beeps. Went back to (2) Original and (2) new Updates. Windows shows TOTAL MEMORY 8.00GB (3.75 Useable). Can anyone help figure this out? Because of so many programs on one of these computers, they want to avoid buying a new computer to replace this one.

[Philip]

Sometimes different sticks of RAM don't work well together (they may have different voltage requirements, i.e. 1.50v vs 1.55v, different CAS settings, etc.) If the BIOS doesn't see the extra memory you have a problem. I would set the frequency and voltage manually in the BIOS, you can slightly bump up the voltage to the higher one within reason.

Also, it is likely that one of your new sticks may be bad, especially suspect if when you tried 4 new sticks you got beeps and no boot. I would try with different combinations of two new sticks only to get it to boot, and run a memtest on the new RAM (you can make a bootable USB stick or a DVD).

[Qui-Gon John]

Thanks, I still think it so strange that the BIOS only reports 4GB, but Windows 7 reports 8GB but just will not use all of the 8GB.