Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Dell laptop issues. Ken to the rescue!(or another)

Having a problem with my inspiron 1525. I have 3 gb of ram (a 2 gig and a 1 gig chip). I'm running windows 7.

Upon bootup I get a memory address line failure at xxxxxxx read xxxxxx expecting xxxxx.

To resolve this issue try to reseat the memory. Memory is snug and reseating doesn't solve the issue.


if I press f1 to continue I get the following:
"no physical memory is available at the location required for the windows boot manager The system can not continue.

If I boot in diagonostic mode (hold in fn, power on, release fn) I get the following error:
"No user memory available!"

However, If I remove the 2 gig ram chip from slot B but leave the 1 gig ram chip in slot A I am able to run the diagnostic mode and it says no memory issues.

BUT, If I try and just boot the computer with the 1 gig of ram it doesn't boot though. Instead this happens:
I get a screen that says amount of memory has changed press f1 to continue. F1 takes me to a black screen and windows never boots up. (will try this again as maybe I just didn't wait long enough but I doubt it)

Also, I tried running the computer with the 2 gig chip in slot A and nothing in Slot B to see if the second bay was bad but it says no memory.

I'm guessing I have a bad 2 gig memory chip, but not sure why it still doesn't boot with the 1 gig chip.

Any ideas?

Are you using Win 7 64bit? 64bit requires 2GB of RAM. Sounds like your 2GB chip is definitely bad, in any case.

That'll be $60.

win7 32 bit.

Definitely doesn't boot with 1 gig. black screen and lots of whirring and fan noise like something is trying to happen. will re-run the memory test as it said there was no problems but it can do some extensive 30 minute check to verify.

Hmm. Wonder if it's seeing that 1 GB as less than 1 GB because of VRAM.

Hmmmmm....


I'll run this 30 minute memory check thingy and report back.
I will purchase a new ram chip and see if that solves the problem... the 2 gig chips are about $43 each on crucial.com, seems kinda steep (but I've only bought ram for a desktop before and it was about half that). should I buy 2 to bring it to 4 gigs even if I'm only running 32bit OS?

Any better place to buy memory from?

I always use Crucial, myself. Generally very good pricing, and I'd expect laptop memory to be more.

It may be worthwhile to buy 4 GB, just to have matched memory. I don't know if your laptop will do dual channel ram, but there is a speed advantage to be had there if it does.

Yeah, it says it does so sounds like that is the way to go.

Hopefully that will fix 'er up.

That's $60 x three posts........ soooooo $180.

That was funny, Ken.

check is in the mail.

Can anyone tell me what the difference is between the two 4GB ram "kits" shown at the link below. They are both the same price and both supposedly compatible with my laptop.

thanks.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Inspiron%201525

The top one is potentially faster, if your laptop supports the higher memory speed (and the higher latency doesn't obviate that). I'd probably go for that one.

That's what I thought, thanks.. I'm assuming it works as it says it is compatible. I'm pretty sure that is the speed that was in it to begin with also.

If you follow the drop downs and have your exact model selected when you place an order from Crucial, they'll guarantee it works, or will exchange it with no questions.

Also when you get the RAM run Memcheck on it. They also have no trouble replacing defective pieces.

Found a 5% coupon code online so I saved 4 bucks. Opted for the free shipping which takes 5-9 business days. Hope the new ram solves my problems.

How old is the laptop? I assume it has worked in the past? Try taking the eraser end of a pencil and clean the gold contacts on the chip. We have seen older desktop and laptops resolved this way at work, but not always. Over time as the dust bunnies and other stuff gets gummed on them, it can cause contact issues. Also blow out the slots with compressed air.

Laptop is 2 yrs old. NO dust to speak of. Odd that it would just stop working but I consistently get a "no physical memory error" when I try it with the 2 gig and 1 gig chip in at the same time, or just with the 2 gig by itself. If I run it with the 1 gig chip only I can't boot into windows but diagnostics show no problems with memory, hard drive, etc. as mentioned

If it doesn't solve the problem I can return the ram.

As a last resort one of the I.T. guys at work said he'd take a look at it.

Thanks for the tip randy. I gave it a try and no luck. I have used the eraser trick on my computer access cards for work before and it has worked.

This is the error I get:



If I press F1 I get this:



I guess I'll see what happens when the ram comes in.

Have you tried the F5 option for onboard diagnostics? I know all the HP's we have at work have memory and hard drive tests if you go into the BIOS at system startup, if so it might give an indication. I hope it is memory and not the motherboard.

Yeah, if I hit F5 for diagnostic mode (or hold in fn, power on, release fn for diagonstic boot mode) it immediate gives me a blue screen that says "no memory" or something like that if the 2 gig chip is in and it won't let me run any kind of diagnostic tests. With only the 1 gig chip the diagonstic mode says everything is fine (but it still won't boot into windows- no error just a black screen).

I'm certain that 2 gig chip is bad I just don't know if anything else is going on or what.

I'll report back in 5-9 business days and let you know if the ram fixed 'er up.

David, I found this on Dell's website. Looks like Randy's suggestion to run the diagnostic test is the way to go.

Re: Memory address line failure at <address>, read <value> expecting <value>

Memory modules faulty or improperly seated. Reseat the memory modules and run the RAM Test Group in diagnostics. If the test fails, remove one memory module at a time and repeat the test until the faulty module has been isolated.

Also, here's the results of a Google search for that system error. Memory address line failure Dell.

As the others have stated, it seems like the 2GB memory module has gone bad.

However, I have one question. You say you tried booting the laptop with each memory module installed separately. Did you try installing the 2GB memory module in BOTH slots on the motherboard and completing a boot test? This will confirm that the memory module is bad, and not the memory slot on the motherboard (which is highly unlikely).

Yeah I gave that a try and confirmed that the 2 gig chip is bad. Still not 100% certain why it won't boot with the 1 gig chip but we will see what happens when I get the new RAM.

Got the ram, no luck. Popped it in and pressed F1 to continue after memory change and get a black screen. can't get to boot menu with F8.

Downloaded windows 7 recovery disk, changed boot sequence, booted to disk.

recovery disk shows windows installation just fine. tried auto recovery and no problems found. tried system restore back to 11/26 and it went through but still no luck.

went to command prompt from recovery disk. changed to c:\windows
tried to type explorer.exe. windows pops up that file EXPLORERFRAME.dll is missing.

Copy explorerframe.dll off of my desktop and onto the laptop. (placed in windows\system32\. It asks to overwrite file (so it is there, thought maybe it is corrupt.) I press yes to overwrite.

Try c:\windows\explorer.exe. same error about explorerframe.dll missing.


tried reboot and still jsut a black screen.

Any suggestions from here?

Buy a Mac?







*gasp*
oh, no he di'int!

I assume you have another working machine with a CD burner in it, from the fact that you've made the recovery disc.

Get the Memtest86 ISO, and burn it to a CD. Boot from that disc and let it run through the test once (it'll take a while).

If that works out OK, I'd say that Windows is pretty hosed, and it's time to back up your data, format, and reinstall.

Well since I was finally able to get to a command prompt (through the recovery disk I downloaded today) I'm doing the following:

plugged in my external HD with my windows7 setup.exe file from school. Tried the "upgrade" installation option but it wouldn't allow it because it recognized I was booted from a startup disc and not actually windows.

Soooo.. I'm doing the complete reinstall. Hope it works will report back.

I wonder if that stinking ram chip was bad in the first place....

Thanks for the advice chris. If the reinstall doesn't fix things I'll try the memtest iso as suggested. I've already got everything important on this computer backed up, plus the windows installation from my school moves all of the documents into a windows.old folder.

Not sure if this is doing a complete reformat or not though. When I have installed from a windows xp disk in the past I have seen installation options that include "reformat".

The windows 7 install from my school has the two options mentioned previously:

"upgrade"
or
"reinstall"


We shall see what happens....

I always run that Memtest on all new RAM. It's nice to find a problem right away, rather than random crashes later on.

back up and running now!

After install was complete and everything was workign I took out the 2 new 2gig ram chips and put in the suspected old faulty ram chip.

memory error, no physical memory.

I guess I'm keeping the 2 2gig ram chips after all.

I'm not quite sure what happened but somehow my ram got screwed and my windows install was bad.

Any idea what might have caused this?


Either way, my wife will be glad to have her laptop back!

I'm guessing the bad RAM somehow corrupted the Windows install.

That's exactly what I was going to say, which is why I test my RAM.