Recently purchased a new Toshiba Satellite A200-MR108C laptop here in Canada.
Vista came installed, downgraded to WinXP SP3.
Stock laptop came with 2x512 MB ram.
I purchased 2x 2GB ram to upgrade to 4GB ram. Before doing so, I made sure that my motherboard was indeed compatible and expandable to 4GB ram.
I've gotten Windows XP installed fine, everything works using the 2x512MB ram. When I change them to the 2x2GB ram, the computer will start up, loading bar will complete, windows starts for 1 second (desktop and mouse pointer appear) then suddenly crashes into a checkered blue/black screen of mess.
A few points:
1. I am sure both 2GB are non-defective.
2. WinXP works and boots up fine when I only insert 1x2GB into the machine. When I insert both is when it does not boot. I have tested both ram using this method, both work fine when they are the only chips inserted.
3. I am aware that my XP is 32-bit and I won't get the full potential of 4GB without 64-bit XP, and I am fine with the 3.0/3.5GB of ram or whatever it is.
4. They are identical chips, Kingston brand, same MHZ as the stock ram, and I'm almost definitely sure they're compatible. Like I said earlier, the machine boots just fine when there's 1x2GB in the machine.
5. When I start up the computer WITH 2x2GB in the machine, if I enter the BIOS, all 4GB are detected. The bios installed is Phoenix, v. 5.6 if I remember correctly. The BIOS seems extremely limited, as there are no options I can change or adjust, more of an informative display setup and nothing else. BIOS is entered by pressing F2 at the start up.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks for your time.
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