Dell Inspiron 2600 Notebook RAM/Mainboard trouble

[ProjectXBOX]

Hello all, I'm hoping someone can shine some light on this problem.

Recently my dell inspiron 2600 notebook started locking up and BSODing randomly.. Upon the restart from one of these failures, the computer would refuse to POST, and would emit a beep code of 1-3-3-1. Dell tech support identifes this as a "motherboard failure" however they refuse to elaborate. On a hunch, i removed one of the two sticks of 128MB SDRAM and ran on a flat 128MB. When running on a single stick of RAM, the computer runs fine, aside from being terribly overburdened by lack of RAM. however when both sticks are installed, the computer will always fail by locking up in windows, having the LCD completeley black out and lock up. Refusal to post, or BSOD/locking up at boot-time. I have done numerous RAM troubleshooting steps such as swapping sticks and slots to verify that i didnt have a "bad stick" and i have verified that both sticks are indeed 100% good. Also, both slots are confirmed good as well. This is definietly an issue tied to the physical RAM, slots, or amount of ram itself. The only thing i can think of is that the motherboard is having trouble handling more than 128MB of ram.. does anyone have any ideas?? sorry about the long post, i wanted to make sure i documented everything ive done so far though..

Thanks,
-Jay and laptop

[fren]

It's a memory issue.

Clean the gold contact of the sticks and reseat them several times in their slots.

Or the last memory upgrade might not be compatible with your system.

[ProjectXBOX]

Fren,

Thanks for the reply, I'll try cleaning the ram contacts. There was no upgrade to the system, this was the ram that came stock with the machine. The only thin i dont understand though is if its a dirty contact, then why both sticks would still work perfectly on their own but not together. Ah well, computers... gotta love em!

-J

[fren]

If those two sticks installed in your computer came with the original factory setup and they were successfully working together previously. I think what you need to do is set the bios again in default values if you can still get into bios or through the cmos battery on the system board if it's not soldered in the board.

[jkerner]

Hello all, I'm hoping someone can shine some light on this problem.

Recently my dell inspiron 2600 notebook started locking up and BSODing randomly.. Upon the restart from one of these failures, the computer would refuse to POST, and would emit a beep code of 1-3-3-1. Dell tech support identifes this as a "motherboard failure" however they refuse to elaborate.

Jay,
Any resolution on this issue? My laptop has developed the same symptom.
jkerner

[ProjectXBOX]

yes i found a resolution..

I bought another junk 2600 on ebay and swapped motherboards... >.<

Thats the only way i could clear up the problems.

Plus i ended up getting the 1200MHz chip with the new one so i actually upgraded my cpu in the process!

sorry i didnt have another way for you..

[jkerner]

Thanks for the update! I'll try your approach.