xp having problems after ram upgrade

Hey guys. I just tried to upgrade my eMachines T6534 512mb (specs below) with two 1G memory upgrades. The memory type I purchased is PC3200 DDR 400 Mhz. I removed the 512mb stick that came with it, put in the 2 matching 1G sticks and started it up. It seemed to be running very well, although there was a slight clicking noise in the tower that I hadn't heard before. I was running avg antivirus scan for roughly 50 mins, stopped it and shut the computer down in order to install a new mouse I'd purchase. Upon restart, CHKDSK popped up in the blue screen and said it had found some corrupted files, which it then removed. Ever since then, startup is extremely slow and I can't use all of my programs. For instance, I can't even do the Microsoft update, as it will fail every time.

I've since removed the upgrade sticks and put the original 512mb back in, and I'm having the same issues. Any ideas?

[gaurav_indian]

Your hard disk has bad sectors mate.

go to command prompt and type

chkdsk drivename :

and test all drives

Thanks for the reply!

So, I'm not the most computer literate person. What does it mean that my hard disk has bad sectors? Can it be fixed?

[gaurav_indian]

Thanks for the reply!

So, I'm not the most computer literate person. What does it mean that my hard disk has bad sectors? Can it be fixed?

Bad sector

A bad sector is a sector on a computer's disk drive that cannot be used due to permanent damage, such as physical damage to the disk particles. It is usually detected by a disk utility software such as CHKDSK or SCANDISK on Microsoft systems, or badblocks on Unix-like systems. When found, these programs mark the sectors unusable and the operating system skips them in the future.

No it cant be fixed.But thats not true also.Low level formatting might help.I had 20kb bad sectors in my new 250gb hdd and i formatted it low level.And they went away.Low level formatting means if you right click any drive and select format then dont "quick format" it.See if there is 4kb bad sectors in your hdd.Then it will increase day by day.Have u tested it?Are there any bad sectors?How old your hdd is?

[Serunson]

Can you get your computer to boot into SAFE MODE? To do this press F8 repeatedly when you hit your power button to turn it on. Then hopefully you will get your desktop screen. From here go to Start -> Run -> and type "msconfig". From here go to the last tab, "startup". Un-check anything not related to Microsoft. Look for where the program is located if it is under "c:\windows\...\..." then leave it checked.

Thanks to both of you for your help. I will give these ideas a try tonight when I get home from work. I'll post the results. Thanks!