I'm Stumped: Laptop RAM

[sox 06]

I bought my sister a 1GB RAM chip for her laptop for Christmas (couldn't think of anything else to get her). I opened up the computer and there was one 512MB chip and an empty slot. I installed the 1GB chip in the empty slot and booted up the computer. The BIOS and System Properties showed 512MB which meant the 1GB chip wasn't being recognized. I went onto Google and read a bunch of things and nothing that I read worked. So I removed the 512MB chip and replaced it with the 1GB chip to see if the chip was the problem. I booted the computer up and it said that the system memory had changed. I went to system properties and it said there was 0.99GB of RAM installed. So how come when I installed the RAM chip in the empty slot, it wasn't recognized? The 512MB isn't recognized in that slot either. Is the slot no good?

[logan]

what type of ram? most ram needs to be replaced in pairs of the same exact thing. so no a 512 and a 1 gig stick would not work together. it would need to be two 512's of the same exact ram or 2 1 gig sticks etc.

[scottaa1]

the laptop probably requires DIMMs. Must be used in tandem, same size/speed. check out crucial.com. They have a scanner that will tell you what type of chips your puter needs, and what speeds it can take. You can also just enter the make/model if you happen to know them, the scanner works well if you don't. Good luck.

[sox 06]

I didn't know that the RAM had to be the same size for both sticks. I noticed that the second slot doesn't seem like the same type of slot as the first. When I installed the 1 gig into it, it didn't seem as though it went in all the way, but the clips locked in. The same thing happened with the 512MB, but the 1 gig fit perfectly into the first slot

She's a little better off now anyways and the computer can only handle up to 2GB so I'm not too worried about it. Thanks for the help

Here is what kind of RAM it needs - PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM SODIMMs
Here is what I bought for it - 1GB memory ram for Dell Inspiron B130 DDR2 PC2-4200

[logan]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=

there are three choices on what you could/should have gotten. That is assuming you wanted to max out the ram. If not there are even cheaper alternatives.

[Munboy]

I didn't know that the RAM had to be the same size for both sticks. I noticed that the second slot doesn't seem like the same type of slot as the first. When I installed the 1 gig into it, it didn't seem as though it went in all the way, but the clips locked in. The same thing happened with the 512MB, but the 1 gig fit perfectly into the first slot

She's a little better off now anyways and the computer can only handle up to 2GB so I'm not too worried about it. Thanks for the help

Here is what kind of RAM it needs - PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM SODIMMs
Here is what I bought for it - 1GB memory ram for Dell Inspiron B130 DDR2 PC2-4200

Ram have "bays" that they go into. If you only have one stick, it HAS to go into B1. I'd recently forgotten the "same size" rule myself when I bought another stick for my desktop. Took me forever to figure out why my computer wouldn't recognize the additional memory. Silly technology.