Memory Copmatability????

I can neither confirm nor deny any issue with Acer laptops and memory compatibility.

It would be interesting to know what if any issues the former owner had with this laptop.

I have experienced such a wide variety of memory issues that memory problems would not surprise me in the least.

Still, I would find it hard to believe that the laptop ran okay for the former owner and now is giving you memory problems.

I would start by running the hard drive manufactures diagnostic utility.

Then, run a system diagnostic / burn-in program.
(sorry, I don't have a specific recommendation)

If the hard drive is fine, and the diagnostic reports no problems, then give memory a try.

I have heard reports of some laptop memory sockets both failing, and having the solder joints to the system board fracture.
If either happens, you can get strange symptoms.

One last thing, what shape is the battery in?
Even under AC power, a weak battery can cause system problems.

Chas

The cause of the problem may be due to HD, CPU, RAM, or Motherboard.

There is no way that anyone can tell you exactly which component caused the problem without verifying it.
When you do a troubleshooting, you do not go with the order of suspects, you go with convenience (or what?s available to you now or soon).

The following is my recommendation of testing in order.

1. HD ? Do a HD diagnostic test. The diagnostic utility program is available from the HD manufacturer. If the HD is from Toshiba, use Seatools from Seagate.

2. RAM ? DDR333 is the right one. Visit a computer store and inquire its return policy. If the RAM can be returned, you can buy one and test whether the RAM was indeed the culprit or not.

3. CPU ? You need a good known replacement of CPU to verify this.

4. Motherboard - If the above HW test passed, by the process of elimination, the cause was the motherboard.

If you are unable to test CPU or motherboard, take your laptop to a reputable service place to do the troubleshooting.

As both above posters have said you have a problem with the M'Board CPU or RAM.

Now to test this you can download The Ultimate Boot CD an ISO file and make a Boot-able CD to test the thing out it is available at

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

Now since this unit has been altered since you bought it the first thing that I would look at is the RAM are both sticks the same Brand and specs? If not replace both of them with new units of the same make and speed.

Another thing that I have recently run into is HDD's not working with some M'Boards and in my case it was a Seagate drive on a Gigabyte M'Board which was causing the problem it at first gave the same error messages before finally loosing the MBR's and being unbootable even when connected to a Promise Tech plug in IDE controller card but the same HDD's work perfectly in another computer and test OK on the Gigabyte Board. If you have changed the HDD that could be a place to look as well particularly if you have changed makes as they can do some really screwy things particularly in a Note Book.

But if everything passes the diagnostics welcome to the world of AMD computers they perform perfectly when setup correctly but can do some really screwy things when the hardware isn't just right it's part of the reason that I try to keep clear of AMD CPU's as the units are fickle in construction even when you use the same brand bits in the build that is no guarantee of the unit working properly it all depends on the chip sets used as to what is going to happen and then just to make things messier you can take the same chip set Video Card from different makers and have one work and another not work but they are supposed to be exactly the same chip set involved. :D

From m experience with those types of error messages it has always been one of two things or both. It is either a bad Windows installation. Try doing a full format and reinstall. Or the other thing is the hard drive is failing. Try doing a scan disk and checking both options to scan for bad sectors and fix errors. It will restart your machine. Watch it and see if it fixes a bunch of things. If so that might work for a while but if the drive is failing it will happen again. So start with reloading since it's cheaper because it might fix the corrup registry otherwise you will need to replace the drive.

OK... update.!

I finally got to talk to someone at Acer that had a brain. After describing what was happening to the tech support person and telling him what I had for memory inside of it, it was determined that I should try the proper memory (in this case DDR-333MHz)and see if the problem re-occures.

At this point I'll be ordering the memory and trying it to see if this indeed corrects the problem.
Stay tuned for final updates....I'll be posting additional updates very soon.

Thanks to all that have responded so far... please feel free to give anymore input should you have any other sugestions.!!

Well here is a paragraph I got off of Crucial.com.

Common types of memory technology today include DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) SDRAM and DDR (double data rate, first generation) SDRAM. Many older systems use SDR (single data rate) SDRAM, fast page mode (FPM), or extended data out (EDO). Each of these memory types comes in a variety of speeds. And while most systems will accept only one type of memory technology (the very few motherboards that can accept more than one type of memory will only allow you to use one type at a time), it's okay to mix the speed of the memory in a system. Just keep in mind that your computer is made to handle a specific memory speed, so even if you add a faster speed memory, your computer will only allow it to run at the speed your computer was made to handle.

If you say you have tried a brand new hard drive with a clean installation of Windows XP then I can't explain your problem. But I think Crucial answered your million dollar question. Basically the only problem with using faster memory is you are wasting money if it doesn't support that speed but you won't get Operating System problems.

Hi-
I wish I had seen this sooner, answer #5 is correct, memory speed will not cause the problems your having.
My answer though, if it is one, won't be any fun lol.
You said you re-installed windows, but you didn't mention whether you formatted the drive or not.
Your problem looks alot like a virus, re-installing without formatting won't get rid of it if that's the case.
If you have not reformatted, get a set of xp boot floppies from Microsoft, (you'll need 6 disk's total) format the drive as this will kill any virus and find any drive platter errors, then do your re-install.
It's highly unlikely any hardware is causing you to lose system files.
HTH.
ED.

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