Memory recognition problems with Aspire T180

I've given up on Acer support (and I thought Asus and Abit were bad) after a
month of wasted with meaningless and very occasional responses from them and
in the hope that someone in this NG here can help.

A month ago I tried to upgrade the memory on a friend's Acer Aspire T180
Desktop from the installed 512Mb to 2.0Gb (running Vista Home Basic and
running like a snail) and the system is only recognising and reporting 1Gb
when two matching 1Gb memory modules are installed. Both are working
individually in what I presume is Slot 0 (my friend could not find her
manual and I could find no motherboard reference documents or manual on the
Acer Web Site)

Neither of the memory sticks will work individually in the other Slot (Slot
1 ?) and the system will not boot. However the system will recognise either
of the 1Gb modules in Slot 0 and the original 512 Mb in Slot 1 (reporting a
total of 1.5 Gb). The memory is OCZ PC2 4200 1024Mb DDR2 (Part No:
OCZ25331024V). Both memory modules have been checked as working on my own
system.

I cannot find any relevant info on the Acer site about this computer, or the
motherboard fitted, so has anyone out there met up with similar problems
with memory not being compatible with this motherboard/computer or a memory
limitation not being well publicised

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Geoff

Some being by the name of Geoff managed to piece together the following:

> Neither of the memory sticks will work individually in the other Slot
> (Slot 1 ?) and the system will not boot. However the system will recognise
> either of the 1Gb modules in Slot 0 and the original 512 Mb in Slot 1
> (reporting a total of 1.5 Gb). The memory is OCZ PC2 4200 1024Mb DDR2
> (Part No: OCZ25331024V). Both memory modules have been checked as working
> on my own system.
>

Doesn't the T180 have 4 memory slots? I had a look on the Crucial site and
it says it'll take 4 x 1gb -
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...=Aspire%20T180

--
The trouble with women is that they never put the toilet seat back up!

"TGGA" <tgga@the.insane.asylum.com> wrote in message
news:YuydnXdbpue1l3rbnZ2dnUVZ8rKdnZ2d@eclipse.net. uk...
> Some being by the name of Geoff managed to piece together the following:
>
>> Neither of the memory sticks will work individually in the other Slot
>> (Slot 1 ?) and the system will not boot. However the system will
>> recognise
>> either of the 1Gb modules in Slot 0 and the original 512 Mb in Slot 1
>> (reporting a total of 1.5 Gb). The memory is OCZ PC2 4200 1024Mb DDR2
>> (Part No: OCZ25331024V). Both memory modules have been checked as working
>> on my own system.
>>
>
> Doesn't the T180 have 4 memory slots? I had a look on the Crucial site and
> it says it'll take 4 x 1gb -
> http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...=Aspire%20T180
>
> --
> The trouble with women is that they never put the toilet seat back up!
>

Agreed, I eventually managed to find and download the specs and manual (user
guide) from the Acer US site and the specs say 4Gb as well, but nothing as
to how that 4Gb is made up (ie 2 x 2Gb or 4 x 1Gb). There are four slots,
but looks to me as if two are DDR2 and the other two DDR (two distinct
colours). The manual is useless apart from telling you how to turn the
computer on, and the specs say nothing about DDR memory only DDR2; so will
have to check that out just in case they are both DDR2 and I should be using
one of the other memory slots.

Acer UK will not, or cannot, give me a straight answer as to what memory is
compatible with this board so I will have to try and identify the
motherboard and work from that.

Thanks

Geoff

On Sep 12, 7:56 am, "Geoff" <geoffp...@houseofstephanie.co.uk> wrote:
> "TGGA" <t...@the.insane.asylum.com> wrote in message
>
> news:YuydnXdbpue1l3rbnZ2dnUVZ8rKdnZ2d@eclipse.net. uk...
>
>
>
> > Some being by the name of Geoff managed to piece together the following:
>
> >> Neither of thememorysticks will work individually in the other Slot
> >> (Slot 1 ?) and the system will not boot. However the system will
> >> recognise
> >> either of the 1Gb modules in Slot 0 and the original 512 Mb in Slot 1
> >> (reporting a total of 1.5 Gb). Thememoryis OCZ PC2 4200 1024Mb DDR2
> >> (Part No: OCZ25331024V). Bothmemorymodules have been checked as working
> >> on my own system.
>
> > Doesn't theT180have 4memoryslots? I had a look on the Crucial site and
> > it says it'll take 4 x 1gb -
> >http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...=Aspire%20T180
>
> > --
> > The trouble with women is that they never put the toilet seat back up!
>
> Agreed, I eventually managed to find and download the specs and manual (user
> guide) from theAcerUS site and the specs say 4Gb as well, but nothing as
> to how that 4Gb is made up (ie 2 x 2Gb or 4 x 1Gb). There are four slots,
> but looks to me as if two are DDR2 and the other two DDR (two distinct
> colours). The manual is useless apart from telling you how to turn the
> computer on, and the specs say nothing about DDRmemoryonly DDR2; so will
> have to check that out just in case they are both DDR2 and I should be using
> one of the othermemoryslots.
>
> AcerUK will not, or cannot, give me a straight answer as to whatmemoryis
> compatible with this board so I will have to try and identify the
> motherboard and work from that.
>
> Thanks
>
> Geoff

I have a similar problem. My PC does recognizes the two 512 DDR2 667
but it only goes as fast as DDR2 400. Tryed to contact Acer support
and their final response was to ship the PC back to them.

Hope sombody can help with a BIOS patch or something.

Thanks,
Giovanni

<bisanti@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1189709440.111441.151160@57g2000hsv.googlegro ups.com...
> On Sep 12, 7:56 am, "Geoff" <geoffp...@houseofstephanie.co.uk> wrote:
>> "TGGA" <t...@the.insane.asylum.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:YuydnXdbpue1l3rbnZ2dnUVZ8rKdnZ2d@eclipse.net. uk...
>>
>>
>>
>> > Some being by the name of Geoff managed to piece together the
>> > following:
>>
>> >> Neither of thememorysticks will work individually in the other Slot
>> >> (Slot 1 ?) and the system will not boot. However the system will
>> >> recognise
>> >> either of the 1Gb modules in Slot 0 and the original 512 Mb in Slot 1
>> >> (reporting a total of 1.5 Gb). Thememoryis OCZ PC2 4200 1024Mb DDR2
>> >> (Part No: OCZ25331024V). Bothmemorymodules have been checked as
>> >> working
>> >> on my own system.
>>
>> > Doesn't theT180have 4memoryslots? I had a look on the Crucial site and
>> > it says it'll take 4 x 1gb -
>> >http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...=Aspire%20T180
>>
>> > --
>> > The trouble with women is that they never put the toilet seat back up!
>>
>> Agreed, I eventually managed to find and download the specs and manual
>> (user
>> guide) from theAcerUS site and the specs say 4Gb as well, but nothing as
>> to how that 4Gb is made up (ie 2 x 2Gb or 4 x 1Gb). There are four slots,
>> but looks to me as if two are DDR2 and the other two DDR (two distinct
>> colours). The manual is useless apart from telling you how to turn the
>> computer on, and the specs say nothing about DDRmemoryonly DDR2; so will
>> have to check that out just in case they are both DDR2 and I should be
>> using
>> one of the othermemoryslots.
>>
>> AcerUK will not, or cannot, give me a straight answer as to whatmemoryis
>> compatible with this board so I will have to try and identify the
>> motherboard and work from that.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Geoff
>
> I have a similar problem. My PC does recognizes the two 512 DDR2 667
> but it only goes as fast as DDR2 400. Tryed to contact Acer support
> and their final response was to ship the PC back to them.
>
> Hope sombody can help with a BIOS patch or something.
>
> Thanks,
> Giovanni
>

Managed to resolve the problem myself today, but my experience over the past
month goes to prove how the lack of good documentation together with a lack
of good knowledgeable support staff (as well as a certain amount of admitted
self-complacency on my part) can make a mountain out of a mole hill.

I'm still not sure whether the solution I found is peculiar to this specific
computer (i.e. it does have a motherboard problem), or a problem in the
general design of the motherboard used in the T180 computers, but if it is
of help to anyone out there it worked for me.

As TGGA stated the motherboard does in fact have four memory slots, two
pairs but with different colour surrounds. From my experience this set up
has only been used where the motherboard supports different types of RAM
(SDRAM/DDR & more recently DDR/DDR2). In the absence of any documentation to
the contrary, I had, wrongly, presumed this to be the case with this
motherboard and had ignored the two colour-matching memory slots that had
not been used. In fact all four slots are DDR2 (so why the different
colours?), but the computer would only recognise the new memory if it was
installed in what was the vacant (matching colour) slots. Simply replacing
the factory installed memory did not work and the computer would not boot.

The computer is now running very nicely with 2.5Gb (the original factory
installed memory in its default slot and the 2 x 1Gb sticks in the
colour-matched pair of slots) being fully recognised by the BIOS and Vista.

Hope this info is of some help to someone out there.

Geoff