Help

[sworks]

A while ago we started to get an error message of 'insufficient virtual memory', When speaking to my Brother in law who potters with computers he sorted this but said that we were running out of memory. He advised us about a 'buy it now' on ebay and he ordered it. After he fit it we now have another problem. When the computer is turned on it bleeps and the first screen we get is :-
post start up error
206 memory failed configuration
select one of the following

continue

exit setup

<f1> help <'up arrow'> <'down arrow'>
<esc> exit <enter> select

If we select 'exit setup' the computer starts up normally and it works fine, it seems to run a bit quicker. My Brother in law says this is ok but surely not?

Thanks

[JohnDotCom]

Either it is Reading the new Memory incorrectly,
The new memory does not match what you already have or is more than allowed by motherboard,
Or it just needs setting manually idependent on your Bios.
Go into Bios settings and see how much it says is there, the total amount of course should be what you had plus any new amount added.
If you are not happy with going into Bios, go into stystem Properties via Control panel, this will show you amount of memory fitted and recognised, and what processor you have.
If you go to the memory Website www.crucial.com (http://www.crucial.com) type in your motherboard or computer make and model it will tell you how much and what type of memory it will take.
Not all memory from EBay is very good quality and saving s are not made by buying cheap I'm afraid.

Just to confuse you further "Virtual Memory" is not the same as Main memory and you may just need to increase the size of Virtual Memory paging file, look this up under windows Help to find out how to safely alter. Having more main Memory will help as Virtual is when all your main memory is used either through many programs open at the same time, things running in the background or a Memory Resources program requiring lots of memory to run. Some Drawing & Graphics programs require up to 2GB on their own!
So either shut down things running not required or restart machine to free the memory again.

[BMC123]

as already mentioned, if windows can "see" the new memory (in the control panel section mentioned above) It sounds to me like the bios has not automatically updated itself, (again mentioned) and just needs manually told that the memory is there. that is usually a fairly simple job of going into the bios and then saving the configuration (you don't need to change anything normally) To be honest, thats something the person who fitted the memory should know about :confused: and passing it off like that is ..... well... I won't say anything, but i bet anybody who knows anything about computers can have a guess :D

[sworks]

Thanks for your help people,will try it tomorrow.