Windows 7 Can BSODs Occur With Installation of Different RAM Sticks?

[Litha]

Hi, everyone. I've been getting BSODs ever since I installed a RAM stick which differed from the other in my Inspiron 1420. I had to install a new one since the other no longer worked. The two RAM sticks differ from each other as I don't believe they are the same brand.

One is by PNY Electronics at 2048 megabytes with a bandwidth of 400MHz
The other is by Hyundai Electronics at 1024 megabytes with a bandwidth of 333 MHz.
They are both DDR2.

I'm just wondering if this could be the cause of the BSODs I've been getting. The most recent BSODs are the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with the driver ntoskrnl.exe and the number 0x0000000a.

I've heard that if you can identify the driver then there could be an option of disabling or uninstalling that driver to stop the BSODs.

Thank you.

 

[GeneralHiningII]

Not advised to use different RAM sticks. Although it theoretically doesn't cause any issues, it's far too risky to use two RAM sticks that aren't clocked at the same speed, from different manufacturers and (this is a guess) probably differing latencies.

Add to that that you're using the new RAM on a DELL Computer (Who knows if the motherboard supports it?) makes the situation even shakier.

If you're dead set on using the new RAM stick, you should try to run Memtest86+ (link can be found in my signature) in case one of them might've been flashed wrong in the factory.

Otherwise, take the new stick out and leave it as it is.

 

[JesseATdell]

Litha,

Your Inspiron 1420 laptop memory specs are listed below. When you add different memory to this system other than what the specs call for your system will exhibit errors. Try removing the added memory to see if the error goes away.

Memory

Memory module connectors	Two SODIMM connectors
Memory module capacities	512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB
Memory type	667 MHz SoDIMM DDR2
Minimum memory	512 MB (APJ only) 1 GB (all other regions)
Maximum memory	4 GB

Thank You,
JesseAtDell
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