Home PC smart guys - Help me out please.

[GlennCMC70]

Had a video card die on me overnight couple nights ago (fan fell off and cooked the chip). I got a new video card (Radeon HD 5450 2G DDR3) and while I was there I thought I would up the RAM.
Video card works great so far.

Now for the problem involving the RAM. PC is a eMachines T5212. Originally came w/ 512M RAM x2. Mitch was nice enough to give me a pair of G.Skill 2G cards (they say DDRII2GB PC2-6400). I installed them and discovered one of the 2 was bad (he told me this could be the case when he gave them to me). I was OK w/ it since I was moving from 2 512M cards (1G) to 1 2G card. I was 2 times better off w/ just the one card. So forward to today where I pick up a pair of PNY 2GB cards to populate both slots (to get 4GB total). They are DDR2 PC2-6400's. Neither will work in my PC. I tried both one at a time in slot 0 and the PC would not boot.
So I find a site that says it can scan my PC and tell me what RAM would work. This is what I get:

DDR2 PC2-5300
Memory Type: DDR2 PC2-5300, DDR2 (non-ECC)
Maximum Memory: 2GB
Currently Installed Memory: 2GB
Total Memory Slots: 2
Available Memory Slots: 1

2GB

DDR PC2-6400 EMPTY

Each memory slot can hold DDR2 PC2-5300 with a maximum of 1GB per slot.*

It is the last line that has me confused. It says my PC will only take a 1GB card per slot for a max of 2GB total. But I have a 2GB card in slot 0.
Is this just an issue of the G.SKILL card working where it shouldn't? I checked the bios and it see's the G.Skill card as 2048MB in slot 0. Should I seek out a G.Skill card (2 of them)?

[BlueFirePony]

Had a video card die on me overnight couple nights ago (fan fell off and cooked the chip). I got a new video card (Radeon HD 5450 2G DDR3) and while I was there I thought I would up the RAM.
Video card works great so far.

Now for the problem involving the RAM. PC is a eMachines T5212. Originally came w/ 512M RAM x2. Mitch was nice enough to give me a pair of G.Skill 2G cards (they say DDRII2GB PC2-6400). I installed them and discovered one of the 2 was bad (he told me this could be the case when he gave them to me). I was OK w/ it since I was moving from 2 512M cards (1G) to 1 2G card. I was 2 times better off w/ just the one card. So forward to today where I pick up a pair of PNY 2GB cards to populate both slots (to get 4GB total). They are DDR2 PC2-6400's. Neither will work in my PC. I tried both one at a time in slot 0 and the PC would not boot.
So I find a site that says it can scan my PC and tell me what RAM would work. This is what I get:

DDR2 PC2-5300
Memory Type: DDR2 PC2-5300, DDR2 (non-ECC)
Maximum Memory: 2GB
Currently Installed Memory: 2GB
Total Memory Slots: 2
Available Memory Slots: 1

2GB

DDR PC2-6400 EMPTY

Each memory slot can hold DDR2 PC2-5300 with a maximum of 1GB per slot.*

It is the last line that has me confused. It says my PC will only take a 1GB card per slot for a max of 2GB total. But I have a 2GB card in slot 0.
Is this just an issue of the G.SKILL card working where it shouldn't? I checked the bios and it see's the G.Skill card as 2048MB in slot 0. Should I seek out a G.Skill card (2 of them)?

Short story is get 2 1Gb PC2-5300 sticks and populate both slots - return the 2G sticks.

Less short story - AFAIK the last line is telling you that you can only get to the 2Gb max by filling each slot with 1G sticks. You can't exceed the bus speed,\ memory ceiling, latching speed, etc of any given slot....sometimes the BIOS will *see* the excess memory and might even start up and depending on the manufacturer it will step down and run on a slower bus but will throw an fault when it tries to access the memory "above the line" - usually as soon as the video card tries to grab it when the operating system boots. My guess is the old card could not take advantage of the excess memory and never tried to access it so you got by.
You also have the issue that PC2-6400 memory is probably faster channel speed that what your computer can handle (I think your computer has a 667Mhz memory channel speed which PC25300 uses vs 800Mhz which 6400 uses - 4200 runs at 533Mhz and should work in your computer and I think that could be what the 512Mb sticks were).
I'll PM you my cell if you need to talk this through.

[Rob Liebbe]

Are they speaking English?

[cjlmlml]

You should get Direct tv, I think this would fix your problem.