What to check/set ddr memory

According to a couple of people I have conferred with, that RAM should work.
Take a stick of the old ram out and make sure the the cut out, in the new RAM, is in the exact place as the old sticks. It cannot be off by a micron, or it will not fit.

Understanding Identifying and Upgrading the RAM in your PC

Dont click on any of the ads in that article, just read it and you will be able to judge for yourself.

would say memory at first. That depends on a few things. Increasing your hard drive size will only help if it has little space left. Defragging your drive and cleaning out caches and temp files will help with some drive issues. If you are already going into this with 1 GiB of memory or more, a memory increase might not help. Keep in mind, DDR memory works better in pairs, it can work alone, but a pair of 512 MiB DDR, is faster than 1GiB alone. Also, check what the maximum speed of memory your computer can handle, if your computer can handle 800mhz DDR2, putting in 533mhz DDR2 will hurt performance, even if you are raising the amount of memory. Check your system specs and match your memory to the computers specs for the best performance. Don't forget about your virtual memory settings, another computer bottleneck

Crucial.com has an excellent wizard for locating memory.
Computer memory upgrades for HP Compaq Presario SR1710NX Desktop PC...

Lists memory compatible with your machine.
Memory Type: DDR PC3200, DDR (non-ECC)
Maximum Memory: 4GB
Slots: 4 Although the memory can be installed one module at a time, the best performance comes from using matched pairs of modules.

I have also found that the memory occasionally is not recognized. To fix remove the ram and clean electrical contacts with a clean pencil eraser. (Rub the contacts to clean.) Then replace memory. (My machine failed to boot, cleaning the contacts fixed the problem.

It depends on what you would like the end result to be. If you need to multi-task, and have 10 windows running at once, go with the 4GB @ 5300 because while it might take a little longer your computer will still be able to handle all the information. However if you are just using it for light browsing and would prefer speed over bulk (when it comes to data processing) go with the 2 @ 6400. I don't think it would be worth it to get 2 more @ 6400, technology is advancing so fast. If you have 60 bucks you can upgrade to two 4GB @ 10600 (8GB total for $60) 1333MHz PC3. Lookup Corsair XMS3 4GB RAM.

well first the mother board needs to be capable of handleing that much memory you can check that by going to the dell website and checking the specs on that model pc or mother board if the bios isn't recognizing it the chances are it won't but take out the 512 stick and just try one of the 1Gig if it does recognize that then try the second stick if it doesn't recognize them both then chances are it can't handle that much memory.

Adding new memory can be tricky. First the new memory has to be compatible with the motherboard.
By that I mean, you need to know how much memory the motherboard can max out at.Can it take only 2 GB or 4GB etc. And it has to be a match to what memory speed your motherboard can handle. If your motherboard takes DDR than you must put DDR in, if it takes DDR2 than you must put DDR2 in. Look at the old memory, and try to match all the numbers you find on it. Than look up the memory specs for the motherboard to find out how much it can take.
Any computer will not operate corecctly if the memory is the wrong kind, or installed wrong.

You do not say what memory you are trying to install.

The ASUS P4S800D motherboard has four memory slots that hold DDR PC2700 or DDR PC3200 with a maximum of 1GB per slot, so the installed maximum is 4GB.

DDR memory is generally available in 128MB, 256MB, 512MB and 1GB modules. If you already have memory installed, it must be at least 128MB so you cannot add modules to 'bring memory to 128'.

Either you have a different motherboard and posted in the wrong section, your memory calculations are wrong, or you have used older PC-133,PC-100 or PC-66 memory instead of DDR. The last is unlikely as older SDRAM has two notches and won't physically fit into a DDR slot that only has one notch.

Please re-post with the specific motherboard model just to confirm and a list of the memory modules you are trying to use.

Gateway's website says this motherboard will support 4GB of DDR333 or DDR400 memory. I would suggest testing each memory modules by plugging it into the board by itself, then rebooting. This way you can catch a bad DIMM that might be causing problems. If each one checks out then start adding one module at a time, rebooting after each one. If it still stops booting after you add a module, you probably have a bad system board, and only now that you are adding the extra memory are you finding that out. If that is the case, try contacting Gateway support. Maybe they would be kind enough to cover repair under warranty.

This board will support up to 2gb as shown below extacted from the website product page.Don't forget that if you have ddr 333 memory installed originally, you can only add the same clock speed memory, i.e. ddr 333. If you add ddr333 and ddr400 you will have problems as the clock speeds do not match. If you are matching clock speeds, the try bootin the system with the new piece of memory on its own to see if there is a problem with that stick, trial an error of both sticks individually, will give a positive result

MEMORY Single-channel DDR memory architecture 2 x 184-pin DDR DIMM socket support up to 2 GB Support DDR400/333 DDR SDRAM

Your system may have 2 slots for SDRAM and 2 slots for DDR Ram, and must not be mixed, either use only DDR DDR2 or SDRAM. The mobo may only take 2 of the same size sticks e.g 2 x 1GB,or 2 x 256MB, so be carefull as you may waste money on a non recognised peice of ram. If you use a pc3200 and a pc2700 stick it will run at the slower speedof pc2700. Some boards will only allow a certain maximum of ram up to pc3200 speed and then adding any more you will have to run at pc2700 speed. The crucial memory site will be best for advice on memory type allowance and speed.