Fault Finding Your ThinkPad's RAM MemoryNote: Not all these steps may be applicable to your ThinkPad model. 1. Run The PC Doctor Diagnostics Program You can access PC Doctor for DOS by pressing the Access IBM button or F11 key during start up, this will get you into the predesktop menu area. If you don't have PC Doctor you can download it here. 2. Verifying Memory Module Installation And Compatibility ThinkPad systems generally only have one slot available to install memory upgrade modules. You may need to remove the standard memory module if you want to be able to upgrade to the maximum allowable memory, in some models this will require removing the keyboard. a) Visit the memory compatibility page on the IBM website to see which modules are compatible with your ThinkPad system. b) Remove the memory modules. c) Record the information on each module's label and compare it with the information you collected in step (a), if the information doesn't match then the module may not be compatible with your system. d) If they do match, re-install the modules but put them into a different slot than the one you removed them from, after doing this check that the memory detected matches the memory that's just been installed into each slot. If they don't match then either a slot or module may be faulty. 3. Monitoring The System's Memory Use IBM have a utility you can install to monitor the usage of your ThinkPad's RAM memory, it installs on your machine and periodically runs a check and then alerts you if your memory usage exceeds 99% during any 6 of the 12 checks it does so you can investigate any potential resource problems. You can download it here. There is also a page which advises you if your system is able to hold additional memory, take a look at it here. If you need additional information about your Thinkpad's RAM Memory you can also try the troubleshooting page on the IBM website. Click here to leave our ThinkPad RAM memory page and go to the IBM/Lenovo guides page. |
