I have two older Dell towers. One a Dell Inspiron 531 with 2 GB RAM. The other a Dell Inspiron 530 with 1 GB RAM.
They both take DDR 2 RAM and I realized I had a bunch of 1 GB DDR2 RAM chips, 4 to be exact. So my first thought was to put all 4 in my Dell Inspiron 531. The one I already have in use, hooked up to my network. But a bit of trial and error, two of the chips turned out to be duds. I couldn't even boot up my computer with them in.
So the other two seemed to work OK. The original chips where 512 MB in size. Four for the Inspiron 531, and two for the Inspiron 530. Each computer has four memory slots. So I kept two of the 512s in and put in two 1GB – 3Gb in total. All seemed well until the BSODs started.
I suspected the memory, for some reason, :-) and I ran Microsoft's memory checker by typing in search bar, Memory. Windows Memory Diagnostic appeared in the menu.
I clicked on it and was given the option to Restart now or check later. I clicked on the Restart now and check for problems option.
System restarted, and I just let it run. It showed no errors.
It was supposed to give a report upon reboot but in my case it didn't. So I went to the Event Viewer by typing in Event Viewer in search. When it opened I clicked on the Windows Logs (click the little arrow in front or double-click) and then System. Then just scroll through the list and find MemoryDiagnostics-Results or use the Find option, left hand menu. No errors detected.
I took out all and replaced the originals. Then I decided to test them on the second Dell. The Inspiron 530. Only this time I was going to use program called Memtest86 v4.3.7. Mainly because I already had a copy burned of on CD. The date on the CD is Sept 2018, good enough.
Download the latest version here: www.memtest86.com
or you can try memtest.org for memetest86+
I first took out all the 512 MB chips. Then I'm going to put one chip in alone and run a test on it (the 1GB ones). Then repeat. I'm also unplugging the hard drive so I don't accidentally boot into windows if I miss the boot menu.
So I put in one of the 1GB chips. Plug in the computer's power. Turn it on. Put in the CD. I have to press F12 to get to the boot menu. Choose CDROM form the boot menu. Let memtest86 boot up and run. And wait.
It's recommended to run these tests over night. I'm giving each an hour. Around 14 minutes later, I got my first results. Pass complete, no errors, press Esc to exit. I still let it run until a full hour was up.
Then I tested the second chip. Two good chips according to the results. I then put the two 1GB chips in the Dell together and ran the test again. Again no errors. So I left them there.
So now the real test. Plug in the hard drive, boot into Windows and see what happens. It boots up with no problems and no errors. No BSODs on either (this is after a day running). So, two Dell Inspirons with 2GB of RAM, each. The Inspiron 531 has already been recruited and in action on my network. The Inspiron 530 will be bought into service as needed.
So I still don't know why the two working chips in the 531 caused BSODs. Maybe some incompatibility issues. But I got both working to my satisfaction, so I'm good.