Dell Inspiron 545s, Part 3 - Upgrading The RAM

Originally recorded November 16, 2024.
OK, with a spare power supply, the machine powers and boots. Now, in the time that has passed, do I have any additional RAM that can be used in this system? I got a package from UA-camr ‪@saturnevan‬ but that didn't seem to want to work in this system.
Now I'm none too well versed on this new-fangled old stuff, but I was under the impression that for the system to run in dual-channel mode, it must have matched pairs of chips. It came with 2 2GB chips, I tried 2 more that I had but one was defective. I added the one working chip and the machine has 6GB of RAM now. That's 3 chips, an odd number, and certainly doesn't match, yet the machine still reports it's running in dual channel mode. OK, I guess I'll take it.
There was a LOT of putting RAM in, taking RAM out, putting RAM in, taking RAM out. That's generally the way it goes. Even though it's supposed to be 100% compatible, sometimes it just isn't. Sometimes we'd have to explain that to customers at Tiny Middle. It is, however, rather infuriating that upgrading RAM can be like that. You'd think after all this time using any variant of SDRAM chips (yes, that includes all flavors of DDR) that we'd get it all to work, but sometimes that's the way it goes.
As it stands now, the machine is configured identically, same processor, same amount of RAM as the video editing rig. Wow. I really waited too long. That old Pentium 4 was supposed to be a stop-gap measure, maybe it would last 2 years, maybe 3, but probably not much beyond that, but it beat all odds and continued on it's merry way.
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Dell Inspiron 545s, Part 1 - Use It Or Lose It, I Didn't And I Lost It
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Dell Inspiron 545s, Part 2 - Bad Power Supply, Bad Power Switch, Or Bad Motherboard?
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[@saturnevan]

Hmm, that's rather odd that the ram didn't register in the machine. The DDR2 sticks are ones I pulled out of a junker several years ago. As long as they're still working and not damaged, I guess there's always a plan L.

[@jaykay18]

There is always a plan L. If not, I can also abort mission. Like I explained, I've seen RAM supposed to be 1000% compatible and it just doesn't work. I'd have thought they would have figured all that out in the many years we've been using the different flavors of SDRAM.

[@240Volts]

That is a picky machine. I have had mixed memory in my previous machines. I have had memory fail and stop working in a machine it was working in. I never had static issues either after 25 plus years working on PCs.

[@jaykay18]

I think the static issue is blown way out of proportion. In production of ICs, yes, I think it is very necessary. The rest, not really. I find it interesting how this one has a BIOS unlike other Dell systems, it does seem to be a bit of an oddball. I even checked, that is the latest BIOS revision for it.
I had a machine in the past that I got RAM for. Put it in, it sees it, the machine boots up fine but was very unreliable and would blue screen. Take it out, it ran very stable. Take out the original RAM and put the new RAM in, ran stable. Both together, no good. That was an interesting one.