Dell 8250 RDRAM problems

Is the ram you bought also RDRAM?

It may be that your motherboard does not like Ram of different sizes and speed. Have you tried to take the old ram out and just try to run with the new stuff you bought?

rdram and sdram as far as i know you cannot mix them the m/b usually supports one or the other
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reviews/1787/1/

im 100% sure both sticks are RDRAM. i have tryed running it with just the new sticks and it still halts right away when i turn it on and says that the ram is unsupported, and to replace it with pc800 40ns or faster. but the thing is that this ram is pc800 45ns(its writen right on the sticks). from what i can tell, the problem is with the Dell bios. ive checked out a few other forums and people with this same motherboard have no problems mixing different ram speeds. there must be a way to bypass the dell bios, or at least trick it into thinking it "is" supported. If not, is it possible to replace this bios with another one?

in your original post you had rdram and then purchased sdram,which is like mixing oil and water

i havent mentioned SDRAM even once in both my posts, i dont know where you are reading this. both the original sticks and the new sticks ive bought are Rambus (RDRAM). the little notches on RDRAM and SDRAM are totaly different, i wouldnt even be able to plug SDRAM into my mother board. The new sticks of RDRAM that i bought plug in perfectly and techincaly should work, but the bios halts the system before it even trys to boot up. both sticks are 16 bit and 45ns. the only difference is that the originals are pc1066 non-ecc and the new ones are pc800 ecc. even on rambus's web site it says that both these ram sticks are compatable.

Does your Bios have a ECC setting?

If so you might want to try working the new Ram sticks with ECC on and see if it works.

i cant change the ecc setting (or any ram setting) in my bios, all it lets me do is view whats in the 4 ports.

Some boards can run ECC with NON-ECC Ram in Non-ECC mode. But in this case it appears that your motherboard is not able to do this.

I would put it back on Ebay and sell it.