Problem with memory slots

[Lyrids]

A few months ago I tinkered with my RAM and as a result I'm only running half the amount of RAM I was. I have an MSI K8N Neo Platinum with two sticks of Crucial DDR400 512 MB, and three RAM slots on the motherboard. After tinkering I turned on my computer and the mobo beeped with no other response, and after some experimentation I discovered that the only RAM combination that allowed my computer to boot into Windows was one stick of RAM (either one) in the first slot. Only one other combination brought me close, and that was one stick in the first slot and another in the third. This allowed my computer to POST, and when looking in the BIOS it verified that I had a gigabyte of memory installed. However, it hangs whenever I get to the Windows loading screen (the loading bar).

I ran memtest about an hour ago by testing each stick in the first slot and it I successfully passed the test with 0 errors. When I try the first and third slot combination memtest begins to open and the GUI loads but it hangs with only a few lines of data on the screen. Any suggestions?

 

[bob4432]

not trying to sound like a d!ck but i would give a msi a call. also are you seating the ram in the other two slots well? i had one motherboard that the dimm slots were so tight, if i took out the ram i would have to take out the m/b of the case and put it on a flat, wood surface due to the amount of force needed to seat the sticks..