Hardware issues - any advice please...

[Hodders]

Hardware present in test: Asus A8N-sli Premium, AMD 64x2 3800+, Leadtek 7800GT graphics, Ballistix Memory - BL2KIT12864Z503 (2x 1GB)


One of the sticks appears to have gone 'bad'. The symptoms include:

1) On a power on, machine only posts about 1 time in 3.
2) On a reset from a power on state, machine only posts about 1 time in 20 (i.e. much worse)
3) Machine occasionally BSODs when in Windows

Things I have tried:

1) put both sticks in other memory channel - still problems
2) Put just suspect stick in any memory slot - still problems
3) This is the strange one - I have run memtest86 for about 18 hours straight and no errors are reported ?

When failing to post there is no video output and 95% of the time no MoBo beep codes. 5% of the time I get continuous beeping.

If I take the suspect stick out of the machine it runs fine (in single channel mode obviously) and passes all the above tests.

It really does seem to be the ram causing the problems even though memtest86 is running fine... The last thing I want is to return the ram and have the supplier say it is fine as that will waste everybodies time and effort.

I'm happy to run other tests if you can suggest any that may help prove where the issue is.

So any advice ?

 

[Hodders]

Bios is the most up to date - MeatLoaf - what makes you think it is the CPU ?

My tests seem to point at a particular ram stick.....

I've half inched some ram from another machine to try tonight so I'll let you all know how I get on..... Its PC3200 - CL3 crucial stuff so we'll see how that goes.

 

[Hodders]

Cheers Meatloaf - although the machine has been positing fine with just the one stick (it has also been fine for the last six months !)

Many thanks for all your help though.