Help!

benopeth · 30 Apr 2007 at 03:15

I've been having this problem for the past few months. I am assuming it's RAM related but seeing as it's happened in a variety of different circumstances, I'm not really sure anymore.

The problem is upon either high CPU/RAM load or occasionally not, a blue screen appearing, telling me the physical memory has been dumped, along with the Stop Error (0x0000008E, 0xC0000005, 0xBCABE6C1, 0xB849DE88, 0x00000000).

I'm assuming this is likely to be relative to my configuration, so...

I'm currently running:

CPU - AMD Athlon XP 3200+
RAM - 1GB Crucial PC2700
M/B - ASUS A8NX7-E
HDD - Western Digital Caviar 120GB
Graphics - Connect3D ATI X850 256MB AGP
Sound - Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
PSU - Enermax 375W

I'm running XP Home SP2, have 7GB free disk space, a good Zalman CPU cooler (dust free, unclogged), I've done re-installs/driver updates on my graphics and sound also.

I have a feeling it's just a dodgy stick of RAM but I thought I'd ask the experts first!

Any suggestions/advice would be immensely useful

steve258 · 30 Apr 2007 at 09:19

Think it's the RAM. Can you run CPU-Z and tell us the actual speed your RAM is running?

AXP 3200+ has 400Mhz FSB so should be used with DDR400 PC3200 RAM, so it's likely that your PC2700 RAM is overclocked. It will still work but you need to go into BIOS to manually set the mem speed to 333Mhz (166Mhz).

benopeth · 30 Apr 2007 at 13:36

Thanks for your reply.

I ran CPU-Z, the frequency is 166mhz, FSB

RAM - 6:5, CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks.

I'll check my BIOS now...

benopeth · 30 Apr 2007 at 13:43

I checked BIOS, it's running at 166mhz, single channel. To be fair, I guess it's quite obvious that I need faster RAM but even still, blue screens are quite irritating. Happens almost every time I attempt to play BF2, Doom 3, etc.

steve258 · 30 Apr 2007 at 13:58

benopeth said:
Thanks for your reply.

I ran CPU-Z, the frequency is 166mhz, FSBRAM - 6:5, CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks.

I'll check my BIOS now...

BSOD is very often associated with RAM, or with CPU when you overclock it too much.

Do you have 2 RAM modules installed or just 1? If you have 2 try removing 1 of the sticks.

How about loosening the latency to 3-4-4-8 or increasing the DRAM voltage a little bit (default DDR voltage should be 2.5 for generic RAM while performance kits can use upto 2.7/2.8V, try turning it up a notch to 2.6/2.7V.

There are memtest programs which you can run in both Windows or DOS:

http://www.memtest.org/

It's free but you need a floppy disk or a blank CD to burn the downloadable ISO image.