Memory and Motherboard Problems

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That's a good question!?
Hi all!

I'll start off with my system specification:

Athlon FX55
2Gb (4x 512Mb) Corsair XMS3200 Pro 2 2 2 5
Asus A8N32 SLi Deluxe (Bios 1205)
HIS 512Mb X1900XT (Omega 6.7 Catalysts)
Tagan 580W PSU
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
74Gb Raptor 10,000rpm 16Mb Cache
200Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.7
Windows XP Professional (SP2)

Up until now, my system has been working fine and has never been overclocked in any way. Today, I turned the PC on but it would hang before it gets into Windows, just leaving the little blue bar beneath scrolling across. The activity lights on the are also frozen at this point.

I've run memtest86 and it produced in the region of 700+ errors on test 6 before I get 'Unexpected Interrupt - Halt'.

I have now tried each of the memory sticks (4x 512Mb) in motherboard slots 1-4. Motherboard slots one and two now give no activity lights or any sign of life at all, yet slots three and four do.

Also each stick has been tested on it's own in slot three. This allows me to boot memtest86 3.2 off the cd and for the tests to run up until test 6 where each of the sticks errors out with between 622-627 errors.

So it looks like the first two slots on the motherboard have gone the way of the Dodo.

I've even tried slackening off the timings to 3 3 3 6, but the errors still persist.

Just tried booting into Windows with sticks in slot three and four but to no avail, as it just sits with the blue bar scrolling across and the lights on the memory frozen up.

Shall I resign myself to the fact that now is the time to upgrade the processor, memory and motherboard to a Core2Duo setup? The cost would only be marginally more expensive to buying the older DDR and socket 949 based motherboard.

Sorry for the long post. Any help would be gratefully appreciated.
 
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Just tried a stick of 128Mb PC2700 memory. Slots one and two don't boot. Slot three is able to boot into Windows but on memtest86 it flakes out once again at test 6 with 539 errors.

Slot four also errors out with 541 errors.

Also tried a stick of the Corsair 3200 and it's just booted in slot three!

So I take it now this is pointing to something on the motherboard going **** up and (hopefully) not the memory?
 
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Just finished running several loops of memtest86 on each of the sticks in my brother's old PC, and they all came back reporting no errors. :)

So it looks like the motherboard has gone belly up. Still can't make my mind up now whether or not to sell up the FX55 and the memory, and go for a core component update? :confused:

I've got a spare A8N Sli Deluxe motherboard (one of the first in the country at the time), but I don't know if it's worth the hassle of digging it out...

Prods and pokes in the right direction are welcome. :)
 
Your mobo, FX 55 and ram will fetch good money on an auction site. I would sell up and switch to c2d!

It provides a good opportunity to do so, i think you would need to spend £150 to upgrade.
 
Cheers for the reply Thermaltake.

If the backup motherboard I have is a no go, then that will probably be the course of action I'll take. Came to the same figure of £150 to upgrade if I were to sell the processor and memory. :)
 
A cheaper method would be to get a replacement motherboard for your FX-55. I'd personally wait a few months longer before you upgrade as prices are due to drop on the Intel side of life.
 
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Well I've got the old A8N Sli Deluxe running at the moment after a format and reinstall of XP. The only slight disadvantage I have is that the memory now runs at 333mhz and not 400mhz, but I seem to remember this being an early Clawhammer bug which was fixed with a later revision of the chip.

If I can now just get through the next six months I'll be happy. :D
 
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