New Build Strange Problems

Slime

Slime

Slime

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Joined
10 Nov 2006
Posts
555
Hi,

I've recently built a PC for a mate of mine and am having some very strange issues which I suspect is either down to the memory or the motherboard. The memory is 2x2 4GB OCZ Gold 800mhz and the mobo is a Gigabyte EP31-DS3L.

Yesterday after piecing it together, I started to install Vista only to be greeted with a BSOD at about a quarter of the way through installation. The PC would start, but would give me a 'BIOS automatically recovering' message. After much fiddling around, I managed to install Vista, with only one stick of RAM.

As soon as I put the 2nd stick of RAM in, the problems start. Shortly after installing vista, I managed to get the PC to boot into windows with no probs with both sticks in but after restarting, it would fail to post or give me the BIOS message again.

There's an issue with one stick in particular, it's not just having 2 sticks in, it won't post with the 'bad' stick installed but is fine with the other in regardless of which socket it's in.

The thing that is confusing me is that both sticks work fine in my PC. I'm currently using them infact. Is it just a compatability issue or is it likely that the memory could be causing the problems?

Any advice or pointers appreciated. Thanks :)
 
I haven't run memtest. I briefly managed to get it to boot up to the point of the windows logo, then it froze, reset and went back to not posting. The monitor just blinks. I'm not too familiar with memtest or anything like it to be honest, how simple is it to use?
 
Memtest86 is dead easy to use, download the ISO, burn it to a blank CD with something like IMGBurn and then boot off it. It will then perform a number of passes on the memory and try and identify errors, best to leave it running for an hour at least to see if it throws up anything. Bad memory is often the cause of OS install faliures amongst other things, the system may boot fine but it's when the faulty part of the memory is accessed that problems arise.
 
Does the voltage and timmings need setting up in the BIOS, Ocuk website mentions they require 2.1v.
 
It says 1.9v on the actual memory itself. I've tried 1.9 and 2.1 and the default is obviously 1.8. I'll give memtest a go tomorrow and report back. Cheers :)
 
OK, quick update. I installed the stick of RAM which I suspected of being faulty in my (working) PC and ran memtest and it didn't run for longer than a second. The text went blocky and the PC reset itself. Tried running it again and it just froze on 1 second and blocks appeared on the screen. I'll RMA the memory as it sounds like it's dodgy. Thanks for the help ;)
 
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