New RAM fixes problem. Or not.

sjt269

sjt269

sjt269

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Bah.

Right, so, this PC has been acting up for ages, and it's never been quite right. Finally found out the other day that the RAM was dodgy - one stick quite spectacularly failed memtest, with an awful lot of errors. So, I've sent that stuff back off to OcUk for replacement, but I nabbed a new 2GB set of the same stuff (OCZ Platinum) for cheap on This Week Only, so I'll have a grand total of 4GB (less the 512Mb on the graphics card, I'm still on 32-bit) in the PC when the replacement stuff comes. Job done. Put the new stuff in today, and all is well. Right?

Wrong. Apart from being attacked by a small, but very fast, little spider that had made its home on my IDE cable, and then accidentally pulling out the SATA cable without noticing, the installation of the RAM went fine. Then I powered the PC back up and its display wasn't working. At all. Tested the screen with another computer (this laptop) and it was fine. I'd had to take out the graphics card to fit the RAM, so I tried taking it out and putting it back in again. That seemed to solve the problem, and all was fine.

Until I loaded up Windows and it began restarting itself randomly all over the place. I've memtested this new RAM, but memtest keeps locking up after a random amount of time, usually less than a minute. If I sit there pausing memtest at regular intervals, it seems to go fine, but I've not got the patience to pause it and let it go again every 5 seconds for a full pass. So far, no errors have showed up other than the lockups.

I've tried running OCCT, but the computer restarted almost immediately. Same goes for 3D Mark 06. I've also tried Prime95, which is running on it just now. On the first option (the one which states little RAM is tested), the PC is stable for a fairly long time before it restarts. On the third option ('Blend', I think, the one that states lots of RAM is tested), the PC restarts immediately. I've got the case open, and the RAM was majorly hot to the touch after trying the Blend test, much hotter than the CPU HSF or graphics card. It's running Prime95 just now, on the first option, and it's been going for around 10 minutes so far without crashing, which is longer than it normally manages.

Another wierd thing: this RAM apparently runs at 4-4-4-15. But memtest reports it running at 5-5-5-15, and I can find no option to change this in the BIOS. I don't see why running slower than normal should be a problem, but I don't have a clue what's up with this PC. I don't even know if it's RAM related or not, hence this thread going under 'General Hardware'.


System specs are:

E2180 @ stock 2Ghz
Gigabyte P35-DS3P
2GB OCZ Platinum - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-072-OC
ATi HD2900 Pro 512Mb


All running on a brand new fresh Windows install. The computer has now been priming for over 10 minutes, coming up on 15, and it looks fine, so I'm going to guess this isn't processor related. Over to you folks, if you can help.

Thanks in advance

tTz


:edit:

Meh. Spoke to soon, system shut off right after posting that, but it didn't restart, I just got a plain black screen. Monitor didn't go to sleep mode either, dunno what that was about. None of the components feel especially hot. Turned it off and back on, and it just restarted as soon as it hit the desktop.
 
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A few things, it might be the memory controller, and for a C2D, this is on the mobo. Check one stick at a time in a seperate bank. If one bank appears to being giving you trouble, then its RMA time for the mobo.

If you are using different make of modules, then check also that the RAM isn't a mix of latency settings. If you have one set of RAM which is rated 4 but another is rated 5, you'll have to set them all to 5. There's an option in the BIOS for system memory or DRAM settings. This maybe set to AUTO. Change it to manual which may unlock other settings.
 
The only RAM in there right now is a matched set of OCZ, so they should be at the same settings, but I'll take a look. I've tried almost every BIOS setting I could find, but I'll take another look, maybe I'm missing something. I didn't bother trying the sticks seperately since memtest seemed okay, but I might try different slots and see if I get any joy. :)
 
You may want to try a different brand of memory in the system. My old ASUS board was very funny about the brands of memory it could take and would act up with other memory brands. It would do some really strange things, such as Windows registry errors and all sorts, then I took out the offending memory and all was fine. Try either Kingston or corsair if you can, they seem to be very widely compatible.
 
tTz said:
The only RAM in there right now is a matched set of OCZ, so they should be at the same settings, but I'll take a look. I've tried almost every BIOS setting I could find, but I'll take another look, maybe I'm missing something. I didn't bother trying the sticks seperately since memtest seemed okay, but I might try different slots and see if I get any joy. :)
Click to expand...


Yep def try each stick on it's own in each slot. make a note of how far each stick gets say after 3 minutes. They should be identical.
 
So far with one stick in each slot, it's failed miserably. I'll try the other, but I don't have much hope.

I'll try upping the voltage. The only problem with that is that I don't know what voltage it's running at, there's only an 'overvolt' control with incremental increases, but I'll try knocking it up a bit.

The PSU is an Antec Neopower 480W. This was another of my concerns, the relatively low power rating, but it's been powering the computer for a long time, and once upon a time, it worked a lot better than it's doing now, so I'd be surprised if this was suddenly the problem. On the other hand, it is a little lower than I'd like, especially with that graphics card ideally requiring a higher wattage PSU that that.
 
I've tried upping the RAM voltage by 0.1V, so far it's a lot more stable. I can't say for sure whether it's totally fixed or not, but it primed away for 25 minutes solid earlier before I had to go out; that's longer than it's managed without a crash all day. Since getting back, it's done a little prime on the 'max heat, max power consumption' mode (about 10 mins) and it's back on Blend again, been 5 mins so far, we'll see how long it can keep it up. If I get 20 minutes out of this (the most RAM intensive, I'm led to believe) then I'll be cautiously happy.

Thanks for all the help so far guys. I can't say for sure if it's fixed yet, but I appreciate it all the same. It's been a pretty crappy day so far, and not a brilliant week either, so here's hoping I can end today without a broken computer hanging over my head. Figuratively speaking. :)
 
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