4GB of problems

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A7X

A7X

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After purchasing my new system and running it for a month i decided a ram upgrade was needed. So off i popped to my local pc store where i purchased another 2gb of OCZ 1066 mhz ram and a copy of bioshock.

After getting home and popping the new ram in i was greeted by Vista confirming i had 4gb of ram installed! all looked good until..... i booted up test drive unlimited and hopped into a car to be greeted by a lovely blue screen from microsoft saying "windows is going to restart to prevent something very bad happening". Damn. After being forced to restart i tried again, only to find the same comforting message from microsoft.

So off i went to the atari forums and installed a couple of MS hotfixes and delete some files, but alas the blue screen still appeared. It was getting better though as about 1 in 5 times it would just crash to desktop, YAY!

I then glimpsed the bioshock dvd and promptly installed it too see if it was just TDU being picky, but again after getting scared for about 5mins it yet again crashed to desktop. Coincidence? I think not. I then tried a few programs like word etc to discover they were all functioning perfectly. HMMMM

I then decided i had a faulty RAM module, so to test my brilliant theory i removed the existing 2gb's to leave just the new one's. Haha i thought as i fired up windows, but too my dissapointment everything was running perfectly, including the two games.

It was then i decided that the clever bunch over at GTP might hold the answer, so here I am!

System specs:

Core 2 Quad q6600 @ stock
Gigabyte P35C-DS3R rev 1.1
OCZ high performance SLi ready memory DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066mhz)
EVGA 8800gts 320mb superclocked
Corsair 650W modular PSU
1x75gb WD Raptor for Vista
2x320gb Seagate Barracuda in RAID 0 for storage and programs
Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit

One last thing, my windows experience index is 5.6 held from 5.9 by only the ram, timings are 5-5-5-15 which arn't bad (as far as i know) so why so low?

Cheers

A7X
 
Maybe a silly question, but are both ram sticks identical?
 
Another, even more silly question, are they both installed in the correct slots? Some motherboards want to use slots #1 and #3 when only two sticks are in use, for example.
 
Yes all four sticks of RAM are exactly the same model etc and came in sets of matching pairs. The slots on my mobo are colour coded so it's nice and easy too see which stick should go where.

A7X
 
Greycap
Another, even more silly question, are they both installed in the correct slots? Some motherboards want to use slots #1 and #3 when only two sticks are in use, for example.
Click to expand...

Good questions, dual-channel for example usually uses even and odd pair slots.
 
I don't think it's the RAM being in the wrong slots. For a start all 4 slots are being used by 'identical' RAM. Besides, as A7X has pointed out, Gigabyte tend to make their RAM slots in obnoxiously bright colours, so you know which slot corresponds to which channel. :)

Sadly, I have no idea as to what it could be. Sorry. :guilty:
 
That OCZ memory wants to run at 2.3 Volts.. and your board only wants to give about 1.8 volts. Might be the problem.

Links I used...
Ram
Mobo
 
Just run cpu-z to find i'm running 5-5-5-18 and FSB of 1:2. now i'm afraid i don't know what any of this means. I've entered my bios and i cant see what voltage my board is set at only how to raise it so how can i tell?
 
The ram starts at 2.0 volts. Not 1.8 so up it .3v. That 1:2 multiplier may be a problem too. Select 2.00 memory multiplier to get a 1:1 smm. At least thats what I would try.
 
i just upped it .5v as the intelligent OC i got with the board was showing 1.8v, is this right?

A7X
 
A7X
i just upped it .5v as the intelligent OC i got with the board was showing 1.8v, is this right?

A7X
Click to expand...

If you don't get the errors/blue screen anymore, you can try knocking it down. If that's not the case, then the voltage was not the problem.
 
A7X
i just upped it .5v as the intelligent OC i got with the board was showing 1.8v, is this right?

A7X
Click to expand...
There was a thread over at OCforums on just this board killing ram with over voltage problems. One guy lost 2 sets of ram because the board was over volting. I went and bought a DMM and followed the instructions on what mosfet to take a reading from. My board at stock voltage read 2.06v. when in the bios it was set to 1.8v. Many over at OCF use software as a tool but use physical tools to measure accurate volts and temps. I turned down my voltage after I saw what my meter read. Another poster at OCF also got a reading of 2.05v. Some think its because the board is a DDR2/DDR3 hybrid. I don't know.
 
Just checked it using speed fan and it showed a vcore2 voltage of 2.27v, i'm assuming this is the RAM voltage. I spent hours last night fiddling around in bios, and got the FSB/RAM at 1:1 but then i couldn't get my mhz correct. this is driving me mad! I had a look for that thread but can't find it anywhere, have you got a link?

A7X
 
Thanks for all the help everyone, i'm gonna have a read through those threads and see what i can make of it.

Cheers

A7X
 

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