Calling All Hardware Gurus
RPG_Jssmfulhud
Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 4006Members
Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 4006Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">SoS...</div>Right! I've got a bit of a problem and, hopefully, the NS off-topic lurkers can help me solve this. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
When I've bought this computer, it had once stick of 512MB DDR RAM and worked perfectly. A few months later, I've decided that it'd be nice to buy another 512 stick, so I did. Now I can't remember when the problems have started, but at some stage, my computer became unstable.
It was/is very odd. When I've turned it on, I've had to "warm" it up first, let it crash a few times and then it would work flawlessly (most of the times anyway) for a long period without crashing.
Lately, it's been getting very annoying, so I've reformatted and reinstalled my computer. Didn't help. Argh, a bad RAM stick, eh? Right, I take the newer RAM stick out and voila. Computer works like a charm. I think to myself, now it would be a good time to upgrade my RAM. So I went to the shop and bought 2GB of RAM in two GeIL sticks. They're picked out in pairs for best performance, have nice shiny heat sinks on them and I thought I'd return to the world of computers without crashes.
Wrong. I put in the two sticks, cheer at the BIOS memory test, give out a sigh and push my computer to where it would generally crash. Oops! A crash? Okay, we'll let it go as a random crash for now. By this time, I got a little nervous. Not only did buying new RAM sticks not get rid of the crashing, it actually became more frequent.
I take out one stick, it works fine. I try the other one, it works fine. I've tried all slots and it works fine. I've even tried using both sticks in two non-channeled slots, to run it all in single-channel mode as opposed to dual-channel, but it crashes.
Now I know both RAM sticks are of high-quality, non-damaged and working fine individually. What bothers me is if I put more than one in, the computer starts crashing. It's not a heat issue, it's not a driver issue.
I've checked the net for clues and people suggested lowering the AGP aperture to 4x instead of 8x and the RAM frequency to something lower than current. But lo and behold, my BIOS does not have any such settings (or rather, it doesn't have an AGP setting and the RAM one is greyed out). WTH? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
After reformatting my computer, I've also upgraded the BIOS. But I think I've reinstalled exactly because of the crashing issue, so it couldn't be the BIOS.
Here are my current specs:
Motherboard is a GA-8IP775-G
Pentium IV 3.0 GHz CPU
1GB of DDR RAM (or 2, hah)
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB with a big Zalman fan and heat sink
ATX 420W PSU
Any help would be greatly appreciated...
When I've bought this computer, it had once stick of 512MB DDR RAM and worked perfectly. A few months later, I've decided that it'd be nice to buy another 512 stick, so I did. Now I can't remember when the problems have started, but at some stage, my computer became unstable.
It was/is very odd. When I've turned it on, I've had to "warm" it up first, let it crash a few times and then it would work flawlessly (most of the times anyway) for a long period without crashing.
Lately, it's been getting very annoying, so I've reformatted and reinstalled my computer. Didn't help. Argh, a bad RAM stick, eh? Right, I take the newer RAM stick out and voila. Computer works like a charm. I think to myself, now it would be a good time to upgrade my RAM. So I went to the shop and bought 2GB of RAM in two GeIL sticks. They're picked out in pairs for best performance, have nice shiny heat sinks on them and I thought I'd return to the world of computers without crashes.
Wrong. I put in the two sticks, cheer at the BIOS memory test, give out a sigh and push my computer to where it would generally crash. Oops! A crash? Okay, we'll let it go as a random crash for now. By this time, I got a little nervous. Not only did buying new RAM sticks not get rid of the crashing, it actually became more frequent.
I take out one stick, it works fine. I try the other one, it works fine. I've tried all slots and it works fine. I've even tried using both sticks in two non-channeled slots, to run it all in single-channel mode as opposed to dual-channel, but it crashes.
Now I know both RAM sticks are of high-quality, non-damaged and working fine individually. What bothers me is if I put more than one in, the computer starts crashing. It's not a heat issue, it's not a driver issue.
I've checked the net for clues and people suggested lowering the AGP aperture to 4x instead of 8x and the RAM frequency to something lower than current. But lo and behold, my BIOS does not have any such settings (or rather, it doesn't have an AGP setting and the RAM one is greyed out). WTH? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
After reformatting my computer, I've also upgraded the BIOS. But I think I've reinstalled exactly because of the crashing issue, so it couldn't be the BIOS.
Here are my current specs:
Motherboard is a GA-8IP775-G
Pentium IV 3.0 GHz CPU
1GB of DDR RAM (or 2, hah)
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB with a big Zalman fan and heat sink
ATX 420W PSU
Any help would be greatly appreciated...
Comments
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Memory
Memory Type DDR SDRAM
Number of Memory Slots 4 x DIMMs
Supported RAM speeds 400 MHz • 333 MHz • 266 MHz
Max Supported RAM 4 GB
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Only thing I can think of is that the memory you are using is not supported by the motherboard? So DDR2 for example, or the RAM speed is 133/533MHZ or above. What's the technical specifications of the RAM?
<a href="http://store.geilusa.com/product.php?pid=73&xcSID=5431b5612d04b5cd558b9ee81167ed0b" target="_blank">http://store.geilusa.com/product.php?pid=7...58b9ee81167ed0b</a>
The PSU is capable the RAM and motherboard specifications match, you aren't using different RAM product combinations. Maybe someone else with a more techy background could lend a hand here?
Update mb drivers.<a href="http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Driver_Model.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=1821&ProductName=GA-8IP775-G" target="_blank">here</a>
check the manual to see about issues with sidedness of ram and various speeds.
Your main board features two memory channels.
try using different Dimms for you memory, for more instructions check page 15 of the manual for your main board. (try slots 1-3 or 2-4 vs 1-2) this tests to see how your ram and your board are playing together.
next if that doesn't help, download memtest86 and check the memory. <a href="http://www.memtest86.com/" target="_blank">http://www.memtest86.com/</a> this is also a part of most linux distros. (see next step). if the ram passes memtest, you should be good at a hardware level at least mb, proc, and ram.
If not, download a ubuntu live cd, see if you can run linux stably. make sure you do this under load. So get a good sized compile going on see how it holds up for a while, maybe try some tux racer. If linux runs smoothly, its either your hdd or windows in some capacity, or that you cant produce a high enough load in lunix. if not start swapping out hardware.
Start with your video card. go on board or the crappiest one you can find.
After that, go PSU get a big one, that you know works.
Next drop your HDD and try a fresh one.
That should take you a few hours, let me know how it goes:)
<a href="http://www.castlecops.com/" target="_blank">http://www.castlecops.com/</a>
They know everything.
- Take out one stick and only work with one
- Try different slots and slot combinations
- Increased DIMM voltage to 2.7V from 2.6V (reverted back to normal now)
- Disabled DEP system-wide (Data Execution Prevention - reverted back to normal now)
- Scanned my computer for spyware/adware
- Checked the temperatures
- BIOS and drivers are all up-to-date
- RAM checks out okay (it's brand new anyway)
I'm starting to get extremely frustrated with this problem. The error is always the same. "Memory could not be "read/written"".
What I'd also like to try is set the memory frequency and timings to lower values. But guess what? BIOS doesn't have those settings (wth?!).
Still sending out an SoS...
Have you ever checked if there is jumper setting that could cause that thing with your mobo? I mean... jumpers are totaly out of date but it might be worth a try.
uh check the ram slots for debris... yeah... otherwise it looks like new mobo for you sry dude