Motherboard or Ram bad?

[JC316]

Ok, this is starting to piss me off. A few weeks back, my computer died, the board just got stuck at the RAM test during POST and it gave me a RAM error LED. I changed the CPU cause it was cracked and everything worked fine.

Then it happened, the exact same symptoms as before. I took the ram out, I reset everything, put the ram back in, same result. Next I changed the jumper to 2.4V and it booted fine, went to 3 GHZ and it was orthos stable for 6 hours, no problems.


Now tonight, firefox errored out on me and I got a BSOD telling me that the physical memory had to be dumped, restarted, same thing again with firefox, restarted and it was giving me the RAM LED error.

I took the ram out, reset everything, and it still wouldn't boot, so I left it alone. Went and got a drink of water, came back, pressed the power and it booted right up.

What do you think it is? RAM, or board. I have run memtest at stock and it passed fine, running it again right now to test.

 

[hat]

I would say rams. try one stick at a time? some older ram you or a friend or relative no doubt has laying around?

 

[von kain]

any chance to remember the bsod what was sayng? vmm or something like that?

i don't thing its memory it might be heat or windows problem (if you use windows) if not it might be a problem from your power suply.

a solution is this format (yes it hurts) and if have overclock everything reset it after if the problem persist see the tempeture of your pc, then check for electric leakage
then disconect 1 device (ie dvd) to check if there is a power problem if nothing of this work's it might be a graphic card problem(why not) or memory (since it's a new mobo but don't count on it)

 

[DrunkenMafia]

try clocking down your system to stock for a while to try and narrow it down, it definitely sounds like ram though, considering it boots into windows fine and bsods when you run certain apps, have you tried memtest (the windows version) you will need to run 2 instances of it and select 800mb each. Let that run for a half hour or so. If that passes then try only one stick of ram in pc, try the other slots if you have em tooo.....

Seems you are running quite oc'd have you got your voltages right??? make sure you aren't undervolting anything by accident...

 

[JC316]

I only have one stick of Ram.

The PSU is brand new and solid as a rock. The video card is also fine.

When it was acting up, I touched the base of my AC freezer pro and it was quite cool, so I doubt that heat was an issue.

My board has an onboard memtest and I also have the windows based memtest. Which I will do as DrunkenMafia says with that.

Volts are also fine. Orthos stable and the ram is at 2.4V.

I have heard that Patriot Ram and Biostar boards DO NOT get along well, so I am wondering if that is the case.

I have NO friends with AM2 around here. Everyone either has socket A or 939.

 

[Kursah]

The onboard memtest probably isn't as thourough as the windows/boot based memtest, so definately run the windows/boot memtest.
2.4v on Ram is quite high, do you have active cooling on them? If not they could be burning up on you, I have read that going 2.3+v it is recommended to give the memory some active cooling/active airflow. Personally I use the Corsair XMS Airflow I got off of newegg for $20, but you could just attach an 80mm fan to them.

And if possible, get that BSOD to happen again. I forget exactly where to go, but I believe in the System Properties you can set your PC not to reboot upon crash/bsod so it will keep the BSOD on screen until you manually reset. This would allow you to write it down and be able to research it to help pinpoint why the error is happening.

 

[JC316]

The onboard memtest probably isn't as thourough as the windows/boot based memtest, so definately run the windows/boot memtest.
2.4v on Ram is quite high, do you have active cooling on them? If not they could be burning up on you, I have read that going 2.3+v it is recommended to give the memory some active cooling/active airflow. Personally I use the Corsair XMS Airflow I got off of newegg for $20, but you could just attach an 80mm fan to them.

And if possible, get that BSOD to happen again. I forget exactly where to go, but I believe in the System Properties you can set your PC not to reboot upon crash/bsod so it will keep the BSOD on screen until you manually reset. This would allow you to write it down and be able to research it to help pinpoint why the error is happening.

My memory is rated at 2.3V and has the Arctic Freezer sitting right over the top pulling cool air over them, when I took it out, the heatsinks were barely warm.

 

[Kursah]

Okay, that's cool. I'm just telling you what I've read, but if they're barely warm then I doubt heat is the issue. But touch them after a few hours of memtest and see how they feel , that may shed some light on that for you. I have a Freezer Pro 7 sucking air from the side, a top case fan exhuasting warm air, and the Corsair XMS feeding cooler air, my G.Skills stay nice and cool (see sys specs, I put my temp diode on them to verify).

Okay, well then I recommend you try to get that BSOD to happen again so you can document it, doesn't matter if before or after you run memtest, but it is something I highly recommend you do. Hopefully you can get it, post it here and we can all start researching it or someone has had it and knows what the issue is.

Last time I had BSOD issues it turned out to be my RAM, I forget who was telling me, but I have heard that using SPDTool to ensure your Ram is properly configured may help. I haven't messed with that program much, but it may help you here.

 

[JC316]

Ok, I have it set now and it wont restart. I am fixing to reclock and run memtest.

 

[KennyT772]

2.4v prolly killed them, its very high for ddr2 even if they are rated for 2.3. I would rma the ram.

 

[JC316]

Ok, trying to overclock any at all is giving me an "IRQ not equal" error just after the windows load screen. It says to disable RAM cache.

 

[JC316]

2.4v prolly killed them, its very high for ddr2 even if they are rated for 2.3. I would rma the ram.

Yeah, thats a problem, I traded Linkin for em. He was running 2.4V as well after the swap, but I am starting to agree. The ram seems totally unstable.

 

[Kursah]

Ok, trying to overclock any at all is giving me an "IRQ not equal" error just after the windows load screen. It says to disable RAM cache.

That's the same BSOD I was getting when my RAM went bad. So I would have to conclude that is what your issue is, but keep testing to verify how stable they are. I'm sure the 2.4v hasn't helped things either, and hopefully you can do the RMA (which I'm sure you can).

 

[JC316]

Yep, the ram is FUBAR around 10 million errors in test 7 of the onboard memtest. I traded Linkin for it, so I have no proof of purchase or anything for warranty. SON OF A BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kursah]

Get ahold of linkin for the reciept, hopefully he will take care of that for you! Or at least just for your sake as it's not fair to you...bummer man...

If not, then I recommend not going over 2.3v on your future DDR2, if you do again, I would still recommend cooling, but I don't think cooling was the problem, did you touch your memory shortly after memtest? They shoulda been pretty damn warm to the touch.

Well, what kind of budget would you have for new memory?

 

[JC316]

Get ahold of linkin for the reciept, hopefully he will take care of that for you! Or at least just for your sake as it's not fair to you...bummer man...

If not, then I recommend not going over 2.3v on your future DDR2, if you do again, I would still recommend cooling, but I don't think cooling was the problem, did you touch your memory shortly after memtest? They shoulda been pretty damn warm to the touch.

Well, what kind of budget would you have for new memory?

Linkin is a REALLY cool guy and a good friend, so I am sure that if he can help me, he will. The only thing that I am worried about in the RMA process is that it was a 2GB kit, I got one, he kept the other and then sold it, so..... they might frown upon that.

The thing that is really confusing me is that the memory is still not hot to the touch and it still works. Hell I am posting from the computer with the bad memory lol.

I wonder if my squealing Antec might have killed it.

Right now, after the new CPU, and PS, I am $30 OVER budget, but that will be solved soon.

 

[Kursah]

Linkin is a REALLY cool guy and a good friend, so I am sure that if he can help me, he will. The only thing that I am worried about in the RMA process is that it was a 2GB kit, I got one, he kept the other and then sold it, so..... they might frown upon that.

The thing that is really confusing me is that the memory is still not hot to the touch and it still works. Hell I am posting from the computer with the bad memory lol.

I wonder if my squealing Antec might have killed it.

Right now, after the new CPU, and PS, I am $30 OVER budget, but that will be solved soon.

Well good that Linkin can help you, but if you don't have the other stick of memory you may be SOL, which really sucks.

Yeah I'm sure the squealing Antec didn't help issues at all, and I will no longer mention the 2.4v being fed to the memory, but it is rare I even read of anyone even temporarily feeding that much to see how far of an OC they can get on the memory, let alone for consistent use.

Well, when you get a budget up for memory, let us know! I like my G.Skill memory a lot, great stuff, but I did have to RMA my first set of it. But it looks great, runs great, and stays cool (even more so with XMS on it!). But there are so many choices out there, we'll find the right stuff for ya!

 

[Wile E]

Just for future reference, JC, if you don't want your computer to automatically reboot after a BSOD, do this.

Right Click "My Computer" --> Properties.

The System Properties Windows pops up --> Click Advanced tab --> Under "Startup and Recovery" click the "Settings button --> untick the "Automatically Restart" box --> click OK