Bad memory?

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

Well recently I've had various programs crashing.. most games exit to the desktop unexpectedly after a random amount of time (Could be 5 minutes, could be 5 hours.) and browsers crash while using them also randomly. I thought it could be my memory and I read somewhere that sometimes Dual channel mode can cause problems so I decided to turn it off...

Well to turn if off I had to move the memory around. I have 2 512mb sticks of PC3200 DDR and my motherboard is a GA-7N400-L.

To enable Dual Channel mode the sticks must be in slots 1 and 3 which is what they've been in since i've had the computer. So today I moved once stick from 3 to 2 and it gets past the POST screen but then will not boot into windows, where it would usually display the windows loading screen it simply reboots goes back through the POST screen then tells me that "Windows did not start up correctly last time" and asks me if i want to boot normally or in safe mode. Neither work.

So then I tried the memory in slots 1 and 4 because that should also disable dual channel mode, but with them in 1 and 4 it beeps as if there is no memory in the machince at all.

The next logical step was to test each of the sticks individually in slot 1... and thats where I got stuck, they both work perfectly on their own.

Are my problems even memory related? I dont know.. but this is really strange. Anyone got any comments or suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[xane]

Latest BIOS ?

http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/BIOS/BIOS_GA-7N400-L.htm

 

[old.user4556]

who makes the memory?

 

[SawTooTH]

I upgraded from an XP3000 to XP3200. I had 2X 512MB DDR in slot 1 &3 of my chaintech board. This was sold as PC3200 but were cheap unbranded.
Running with my XP3000 at 166 (running memory slower than I was supposed to)I could run these in aggressive mode and they ran synchronously, however as soon as I upped the ante to 200 with the XP3200 they just werent playing ball. I could run the XP3200 as an XP 2500+ stably with fsb 166 (11X166) but not if I increased it to 200 (11 X 200).

I replaced the memory with a matched pair of DDR 200/400fsb and it now works fine. Maybe updating the Bios will help, that at least doesn't cost anything but my guess is that you need quality memory to run these duel systems stably.

Most people seem to go for Corsair, I bought Geil memory.

 

[old.user4556]

Just to say that the TwinMOS PC3200 ram simply refused to work at 200 MHz in my Abit AN7 with an XP 3200+

It was perfectly fine at 166 MHz, but anything more and I would get blue screens and frequent crashing.

Overclockers advised me to get Corsair ram - it was about £40 more expensive, but the memory is superb and can be pushed with aggresive timings.

G

 

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

Well my RAM is TwinMOS.

It was working fine.. until recently. I've never got a BSOD in windows just the "Send error report" screen in a whole load of programs. Weirdly, some programs will run for days and have never given me a send error report screen. Trillian, winamp, Nova Torrent, Norton Antivirus.

Strange really that it only affects certain things.

I'm running a 2800+ Barton so the FSB is set to 333 but the RAM is running at 400. could this be a problem?

Unfortunatly I don't have any money to buy new ram so a fix, even a tempory one would be better than leaving how it is.

 

[old.user4556]

Well my RAM is TwinMOS.

It was working fine.. until recently. I've never got a BSOD in windows just the "Send error report" screen in a whole load of programs. Weirdly, some programs will run for days and have never given me a send error report screen. Trillian, winamp, Nova Torrent, Norton Antivirus.

Strange really that it only affects certain things.

I'm running a 2800+ Barton so the FSB is set to 333 but the RAM is running at 400. could this be a problem?

Unfortunatly I don't have any money to buy new ram so a fix, even a tempory one would be better than leaving how it is.

Heh, what goes around comes around - remember this thread I wrote warning not to use TwinMOS ram in an nForce2 board? Look at the second post .

I'll do some digging and see what I can do to help out, but I know for a definite fact there were some defective batches of TwinMOS PC3200 around.

G

 

[SawTooTH]

Sorted

 

[Danya]

Note, some boards won't boot without a DIMM in slot one.

 

[MrBlack]

http://www.memtest.org/ and
http://www.memtest86.com/

The former for testing PC3200. memtest86 fell out of maintenance for a while, but someone else took it on and updated it for more recent chipsets, hence the two seperate sites.

I have nothing but praise for this program (Bootdisk memory checker) If there's a RAM problem, memtest will pick it up.

 

[TheJkWhoSaysNi]

Heh, what goes around comes around - remember this thread I wrote warning not to use TwinMOS ram in an nForce2 board? Look at the second post .

Yes.. I do remember that thread... and at the time everything was fine. :-\ Not that the thread would have helped me anyway since i'd already bought it. I dont understand my situation though, surley if it was a bad batch i'd have always been affected.

http://www.memtest.org/ and
http://www.memtest86.com/

The former for testing PC3200. memtest86 fell out of maintenance for a while, but someone else took it on and updated it for more recent chipsets, hence the two seperate sites.

I have nothing but praise for this program (Bootdisk memory checker) If there's a RAM problem, memtest will pick it up.

Ok.. I just tried this I get lines of numbers over and over when I started it up.
Is that's what's supposed to happen? I left it for about 2 minutes before I decided nothing was happening.

 

[MrBlack]

That usually happens if the kernel fails to boot properly. Mostly down to floppy corruptiion. It can also happen if the version of memtest doesn't support your RAM. The latest version should, though.

If you're having no joy with the boot floppy, you can find it as one of the tools on the Ultimate Boot CD.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

What you should be getting is a blue screen with info about your memory and chipset with a progress counter and test info. Any errors will be listed in the lower half of the screen.

 

[old.user4556]

I've just spotted on the overclockers website under the TwinMOS section:

Not recommended for use in motherboards based on the nForce2 chipset.