Cliffs notes:
Bought a new Compy 2 months ago, had intermittent problems (bluescreens, Memtest+ errors) shortly after. Tried several different things with RAM and problems went away for a while, but then the bluescreens started again.
So here's my hardware:
Gigabyte P35-DS4 Motherboard (running BIOS version F12, have tried F10 and F11 also with no noticeable difference)
4x 1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR-2 1066 RAM (yes, I know it's 2.2v RAM)
Intel E8400
evga geforce 8800gt 512mb
Corsair 450watt PSU
WD Raptor 150gb
Pinnacle PCTV HD PCI card
OS: Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Put in SP1, have had this happen both before and after XP pro 32bit on dual boot.
The long version:
I bought all this hardware (except for the CPU) from Newegg, and I had a DOA power supply to start with. Got that sorted out and got everything up and running. Then I start having some bluescreens, with some random, not easy to diagnose messages. Now I know someone will try to blame Vista, but I had trouble when I ran XP too. I'm fairly sure this is hardware related given the number of problems I had in both XP and Vista
So I go get Memtest+ and let it run. It finds a ton of errors. So since Newegg doesn't do cross-shipping for RMAs I ordered 2gb more (I had only ordered 2gb at the beginning) and waited till I got it to RMA the ram I had. I slap in the new RAM and it behaves just fine for a while. Memtest passes being run overnight and the like, and no blue screens. So I finally get my other 2 gb of ram back and I install it too. Shortly after I start having bluescreens again, so I pull it. I left it alone for a while, but it started to bother me, and I think the chances of getting that much bad ram are low. Now I have played with BIOS settings some, I adjusted the timings to be the spec'd 5-5-5-15 since SPD brings up looser timings on this RAM. The mobo seems to run the ram at the required 2.2v so I leave that on auto.
So last night in an effort to see if I can narrow down the problem to the mobo (or a RAM slot because it seemed like I had trouble whenever i had ram in slots 2 and 3) I manually set the ram voltage up to 2.2v just to make sure that wasn't messing me up. I pulled all but one stick, and ran one pass of memtest+ (newest version) with it in each slot. No errors. So I add in one ore module and give it a go, once so it would be single channel, once dual. No errors there. So I slapped in the third, again no errors. So I popped in the fourth and let it run overnight. I wake up this morning and it has a single error.
So my problems seem very intermittent in general. I can't seem to find a consistent cause, although it seems like once I start having trouble, I have a lot. Whenever I'd run Memtest, I'd either get no errors on long runs, or a ton of errors on a short run. (That signle error I got last night I found very confusing) I have been checking my CPU temp and it only gets up to about 50C when under a heavy load, and sticks in the 30's otherwise.
I'm at work right now, but its at home running the Orthos blended torture test, so we'll see if it throws any errors. I also set windows not to reboot on a bluescreen since I've seen it get in nasty reboot cycles when it messes up.
The bottom line:
So how do I narrow down the problem to see if its really the motherboard or the RAM or something else?
Or do I just say screw it and RMA the motherboard?
If there's anything I can add to clarify things, let me know, I'm kinda stuck on this one.
Bought a new Compy 2 months ago, had intermittent problems (bluescreens, Memtest+ errors) shortly after. Tried several different things with RAM and problems went away for a while, but then the bluescreens started again.
So here's my hardware:
Gigabyte P35-DS4 Motherboard (running BIOS version F12, have tried F10 and F11 also with no noticeable difference)
4x 1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR-2 1066 RAM (yes, I know it's 2.2v RAM)
Intel E8400
evga geforce 8800gt 512mb
Corsair 450watt PSU
WD Raptor 150gb
Pinnacle PCTV HD PCI card
OS: Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Put in SP1, have had this happen both before and after XP pro 32bit on dual boot.
The long version:
I bought all this hardware (except for the CPU) from Newegg, and I had a DOA power supply to start with. Got that sorted out and got everything up and running. Then I start having some bluescreens, with some random, not easy to diagnose messages. Now I know someone will try to blame Vista, but I had trouble when I ran XP too. I'm fairly sure this is hardware related given the number of problems I had in both XP and Vista
So I go get Memtest+ and let it run. It finds a ton of errors. So since Newegg doesn't do cross-shipping for RMAs I ordered 2gb more (I had only ordered 2gb at the beginning) and waited till I got it to RMA the ram I had. I slap in the new RAM and it behaves just fine for a while. Memtest passes being run overnight and the like, and no blue screens. So I finally get my other 2 gb of ram back and I install it too. Shortly after I start having bluescreens again, so I pull it. I left it alone for a while, but it started to bother me, and I think the chances of getting that much bad ram are low. Now I have played with BIOS settings some, I adjusted the timings to be the spec'd 5-5-5-15 since SPD brings up looser timings on this RAM. The mobo seems to run the ram at the required 2.2v so I leave that on auto.
So last night in an effort to see if I can narrow down the problem to the mobo (or a RAM slot because it seemed like I had trouble whenever i had ram in slots 2 and 3) I manually set the ram voltage up to 2.2v just to make sure that wasn't messing me up. I pulled all but one stick, and ran one pass of memtest+ (newest version) with it in each slot. No errors. So I add in one ore module and give it a go, once so it would be single channel, once dual. No errors there. So I slapped in the third, again no errors. So I popped in the fourth and let it run overnight. I wake up this morning and it has a single error.
So my problems seem very intermittent in general. I can't seem to find a consistent cause, although it seems like once I start having trouble, I have a lot. Whenever I'd run Memtest, I'd either get no errors on long runs, or a ton of errors on a short run. (That signle error I got last night I found very confusing) I have been checking my CPU temp and it only gets up to about 50C when under a heavy load, and sticks in the 30's otherwise.
I'm at work right now, but its at home running the Orthos blended torture test, so we'll see if it throws any errors. I also set windows not to reboot on a bluescreen since I've seen it get in nasty reboot cycles when it messes up.
The bottom line:
So how do I narrow down the problem to see if its really the motherboard or the RAM or something else?
Or do I just say screw it and RMA the motherboard?
If there's anything I can add to clarify things, let me know, I'm kinda stuck on this one.