Missing Ram causes fatal Windows error?

[Westy MOL]

Hi All,

 Got a small problem hoping someone has seen this before and might know the resolution to.

 On my Abit BH6 ver 1 MB I have 3 memory slots and it has two sticks of 128 in slots 2 and 3 on the MB right now. Slot 2 had PC100 stuff and slot 3 had PC133 stuff.

 I bought two sticks of 128m PC133 to fill the one vacant slot and also to replace the PC100 stick so I can over clock the MB easier.  I took out the PC100 stick and then added the two new PC133's to the now two empty slots. Here's where I ran into problems.

 The PC would not boot into Windows at all. I'd get through the bios boot ok but then it would reboot again over and over. So I thought one of the new sticks may be bad. I took out the stick in slot one. I could now boot to the Windows splach screen. Autexec would run, then the PC would hang with a Windows error. No desktop ever. A cold power down is all I could do.

 So I took out that other new stick leaving the origianl PC133 in there to see what happens. Same. Boot to the Win98 splash screen and there it hangs. Damn. So I now added the original stick of PC100 back in. Bingo. It worked!
 I then tested to see if it was memory slot specific so I changed the PC100 stick to slot 1 and the pc133 to slot 2. Still good! No problems.  Added one of the news sticks to slot 3. Primo! Cooking with 384mb sdram now  

 Seems that Windows has cached something on my PC100 memory stick and that if it is not present the PC is pretty much fubarred.

 Any ideas what it is that is on stick #2 and how I can correct this error?

 I'ld like to move that PC100 stick to my wife/sons PC (they only have 64mb) and get that new stick of PC133 in it's place so I can overclock with confidence.

 Thanks!
         Westy

[MrRiplEy]

Hmm sounds very weird.

Are you sure your system really reckognizes the rest of the 2 sticks of RAM? Does your memory test run all the way up to 384mb?

After you shut down your computer, nothing is left in any of the RAM sticks - even if there is, it gets flushed out in the startup.

So if I had a prob like yours, I'd suspect the pc100 stick is really the only working one on the mobo. Your computer should not care at all if it boots with PC100 or PC133.. Only if you have ram refresh set to CAS2 and the new PC133 sticks are low quality, it might develop problems on bootup. But the PC rating itself does really not affect performance except when using FSB speeds exceeding the standard.

[Eagler]

look at the last post here: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/Forum10/HTML/000910.html
My guess is that your BH doesn't like 133 for whatever reason and the one pc100 chip locks in it in at 100, pulling the other two chips down to that speed.

gl

[MrRiplEy]

Eagler: It does not matter which 'speed' ram you use in your motherboard.

Your memory speed will be 66Mhz with a celeron CPU even if you buy and install only PC150 untill the moment you overclock the CPU and raise the FSB speed.

I have a BH6 1.2 myself and I have no probs with PC133.

[Starbird]

MrRipley might be right. You should find a memory tester program, and see if it can even write to your new sticks.

I don't know of any good testing software offhand tho.

[Westy MOL]

Thanks guys! Off to find a decent memory tester. I had CTSPD which read off the info from the chips on the sticks and displays the specs.  The old 128mbPC100 stuff is the supposed "dog" in the bunch and I cannot for the life of me figure why the really good stick of PC133, that was already in there with the PC10 stuff, would offer problems by itslef too.

 On boot up bios does detect any combo of the installed memory (all sticks).

 I'll go thru the bios mem settings and recheck again anbd dig out (found Mem86) a test program.

 I appreciate the input. a LOT!

 Thanks!

Westy

[ 07-03-2001: Message edited by: Westy MOL ]

[bloom25]

I'll bet you still have problems actually, it's just that your new stick has a very high address and isn't being used.  You will get a blue screen most likely if you try to do some video editing with photoshop, or if you are running windows 2000.

The other option is that you have exceeded the maximum amount of ram allowed by your motherboard.  Some motherboards may also have troubles using ram that is double-sided in slot 3.  

I'd be looking at known issues posts for your motherboard, and bios update fixes as well.

My first impression is a bad stick of ram though...

[sprint]

Try the old PC133 stick in Slot #1, then the two new sticks of PC133 in slot's 2 and 3.
 
Also, find out how many chips are on each stick: 8 (single sided) or 16 (double sided).
 
Sometimes there is compatibility issues with sticks of different density.

sprint
*MOL*

Specifications are for the weak and timid!!

[Westy MOL]

Well, the resolution took a while but it was a bad stick of memory.
 I had found and used Memdoctor to test the memory, all tests passed and the pc suddenly started working ok right afterward. Or so it seemed.
  I still got the odd reboot, a sudden lockup and a couple of memory intensive programs would not run anymore. they would choke during boot up and at some point I'd have a system reboot on my hands or the pc would lock up solid. So I decided to try the hardcore mem tester program Memtest86 (ver 2.6). It found errors rather quick, at test #5, when testing all the 384mb memory installed in the pc.
  So I  took all the memory out and tested them one at a time in the PC with the Memtest86 utility. The two new sticks were good as gold. My older, original PC133 128mb stick had problems. I must never have reached, or needed, it's capacity before as the other, older stick of PC100 128mb was in dimm slot 1.

 I wonder if some folks get lockups and reboots not from bad drivers or hardware conflicts but due to bad memory?

 Thanks for the replies! Good learning experience for me to say the least.

   Westy