Need help determining if I have bad ram, a bad slot, or something else.

[Beefcake]

Ok haunters of the support forum, I come seeking help for a problem that has plagued me since I got this computer.

Basically my machine has a bad habit of BSODing and it's getting on my last nerve. My computer will crash on average of once every two days, however, tonight before posting this it's BSOD'd 3 times in 1 hour. Everyone I've talked to says Windows 7 is pretty stable so I know something is wrong since my system is very unreliable.

Now I'm almost 100% sure this is a hardware problem and not something like a virus as I've had to go through 3 fresh OS installs and 1 new hard drive, and the problem continues to exist. From what I've gathered after looking up the bug check error codes it seems that I might have a bad ram stick or a bad slot but I have no idea how to check and see if that's the case.

Can anyone recommend a way or a safe program that can check and see if I do indeed have a corrupted stick?

[gpwurzel]

In Win7, just below "all programs", type memory in there, and run the windows memory diagnostic test. If that shows a problem, you can determine which stick it is from the results.

If it shows no problem, open your machine, ensure all sticks are securely seated. After that, its time to take memory out, put them in in whichever configuration your mb supports, and see if you can find any that are bad.

Hth,

Wurzel (you should hear beeps if your ram stick is bad tho, lots and lots of them)

[gyrene81]

could be a cpu malfunction, could be a power supply issue, could be a sound card issue, could be a disk drive issue, could be memory or any number of things. memory is the easiest to figure out...but it takes a long time for a memory testing program to test gigabytes of memory.

shortcut to the memory test would be to take out 1/2 your memory...run the system. if it's stable you can be fairly certain one of the sticks you removed has an issue. to be certain, swap out the memory you left in the system with what you took out. run the system again. if it's stable, then you suspect the memory slots...add the memory you just took out back in to fill all the slots. run the system again.

you get the idea.

any other possible hardware problem becomes a squirrel chase through hardware hell...

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Ok haunters of the support forum, I come seeking help for a problem that has plagued me since I got this computer.

Basically my machine has a bad habit of BSODing and it's getting on my last nerve. My computer will crash on average of once every two days, however, tonight before posting this it's BSOD'd 3 times in 1 hour. Everyone I've talked to says Windows 7 is pretty stable so I know something is wrong since my system is very unreliable.

Now I'm almost 100% sure this is a hardware problem and not something like a virus as I've had to go through 3 fresh OS installs and 1 new hard drive, and the problem continues to exist. From what I've gathered after looking up the bug check error codes it seems that I might have a bad ram stick or a bad slot but I have no idea how to check and see if that's the case.

Can anyone recommend a way or a safe program that can check and see if I do indeed have a corrupted stick?

Download and burn Memtest x86 to a cd, boot from the cd and let the test run for about an hour. If you get even a single error your memory is either incompatible with your motherboard, overclocked too much or just simply faulty. Many linux distros include memtest also so if you have one handy you can use that as the boot cd/dvd.

You just need to take that hour of your life to test the ram otherwise you'll never know if it's the reason short of replacing the ram with some other version. Most of the times bad ram will show errors within the first few seconds of the test. Just remember that errors dont necessarily mean bad ram, it could be bad memory controller or motherboard pcb too.

Gyrenes advice is sound, remove all but 1 stick of ram. Reboot. See if it crashes. If yes, switch the ram stick. Reboot. See if it crashes. If yes then you've either established your ram is totally bad or the problem is totally not the ram

However if crashes stop with just 1 stick chances are the other stick was bad. I would also try changing memory slots on the motherboard it has happened that mobo is unstable using one ram slot and works fine using the other.

Crash could be caused by your sound card. I had a Soundblaster Live! that made the computer unstable.. Basically you need to suspect everything. Starting from the seating of your CPU - I would remove and reseat every component in the computer SECURELY. Just remember to use a good heat paste if you touch the cpu heatsink.

[Beefcake]

Well the Windoze Memory tester came back negative so I'm now taking out 1 stick of ram and see if my crashing continues.

I do have one question though, do the RAM sticks have to be slotted in order or can their be a gap? IE my motherboard has 4 slots, today I pulled out the stick in slot #4. If my crashing continues can I pull out the stick in slot 3 and replace the other stick in slot 4 or should I put the other stick back in slot 3?

[Chalenge]

You should test the memory in single units in slot 1 with memtest86 which is free. Even it can pass memory that is bad so you need to run the test multiple times like overnight. You can also run the test with all slots populated and based upon the memory address of any bad results you can tell which stick is bad. The reason you run the test on single units is to remove the possibility of bad timing adjustments. So remove any changes to the default memory timings when running tests on single sticks. Dont toss any sticks out if you get bad results because many things can cause bad results like timing settings or a bad motherboard.

Red up on it there is a lot of information available about this at memtest86 and other sites.

[MaSonZ]

Well the Windoze Memory tester came back negative so I'm now taking out 1 stick of ram and see if my crashing continues.

I do have one question though, do the RAM sticks have to be slotted in order or can their be a gap? IE my motherboard has 4 slots, today I pulled out the stick in slot #4. If my crashing continues can I pull out the stick in slot 3 and replace the other stick in slot 4 or should I put the other stick back in slot 3?

Many (if not all) Mobos have a colored cooridinated setup for RAM... like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138303
has red and white coordination for your ram sticks. if your mobo has this set it up right.im sure you have the sticks in the right spot.kind of common sense to check the manual first if your not sure.

my .02. 

[Dragon Tamer]

In my experience it doesn't matter where the RAM cards are on the mother board.  When the computer needs to store information on the RAM in many cases the 4 RAM cards are connected in parallel (when the memory address is given for the RAM all the cards respond in the same way) then the file is stored on whichever card the computer detects has enough space for the file.  Once the file is needed again the CPU issues a command to reacall that file from the memory and a second chip (again this is only in most types of computers) will issue a memory address and a chip address (that's the RAM card) to reacall what was stored, then relays it to the CPU. 

[gyrene81]

In my experience it doesn't matter where the RAM cards are on the mother board.  When the computer needs to store information on the RAM in many cases the 4 RAM cards are connected in parallel (when the memory address is given for the RAM all the cards respond in the same way) then the file is stored on whichever card the computer detects has enough space for the file.  Once the file is needed again the CPU issues a command to reacall that file from the memory and a second chip (again this is only in most types of computers) will issue a memory address and a chip address (that's the RAM card) to reacall what was stored, then relays it to the CPU. 

  ok...you know the difference between dual channel, triple channel and single channel? a single dimm chip doesn't make much difference on average motherboards where it's placed regardless of channel configurations, although there are some that require slot 0 to be populated first. there are some dual channel and triple channel boards that will not run unless the appropriate slots are populated, paired for dual channel, trine for triple channel, but those are not average off the shelf motherboards.

you're just a bit off on how information is stored in memory, it is not stored on a specific dimm, it's stored in a memory address segment of which all of the system memory creates a pool of sorts. applications tend to be run in the upper memory space where essential system processes tend to run in the lower memory if it happens that a memory block on a single dimm is large enough to hold a program the system will put it there, but that is not normally the case.

[Chalenge]

What Dragon Tamer is describing sounds reminiscent of the old memory addressing schemes of mainframe systems which used memory partitions.

[Beefcake]

Update.

Last week I pulled out the #4 ram stick with the intent of checking each one to see if I had a bad stick. Since pulling out the #4 stick my computer has not BSOD'd once this week. My computer is still running the other 3 sticks at 6 gigs of ram and the system seems far more stable in general.

So this could mean that the stick is bad, or the #4 slot is bad, however, I wanted to ask about voltage going to the ram slots. My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P and under the ram specs it says "4 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory". When I pulled out the stick I noticed that it said 2.5v on the side which makes me wonder if the ram I have installed needs more power than the motherboard can supply to it. Could this be the reason why my system was BSODing so much?

[Charge]

"When I pulled out the stick I noticed that it said 2.5v on the side which makes me wonder if the ram I have installed needs more power than the motherboard can supply to it. Could this be the reason why my system was BSODing so much?"

Without knowing your PSU I'd say that no.

You can set the memory voltage from BIOS settings but DDR2 default is 1.8V and they should work OK with that setting. Some memories do tolerate 2.5V if you want to overclock them.

And from experince I'd say that usually a severely faulty RAM is found by MemTest right away and you only need to run it exteded times if you overclock the memory and want to ensure it works well even if it runs hot.

-C+

[Chalenge]

If you have a RAM stick that has clearly marked on it 2.5V then thats what the manufacturer determined is its stable voltage setting. Thats not to say it wont run at another setting or that it will be stable at that setting with four slots populated. Nearly every MB I have tested encounters stability issues with more than two slots populated and therefore require additional voltage when using four slots. Also it is usually required but not always that the SB voltage be increased as well. In some cases as with EVGA the BIOS may indicate that the voltage is out of spec by indicating RED (warning) versus GREEN (safe) and this is to be expected. Finding a point that is stable is not cut and dry and requires some experimentation. Going at it systematically is the only way really. You should test each stick separately to begin with in order to make sure that each stick is sound and capable of running solo. While it is possible that a slot is defective it is much more likely that the MB voltage is unstable with four sticks utilized. This will require you to increase voltage on the memory until you find a stable point. Be advised however that this WILL void your warranty. That said I can report that I have run memory at the manufacturers suggested settings for more than a year and just like you I experienced nothing but instability. This is because they almost never test memory in four slots even when they sell memory as a four DIMM set.

I would recommend visiting the MB manufacturers website and checking the BBS there for recommendations on where to start. Be advised though that YMMV is nearly always the case when it comes to voltages and stability.

[MaSonZ]

If you have a RAM stick that has clearly marked on it 2.5V then thats what the manufacturer determined is its stable voltage setting. Thats not to say it wont run at another setting or that it will be stable at that setting with four slots populated. Nearly every MB I have tested encounters stability issues with more than two slots populated and therefore require additional voltage when using four slots. Also it is usually required but not always that the SB voltage be increased as well. In some cases as with EVGA the BIOS may indicate that the voltage is out of spec by indicating RED (warning) versus GREEN (safe) and this is to be expected. Finding a point that is stable is not cut and dry and requires some experimentation. Going at it systematically is the only way really. You should test each stick separately to begin with in order to make sure that each stick is sound and capable of running solo. While it is possible that a slot is defective it is much more likely that the MB voltage is unstable with four sticks utilized. This will require you to increase voltage on the memory until you find a stable point. Be advised however that this WILL void your warranty. That said I can report that I have run memory at the manufacturers suggested settings for more than a year and just like you I experienced nothing but instability. This is because they almost never test memory in four slots even when they sell memory as a four DIMM set.

I would recommend visiting the MB manufacturers website and checking the BBS there for recommendations on where to start. Be advised though that YMMV is nearly always the case when it comes to voltages and stability.

not to hijack, but since you mentioned the 4 set sticks in this post ive been wondering for a while. I have 8 GB (4 X2GB) of RAM. I have 2 slots open, should i go for the 16GB that my MB can support just buy two more sticks of the same RAM that i have now.and the theory is it should run fine, no?

[Chalenge]

Probably you would have to adjust voltages on the memory and the SPP which is what I just said. In all likelihood it would not be stable at the same settings that you have now. Probably you dont have any need of another 8GB anyway.