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Thread: Long standing memory woes

  1. #1
    Butter king GheeTsar's Avatar
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    Long standing memory woes

    When I first built my current system I had no end of instability issues, most commonly manifesting as freezing during the POST (9/10 boots), but occasionally getting as far as Windows for an hour or so before crashing and not rebooting. After much cursing (I’m quite a beginner, this is only my second system I’ve built for myself), it finally became stable when only using one of the two memory sticks (specs to the left).

    At the time, I was just relieved to have a working machine, so brushed the memory issue under the carpet, and I’ve not really noticed much limitation despite only having half the memory I bought at half the speed. But now it’s bugging me and I was hoping for some pointers so I can figure out what’s the problem and hopefully fix it. I’ve since flashed the latest BIOS for the motherboard, but have yet to tackle the memory issue for fear of the reoccurring instability!

    I’m guessing it is either duff memory, a duff motherboard or just complete failure on my part as it wasn’t typically getting to Windows, although only having a 32 bit OS probably doesn’t help.

    Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

  2. #2
    HEXUS.timelord. Zak33's Avatar
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    Re: Long standing memory woes

    You need to burn a copy of Memtest to a CD, and boot from it, and run tests on that ram.

    You can then check the good and the "duff" stick to see if it WAS ram causing your trouble.

    http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

    grab the latest CD ISO and mount it to a CD using something like ImgBurn http://www.imgburn.com/

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
    "The second you aren't paying attention to the tool you're using, it will take your fingers from you. It does not know sympathy." |
    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

  3. Received thanks from:

    GheeTsar (23-06-2009)

  4. #3
    Butter king GheeTsar's Avatar
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    Re: Long standing memory woes

    As suggested I ran MemTest. Mem stick one passed fine, but the second one failed big time (over 91 thousand errors in under a minute before the system crashed!

    I think it's time to get on to Corsair and see how the warranty works/applies. Has anyone got any experience of sending back memory? Specifically, will they need me to post both sticks? I kinda need one of them.

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    mutantbass head Lee H's Avatar
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    Re: Long standing memory woes

    Quote Originally Posted by GheeTsar View Post
    I think it's time to get on to Corsair and see how the warranty works/applies. Has anyone got any experience of sending back memory? Specifically, will they need me to post both sticks? I kinda need one of them.
    If the memory was part of a pack i.e it came as 2 x 2 Gb then the full pack would need to be returned so that it can be swapped out accordingly.

    The best port of call would be to contact the retailer you purchased the memory from as they should be able test the memory, and then replace the memory a bit quicker than sending the memory directly to corsair.

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    GheeTsar (26-06-2009)

  7. #5
    Butter king GheeTsar's Avatar
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    Re: Long standing memory woes

    Thanks Lee. I guess I'd better buy myself another 4 Gb of RAM for the interim so I can have 8 Gb when all are working together!

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    Butter king GheeTsar's Avatar
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    Re: Long standing memory woes

    Righty. I've bought myself some more RAM (thanks Scan) and the new stuff appears to working fine. I note on CPU-z that the timings are 5-7-7-24, based on the motherboards "auto" setting. The memory (another 4Gb of Corsair 8500 C5 Dominator) is quoted as 5-5-5-15 timings. Two questions for you lovely Hexus people:

    - Is it worth adjusting it manually or shall I just live with 5-7-7-24? Are there any risks?
    - If I were to adjust it, do I just do it in the BIOS, manually specifying the timings?

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    Re: Long standing memory woes

    yes it is worth it, not there are any risks as the sticks are rated at 5-5-5-15 and yes you just adjust in BIOS

  10. Received thanks from:

    GheeTsar (30-06-2009)

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