Computer freezing, inconsistent RAM errors: pick the faulty componenet

[Leggie]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to fix an older computer that has suddenly started to freeze up, often shortly after booting into XP. It has a Gigabyte GA-K8VT800 motherboard with 4 x 1GB sticks of Crucial DDR PC3200 RAM.

My first thought was that there was faulty memory so I started up Memtest86+ with all the RAM in it. After leaving it for a while it came up with a ton of errors. I then started to try and narrow it down. The errors then, irritatingly, disappeared. After a while, and quite a lot of swapping the sticks around, some errors re-appeared. However, they didn't seem to be consistently appearing on one particular stick. I thought I'd found the faulty stick, only for extensive memtesting to suggest it was clean.

Then I started hearing the BIOS beep code for faulty memory when I tried booting off one stick. Only thing was, I then tried a different RAM stick and heard the same beep code! Tried again, and the beep codes disappeared.

Now I haven't a clue which RAM stick it might be pointing to - if any. I'd think it unlikely for more than one of them to suddenly fail, considering it's quality RAM. So could the RAM errors actually be a false scent? Could it actually be the motherboard, or perhaps the PSU that's failing? Any ideas what to try?

Cheers,

Leggie

EDIT: Sorry for the typo in the thread title!

[smargh]

Check motherboard for bulging or leaking capacitors on the motherboard, check voltages of the PSU. Also, if it has one, check video card for any signs of a defect like capacitors, broken fan etc.

[Dingo]

A quick search suggests these boards may have been a bit flakey with some sticks of memory, crucial being one of them, any chance you could try a different brand of memory?.

http://uk.ask.com/web?qsrc=1&o=312&l...roblems&dm=all


Was just looking at a pic of the board and it only has three memory slots??.

Have you gone into the BIOS to look at what settings the memory is defaulting at

[noveltylamp]

Blast the slots with compressed air, and clean the contacts on the DIMMs with Isopropyl alcohol.