Knackered MoBo? Help!

[Indi75]

Long informative post!!! You have been warned. I apologise in advance, but its all about the facts and hopefully helping other in future before they suffer long periods of loneliness at their.... I'll stop there

So, its January 2005 and I'm running my own build flawlessly since November, the Spec being:

Athlon XP 3200+ 'Barton'
Gigabyte Rocket Pro
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
VS512MBKIT400 (2x256)
NVidia GeForce MX440 64MB
Seagate Barracuda 80GB
Antec SLK3700BQE & 350W Smartpower PSU
CDROM & CDRW/DVD Combo
120mm Front & Rear Vantec Silent Fans.

All is well.

I then build an identical PC for a mate with him taking the VS512MBKIT400 off my hands as I wanted to upgrade to a Gig.

This leaves me with the following build.

Athlon XP 3200+ 'Barton'
Gigabyte Rocket Pro
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
VS1GBKIT400 (2x512)
Sapphire Radeon 9600
Western Digital Caviar SE 120GB (In prior to rebuild and stable as Seagate died)
Antec SLK3700BQE & 350W Smartpower PSU
CDROM & DVDRW
120mm Front & Rear Vantec Silent Fans.

So only changes from stable PC were the Mem, the DVDRW, and the GPU.

About a week after the build I start getting BSOD having reinstalled RoN to replay it on larger scale and settings. The only other things installed at this time are RTW and CM0304, and H&D.

I assume RoN is the problem as there appear to be errors throughout the install of the game, and it keeps crashing with the following error message:

"The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: 6."

I uninstall, and the BSOD's continue. Error messages ranging from wmaud, nvmcp, ati2mag, alc...modem thingy, and all manner of Memory, Graphics, and hardware related errors.

I swap the old NVidia card back in to see if the Radeon is causing the issue. Very carefully, full driverclean and all that, even a reinstall at one point.

Still BSOD'd.

Tested each and every NVidia nForce2 driver (My original stable 4.27 onward) with each and every RadCat 4.12 and up. Still not right.

Eliminated the known nVidia 5.10 IDE lock up from the equation by leaving out the IDe Driver... no blame there.

Eliminated the SW IDE nVidia balls-up form the equation by not allowing install of that where offered either. (nVidia = Useless B'stards)

Targetted the Memory. Does it crash with a stick removed? No. Swap the sticks, still fine.

Test with WinMemDiag fine, Test with Memtest86+ fine too except one test which produced a shedload of errors. Oddly, the errors didn't show up again when I rebotted and left it for another hour. Prime wont pass the Large FFT torture test.... Prime95 forums indicate I should check for dust, but other than that confirm definite hardware failure. A can of compressed air and I have an intimate hour in the crevasses of the MoBo... still BSOD, still silly unexplained EL message, and still no Prime95 pass.

Next? PSU. Rails are weak, and altough fluctuation is not massive the rails are not up to an AMD chip on an NVidia board, and certainly not with a Radeon 9600 suckling on thy AGP teet.

So, in comes the Tagan TG480-U01 480W (with rails for a bullet train). I mean, HELL, this thing is getting some good reviews.

..and Lo, the BSOD's come to an end..... more or less.

Clearly there was more than one issue, the PSU needed upgrading, but that wasn't the only issue.

Still getting the odd blank one, and simply cannot play any games without, you've guessed it, the EL message that despite trawling over a thousand threads via Google, no-one has the answer to...except one lad who came back to a thread six months after it died to say he'd been getting EXACT same error message as me, was using VS1GBKIT400, RMA'd it, and never saw the issue again.

Odd thing is, others have claimed to have fixed it, but I think it's more PC specific than that. There are no common denominators in all the specs reviewed amongst the threads I've read.

I've used Prime on the small FFT test to stress CPU/BUS/Cache and it runs quite happily for the over 3 hours. It wont run large FFT to test the Memory tho for more than about 20 minutes.

I have a thread in the Corsair Memory Support Forum forum and have tried a couple of tricks recommended by RAM GUY to no avail.

An RMA has, in all fairness against the evidence of memtest been offered, and I'm waiting for my mate to return with my old memory to do a bit of swapping.

I've got the DIMMS up from to 2.7 fro 2.6 default to no avail.

I've also upped the Rad from 1.5 to 1.6 and still get the errors and crashes.

Mem has always been placed in the two blue slots which are what I perceive to be 2 & 3.

Asus manual labels them as A1 and B1, both Blue, with the solitary black slot labeled A2 closest to the CPU Socket and NorthBridge.

I've since sat watching disbelievingly as Prime runs a large FFT torture test on a single DIMM in slot 3. Was just a hunch you understand, and I was obviously gonna need to run this on the other DIMM and the other DC slot with each DIMM but so far I'm intrigued.

Its worked! For over 2 hours. As do Games.

My Temps are fine. My voltages are damn solid with a light fluctuation of insignificant proportion on the 5v.

So I tested all possible configurations. Frankly it's ability to be used normally is strongly tied to it's ability to run the things I want it to.

So, here's what I have as the final core of the problem:

2 DIMM's 676 & 677 or 1 and 2 respectively on the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe.

DIMM 1 & 2 run fine in Slot 3 (Furthest from CPU/NB) for 2 hours plus. No Prime95 failures. No Game Crashes.

Both DIMM fail Prime in Slot 2 within 5 minutes.

Both DIMM fail Prime in Slot 1 within a minute. DIMM 2 invites a BSOD.

DIMM's in slots 2 & 3 Dual Channel, can game for short period before CTD or occasional BSOD. Fail Prime in 5 minutes. Notably system seems terribly sluggish with both DIMM in Dual Channel despite default and RAM GUY recommended set-ups.

DIMM's in Slots 1 & 3 cause BSOD within seconds of launching desktop. Tried again Prime failed in 1 minute or less. Not risking any gaming.

DIMM in Slot 1 & 2 No DC = BSOD and Prime fail in under a minute.

This means only current stable set-up is either DIMM in slot 3 single channel, suspiciously it still feels faster than both in DC.

Any idea's whats wrong?

If it's the slots. Why? They were fine before the upgrade of memory and are free from dust.

Are there any test configurations I've missed?

...and finally, if my board needs replacing I'm screwed. Will Asus advance RMA? If not I'll need to buy a new board and then flog the RMA'd one on Ebay or the like. What's the best thing I can bget for my build? Originally when building the best reviews for DDR400 DC with AGP were the Abit NF7-?? but there were issues over exactly which version was best, and my current Asus Deluxe. Any recommendations would be fine.

Finally. Does this prove my RAM itself is Ok?

Thankyou to those of you with patience to get this far, it's much appreciated, I've almost reached the end of my tether over the last 4 months.

...help?

[Indi75]

Wow.

Got my old memory back from Mate (VS512MBKIT400) and swapped PC's.

Memtest, as said before, passes the memory in both machines, but since the memory is testing fine but not running fine I'm resorting to testing for stability with Prime95.

Now, the only way my memory works, having covered ALL combo's on default settings is with a single stick in Slot 3, and, oddly, the PC feels quicker with the half gig in Slot 3.

As unexpected, beginning to believe my MoBo was at fault, my old memory passed with flying colours. Stable as a rock and feels quicker than the Gig did!

My Memory in his PC? Failed. Less than a minute.

His Memory in his PC? Passed. Over 2 hours.

I know 2 hours isn't exhaustive, but I know when it fails, and right now with failures taking place within 5 minutes anything lasting 2 hours is good enough to help spot the clear problem with what I now think is the memory again.

Sooo.

What do you guys think? My Mem works nowhere (Except singlky in Slot 3, my old Mem works everywhere and that must mean my Memory cannot run in Dual channel, Yes?

[Olly1234]

Hmmm have you ever read war & peace Wat timings are you running the memory at? They are rated cas 2.5, set them to set by SPD if you haven;t already, is everything else running at stock?

[Indi75]

It's all running at stock.

My old memory, borrowed back yesterday flies, just the new stuff that doesn't.

Asus said set them manually @ 200mhz, Corsair said up the voltage, but to be honest, the old half gig of same memory ran just fine under default optimal settings, as it did yesterday.

guess I'll only really know if I'm right about either the Mem or Mobo when new Memory arrives.

Either way, my old memory works in Mine and Mates PC, my new memory works in neither... pretty good indicator I think (hope)

[Indi75]

Fixed.

PSU upgrade reduced BSOD to minimal amount. CTD still common. Replaced the Memory today and issue gone.

Memtest & WinDiag fine.

Prime running sweetly!

Ta to those who gave the love!