I can't get 8GB of RAM to boot up.

[Agent]

To the OP - another thought. Once in Windows run Prime95 for a while and make sure the system is 100% stable.

Quite often you will need to give the northbridge a bit more voltage when dealing with more RAM. Although this wouldn't really explain the CPU @ 100% issue.

[Judge Zetsumei]

i have tried all sorts of combinations and it still doesn't work. as soon as four modules are put in the pc grinds to a crawl with cpu at 100%. i have a feeling it may need a bios update. I tried gigabytes @bios program and that got an error at the end which scared me. luckily my computer still boots up so the bios wasn't lost. I'm not using that again. Can anyone explain to me how to update the bios using a floppy or usb drive? i have downloaded the f10 version and it gives me three files

autoexec.bat
FLASH895.EXE
p35cds3r.f10

i assume i copy these to a floppy or flash drive and then press END on startup to enter the qflash. I have never done this before so i don't want to ruin my motherboard lol.

oh and my voltages and timings are correct.

[Agent]

I've no idea how you do it from a USB flash drive as I've never done it, but for the floppy - simply format it with the "system" or "bootable" option set (I forget which one it is - sorry), then copy those files to it.

Make sure the BIOS is set to boot from the floppy first. Boot it, then flash away

[Dreaming]

To do it from a USB it's a bit more complicated. Floppy just create a MS-Dos boot disc, copy those files to it, start up with right boot priority and run the autoexec I think.

Err hold on, for USB..

You will need:
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (application)
WinImage (application)
fdbasecd.iso (free bootable dos image)

-- nevermind -- found the old thread I used ages ago with the guide:

USB guide

That's going in my bookmarks right about now.

[Agent]

I think the ASUS BIOS can read any FAT32 based USB drive and get the image from it without worrying about it being bootable?

Not sure as above, I've not tried it

[Thorsson]

Works that way with floppy too IIRC.

[Dreaming]

Oh yea when I used the asus it's got ezflash hasn't it? So you put it in a drive, open the bios and go to ezflash and it does itself?

Kinda makes me going to the effort of that useless unless you have a non asus motherboard and want to install a bios from a usb stick... I can say from experience it definately works like a charm tho

[Judge Zetsumei]

I've got round to updating my bios and that fixed it. I no longer get 100% cpu usage all the time.

Thanks for all the help