"New" Dual Core PC, known workign RAM now faulty?

[chis]

Hi all, I hope some of you guys can help me with this. Bit of a rant, so go get some hot chocolate.

I've had an Athlon 3000+ XP-based PC (MSI KT6V motherboard, MS-7021) running for about 18 months now, no troubles, with some Corsair TwinX RAM. I have since switched the motherboard and CPU for an ECS KV2 Lite and a socket 939 Athlon 64 X2 4600+. After a few quibbles getting Windows 2000 on, it worked fine for a little while. Then I got a stop error

The stop error was 0x00000035: NO_MORE_IRP_STACK_LOCATIONS. Brief Googling suggested this could be dodgy drivers. The only new drivers I'm running now are AMD's Cool 'n Quiet, and the VIA 4in1 and LAN drivers that came with the ECS board. How likely is it that any of those would cause this stop error? All of the other hardware I'm using (it's a PC for music production, so it has a couple of audio interfaces, firewire etc), performed just fine on the older setup.

The other possibility some have mentioned, with this stop error, is a RAM fault. Here's why I feel this is more likely than drivers: said 2x512MB Corsair TwinX DDR DIMMs have been working fine, dual channel, at 400mHz with the Athlon XP 3000+ / MSI board, but with this new dual core setup, Memtest86 throws up faults with the modules in a dual channel configuration. One module at a time - either - or both together in a single channel configuration, and I haven't had a single fault. Note, they seem to run Cas 2-3-3-7 in single channel, 2.5-3-3-8 in dual channel.

What on earth am I supposed to make of this? Is the RAM faulty or not? Any thoughts?

[this_is_gav]

Did you reinstall windows after installing the new board? If at all possible you should always do a complete reinstall when swapping to a different board.

[fishboy25uk]

Had a Google myself, lots of people say it's drivers but it could be memory. Make sure you have all the latest drivers for your mobo, then take out any extra hardware and 1 DIMM and try again. If you have no probs, keep adding the hardware back one by one until you find the culprit.

[frazered]

sounds like the ram was fine previsouly so I would suspect drivers and install first, have you checked that your ram is compatible with the new mobo ?

edit: looked in the ecs forum and it looks like corsair is ok with them

looking across that forum, somepeople have had success installing with one stick of ram and adding the other later on

also sounds like you installed the drivers off the cd that came with the new mobo? these could be quite old - try and update, and if you can do it as part of a fresh install as it sounds like the install was problematic

i would make sure you have a good stable and recent bios on the mobo as well to make sure if the above does not work

[Lee H]

Best thing to do to make sure the it's the memory is to download memtest86 - the ISO File from www.memtest86.com and then boot from the CD and test the memory.

If there are any red blocks showing - then the memory is faulty and you should get them changed accordingly.

Best Regards,

[chis]

Thanks for the replies, all. I have to go off to work shortly so I can't do much today. But I HAVE temporarily placed the Corsair modules back into the old motherboard, and let Memtest86 do its work. Both modules together passed 100% three times in a row.

[kalniel]

From the test results it seems clear that it's the motherboard and/or CPU that's causing these errors - specially if it's only in dual channel mode. Not sure if it's easy to distinguish the two, but as the memory controller is on the CPU that'd actually be my first suspect.

Is there anyway you can test a different CPU with the board and ram, or test your CPU in a different board?

If not the best you can hope for is reinstalling drivers for motherboard and CPU and hope that that helps.

[EtheAv8r]

From your results so far I think that there is a possibility of a motherboard fault, but first I would (do you have a spare Hard disk) perform a reforemat and fresh install on the new MB system to eleiminate old drivers clashing in the new environment.

I would also check and download the latest chipset drivers for that board, and checkout the current latest BIOS vs the installed one and update that if necessary.

[chis]

Sorry guys, I wrote the original message at 1:30am so little details like this I probably missed: I performed a totally fresh install after fitting the hardware together.

I think I've narrowed it down anyway. Again, the Corsair modules still work fine together on the old board/CPU. So I ran the test again on the new PC, and once again the memory test failed. What I may not have mentioned so far is that the memory fails at different places... AND I think they're overheating!

After testing the modules on the old mobo, they were not very hot at all. Lukewarm. After testing them in the new PC again, they were very very bloody hot. Arse-brandingly scorching.

These are TwinX DDR modules rated for 400mHz, and in a dual channel configuration on the dual core PC, they run at "400mHz" so Memtest86 claims. They do not run at 400mHz in a single channel configuration, rather at 333, and at this speed they don't overheat. Still, they're supposed to be able to run at 400. Why would they overheat?

So am I just going to have to bite the bullet and buy something like this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=291360

Is PC3200 RAM not enough? Do I have to go for PC4000? The TwinX modules I have are PC3200, and they do have ramsinks...

P.S. I was thinking of testing the match pair of Kingmax PC3200 modules in my games PC - if I can be bothered to take out the Akasa Evo heatsink/fan that towers over them - but what's the betting they'll overheat as well?

[chis]

Anyone?

Unless someone here could make some suggestions, I guess all I can do for now is run the modules single channel.

[fishboy25uk]

Sorry mate, can't help you! I don't know enough about memory really. It could be faulty memory, or perhaps your mobo if faulty in dual channel mode.

Can you try your single stick at 400MHz to see if it heats up?

[kalniel]

These are TwinX DDR modules rated for 400mHz, and in a dual channel configuration on the dual core PC, they run at "400mHz" so Memtest86 claims. They do not run at 400mHz in a single channel configuration, rather at 333, and at this speed they don't overheat. Still, they're supposed to be able to run at 400. Why would they overheat?

So am I just going to have to bite the bullet and buy something like this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=291360

Is PC3200 RAM not enough? Do I have to go for PC4000? The TwinX modules I have are PC3200, and they do have ramsinks...

P.S. I was thinking of testing the match pair of Kingmax PC3200 modules in my games PC - if I can be bothered to take out the Akasa Evo heatsink/fan that towers over them - but what's the betting they'll overheat as well?

Have you been reading our replies?

General consensus is that the problem does not lie with your RAM. Therefore replacing the RAM might not fix anything

[chis]

Okay, I've contacted PC Nextday's tech support to see what they say.

Not looking forward to taking the thing apart again just to replace the board...

[chis]

mobo is faulty in dual channel mode.

Can you try your single stick at 400MHz to see if it heats up?

I cannot make a single stick run at 400MHz, frequency settings even set to manual, clock at 200MHz. Memtest86 still reports:
"Settings: RAM : 199 MHz (DDR399) / CAS 2.5-4-2-8 / Single Channel (64 bits)"

It has started failing with these settings now. Looks like it is the motherboard.

Damnit.