Bad Ram?

massahwahl

massahwahl

VIP Member
I just tried installing my second two gig sticks of ram. Computer booted fine and told me at startup all 4 gigs were detected. Then when I got to the loading Windows Vista screen, it loaded then went to a quick BSOD and restarted. I figured this might be a bad ram stick, so i opened up the case and removed one. Low and behold computer booted up perfect this time and windows sees all three gigs.

Is it possible this other stick is bad? Or am I doing something incorrectly? Whats the deal?
 
Try that one dimm by itself to see what happens then. If the system starts and runs normally the memory may have simply been mislabled. Even with the 64bit editions of Vista installing Windows can be a problem at times with 4gb of memory installed.

One MS page advises removing 2gb until Windows is up and running. But since you are adding memory after Windows was installed you have a dimm seeing different timings or need to be replaced. Isolating it would be one way to see if the dimm is bad.
 
I would think that the one is probably bad. Trying to boot with just the 1 suspected bad stick is a good start. If it works, try running memtest on both sticks (one at a time if possible). A lot of the time bad RAM will pass the BIOS startup test so the BIOS detecting all the RAM there isn't an indicator that the RAM is good.
 
With Vista you now see memtest included as an option when booting from the installation disk. You won't have to worry about creating a boot floppy for it.

The BSOD without any driver being pointed at strongly suggests a bad dimm. When tested that way and if no errors are seen it could turn out to be another problem as well. Are you running the 32bit or 64bit edition of Vista there?
 
Well the guy is being a little pr**k now and wont refund or let me exchange the bad ram or both. He says its covered under Corsair so I will have to go through them to get it replaced! Boy am I glad ebay doesnt let sellers leave feedback anymore! He's gonna get one negative comment from me... took him three emails to finally respond!
 
I wouldn't even buy on EBay to start with. For any memory here I go strictly retail under a reputable vendor's exchange policy there rather going through the crap you are apparently running into. For mission impossible type items to find that's when you go to a place like EBay comes in handy when nobody else has something.
 
This is my only bad experience I have ever had and 90% of my rig came from ebay without fault. This guy just chose to be a pri#k
 
It really depends on who the seller is when going there. A good number of more private or small vendors elect to sell there simply to restock with the new stuff. You buy quick and cheap and then get stuck at times!
 
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