Buggered Memory Question

[Tayl]

Hello all.

Well, I've ran memtest a few times and to my dismay, it has had failures at the exact same point each time. I'm yet to do any other tests (taking one stick out and running memtest, swapping and running memtest etc) and I'm just curious, will running my machine with damaged memory (if it is the RAM stick, and not the motherboard) damage any other hardware components? As I need my machine at the moment and can't afford to send off my RAM just yet for a replacement.

Also, is there a possibility it could be the motherboard at fault or is it definitely the memory considering that it fails at the exact same point each time? I mean, the bus could be damaged on the motherboard for example, but surely this would cause random curruption of data etc rather then the one error at the same point?

Best regards,

Breaks.

 

[PC eye]

It could easily one or both things there. On the last build here memtest showed some 573 errors on brand new memory after showing just over 70 on the previous pair of dimms? That same memory that saw 573 errors saw 0% in this build. The bios and cpu both on the last board met their fate when the cpu overheated due to fan failure. Run memtest on each dimm separately to see if one has developed faults. You may simply need to update the bios. That can be a problem at times if this is a new build. Or you could be seeing an incompatibility between dimms.

 

[Cromewell]

If the machine boots at all the board is probably fine, at worst it may be the socket. I've not heard of bad RAM damaging the rest of the system but expect blue screens. Lots of them.

 

[Tayl]

The computer boots fine, I can even play games on it for a while. It seems that when a game decides to take up more memory than it needs the game crashes to desktop and it chucks me a binary error (which I'm guessing is due to the damaged stick of RAM). The computer boots fine and it never blue screens or crashes to the point of restarting itself, it just crashes to desktop randomly but usually with the same binary popup error.

 

[Archangel]

YOu could try upping the memory voltage by 0,1v ( i had some error with my el'cheapo RAM in memtest, and after i did that the error was gone )
But,.. Im not sure if your RAM can take the extra voltage ofc.

 

[Tayl]

I daredent up the voltage anymore than default purely for the fact that knowing my luck, it'd go bang (obviously I mean just bugger up even more on me ). It's still under warrenty so I'll send it back next week, I just need to do as suggested and run memtest with one stick of RAM in and then swap them around.

 

[PC eye]

Often games will surprise you. Often a fresh set of video drivers won't even help. Games will get bumped when you have to much running in the background or it pulls on the sound too much. Since the error message remains the same you can often use that to find out what the problem is. The two more common causes are a need to update sound drivers and whatever else is running. This will see hung drivers and reserved memory address errors.

 

[Tayl]

Right well, I decided to open the computer up and remove stick 2 from slot 2 on my motherboard, ran memtest and it passed. I put stick 1 in slot 2, ran memtest, it passed, I then took stick 1 out and put stick 2 in slot 1 and memtest passed, so I then put stick2 in slot 2 and ran memtest, it passed. Through confusment I decided to put both the sticks of RAM in the slots they were in when they failed on memtest before, I ran memtest again and it passed.

Any suggestions / ideas / comments on why it passed now when it failed before with both sticks in? Do you reckon it could have been a simple re-seating issue?

 

[PC eye]

When was the last time you did two things: 1) blow out the case and slots with a can of air cleaner; 2) update the bios? The reseating of the memory may have simply cleaned the contacts off in the process. Or your #2 dimm may not have been seated down enough. At least you know the memory is good. I'm starting to think that memtest still hasn't caught up with hardwares.

I ran into problems when assuming one pair of dimms was seeing faults and replaced those to see no errors on the new pair until the cpu overheated. All of a sudden the new memory saw that large number of errors mentioned earlier until installed on the new board. It can catch you offguard at times.

 

[Tayl]

Well I checked today and I have the latest bios version for my motherboard already. I flashed it a good few months a go (about 4 to be precise). As for the cleaning out the slots with an air canister, I haven't actually done that, I just normally blow lightly over them. Still no problems with my computer since the reseat, games actually seem to be running a lot better too without any crashes (normally with battlefield it crashes within the space of half an hour but now it seems to play endlessly without any faults). Quite the confusing situation eh? I'll keep running memtest and see what happens. I was thinking that maybe it could be a voltage problem?

 

[PC eye]

The reseating there of the memory was probably all that was needed. When you run memtest again and confirm this you won't have much to worry about. The dimm was probably lifted just a little for that to have been seen. Generally omce you get them down inplace the retainer locks and you are set to go.

 

[Tayl]

Yeah I'm hoping that's the case. It hasn't crashed in a game since so maybe that was all. It's the preferred result because that way it works out cheaper .

 

[PC eye]

All it takes is one contact to be barely touching to be a problem. It would have just enough contact where it wouldn't trigger an audio alert by the bios while not enough to allow the proper current to flow. At least now you know that you don't have to replace a dimm there until you are ready to upgrade.

 

[Tayl]

Well half life 2 just crashed and gave me a binary read error, so I thought that I should run memtest again, and to my dismay, it failed... this is really getting on my nerves now. Any suggestions? Below is the screenshot of the memtest failure:



Do you think it could be the PSU playing up outputing the wrong voltages or something? Here are the speedfan voltage readings:



Any suggestions? Comments?

 

[Jet]

Could you post the voltage readings directly from the BIOS?

 

[Tayl]

These are the readings from my bios, obviously they kept going up and down .1 volt give or take, but these are the readings when I captured them on cam:

 

[PC eye]

It sounds like a flaky bios more then any problems with memory. A cap going in the supply would be seeing system restarts and other problems. But I noticed the Smart Power not Neo or True Power for the Antec model shown in your sig. There have been some problems seen with the SP line. Just remember when you are gaming and busy in Windows you have a load on the supply where voltages will vary. When you are in the bios there is nothing not even Windows loaded there. Try using SpeedFan to make a log of the voltages while Windows sits idle for a period of time.

 

[Tayl]

Ok will do, thank you for your help thus far PC Eye, much appreciated. I was thinking, if it were a power supply voltage problem, wouldn't the fault be random rather than the same failure on memtest and games crashing to desktop with the same errors? As voltage problems wouldn't always occur during the exact same point (data being sent / received) every time would it? I have been running this bios release for many months now and these problems only started occuring the past couple of weeks.

 

[PC eye]

At this point I wouldn't go by what memtest is saying about finding memory errors where you are seeing a specific problem repeating itself. Gaming does pull more power through the video and sound and while loading the ram to see that draw on power there more then many apps. An unstabled supply would be more noticable at other times as well. Drivers in conflict will produce the same type of error like often seen with sound while having the video drivers upto date. What you are describing there is starting to sound like problems that were a few builds ago with Return to CastleWolfenstein and Soldier of Fortune II. Drivers, resource conflicts, and hardware problem?

 

[Tayl]

Any suggestions on the next step to take? Maybe it'd be worth sending the PSU back and getting a refund in order to purchase a new one?