Upgrading the Family PC, What a nightmare.

WeatherMan

WeatherMan

Active Member
Hi guys,

As some of you already know I am currently upgrading the family PC at home.

I have now nearly swapped out almost every component in the system, but it still refuses to run correctly.

Here is the original spec:

AMD Sempron 2600+ Socket 754 (Palermo)
2x512MB DDR PC2100
160GB IDE Hard Drive
Biostar K8M800-M7A Motherboard
250w Unbranded Power Supply (8A +12V)

Here is the upgrade process so far

Sempron 2600+ replaced with Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice)
160GB IDE HDD replaced with 80GB SATAII HDD
1GB DDR PC3200

At this point the system was still running alright, but still a bit slow, so I decided next to add another 1GB of DDR PC3200.

I stuck the stick into the 2nd slot on the motherboard and since then started seeing instability.

I tested both sticks with Memtest86+, and it turns out that the 2nd stick was bad, so I sent it back and ordered a new stick.

Stuck that stick in and exactly the same happened, bought another stick.

Same thing again, thought OK maybe it's a motherboard / RAM Conflict.

Bought a new motherboard (Foxconn Winfast 6100M8MB)

Same problem, tested both sticks individually, 100% passes.

Stick them in together, over 500,000 errors.

I have since tried my 550w PSU with the system to see if theres a power issue, same problem.

I've also now ordered a new PSU anyway, because I have a Socket 939 3700+ cpu on the way, and need to find a board for it, and obviously it's going to require a bit more juice.

Another thing to note:

This new 1GB PC3200 stick even though 100% passing Memtest, keeps giving me BSOD's and restarts/errors, but only in the 2nd motherboard slot.

This is the exact same problem I had with the first motherboard, and it still happens with my 550w PSU)

I've tried a new XP installation and the issue still persists.

I can't believe that both boards have had the exact same issue with multiple sticks of ram, so I was wondering whether I could have a bad memory controller on my CPU perhaps?

Anyway I am about to order a new motherboard for this 3700+, and hope this nightmare will go away, with the help of a new PSU, and the fact that both of my sticks of ram test with 100% Passes.

Any ideas? It's driving me round the wall.

Right now the system is running with only 1GB of PC3200, as that's the only way it's stable.

Thanks
Jason

EDIT: Okay so the system has BSOD with the RAM in the first slot now too. I have put the other stick instead to see if I have any problems.
 
Last edited:
wall of text. :( But is there a question here?

Here is what I think though. I think the issue is in the CPU since you have changed motherboards, ram, HDD, and PSU. The only things left is video and CPU. For what its worth, I am pretty sure 754 was before the integration, so your memory controller should be on the northbridge, but look more into that.
 
All this time and money wasted on getting this going and you could have just went up to am3 and been done by now... lol. Are the memory sticks the same brand and timings?
 
The 'good' stick has Samsung IC's with timings of 3-4-4-9 , manufactured in August 2011 and passes Memtest.

The 'bad' stick has Transcend IC's with timings of 3-3-3-8 and is much older . It also passes Memtest but gives me all sorts of errors inside Windows.

I will now try and boot with both sticks, and set the timings manually to the specs of the lowest stick, as before they've always been booting with 'Auto' timings.

By the looks of things they are both the same density, but I'll have to confirm that

EDIT: I've set both sticks to run at 3-4-4-9 2T Default voltage and now running memtest


I have a feeling you could be right about these mixed sticks john!

My old sticks were matched, and I had zero problems. I think these just needed the timings set manually.

I knew using mixed sticks isn't a good idea, but I never thought it would cause this much frustration lol
 
Last edited:
1314029819767.png




Is it normal that it errors on every single block? i.e 150.1mb 150.2mb 150.3mb etc etc etc!

I don't get how both sticks pass on their own but not together, when it's not a power or motherboard issue :confused:
 
Last edited:
Some sticks don't like one another. I've seen it before and thats why you need to buy memory in kits of 2. As long as you have verified that one of the memory slots aren't bad. Have you tried both single sticks in both slots with memtest? Thats how you verify the slot isn't bad.
 
I've actually just remembered, during sodding around with ram, I did buy a set of RAM from eBay, from Hong Kong, these were the sticks produced in 2011, and were both Samsungs of the same timings, but one stick kept erroring out, so I sent one stick back!

I will do what you said now to verify that the slot isn't bad
 
Then I would say its a memory stick issue between the 2 when running together. You should get a dual channel kit and I'm guessing you'll be fine. But I'm only guessing..lol
 
Well I have another 1GB stick on the way, and the processor just arrived, I am waiting for a new PSU to arrive and need to buy a Socket 939 board for the 3700+ and I will try with the 3 sticks I have, see if I can get 2 of them working together.

If that doesn't work I will sell the sticks and buy a kit :)
 
I have given up troubleshooting this system for now.

I'm going to wait for the new RAM, cooler, PSU and motherboard to arrive, set it up and prey that there are no issues :)

If there are, well you'll see this thread popping up a lot more lol
 
I had a similar issue using matched OCZ modules a few years back when all 4 DIMM slots were populated.

Unless I missed it when reading, find the manufacturer and model of RAM and manually set voltages and try again. If it fails give it a (very) minor voltage bump. If above stock it still does not work, give NB voltage a slight bump also. A little extra juice above the stock is sometimes needed when all slots are populated
 
Well the new stick of RAM arrived today, it's from Kingston.

I put the new stick in, pressed the power button, it turned on for a few seconds then turned off, I pressed it again and the LED comes on, but no fans or boot.

I then decided to swap the sticks over, same problem.

I pulled the plug out the PSU, reset the cmos and booted back up. System booted.

Ran memtest and noticed that the system had set the sticks up to run at

166MHz 2.5-3-3-7, so rebooted and set the timings to

200MHz 3-4-4-9, set the voltage to 2.65 and the NB to 1.25v. rebooted and so far windows seems pretty good.

Time to memtest :P

I am starting to think these old chipsets do not like certain combinations of ram modules and timings, all my issues seem to suggest ram failure, but memtest shows my modules are OK when on their own. Ahh well!
 
Here's an update:

After running memtest with the 2 new sticks @ 200MHz (400MHz) 3-4-4-9 I got over 500,000 errors again.

I rebooted the system and increased the voltage of the RAM and chipset by 0.05v and it reduced the errors to 3,000, another 0.05v and the figure went down to 2,000.

I then decided to set the RAM to 2.75v (from 2.6v stock) and the chipset to 1.35v (from 1.2v stock) I then got 600 errors. I cannot increase the voltage anymore via the BIOS and don't want to either.

I then decided to lower the timings down to 3-6-6-12, still 600 or so errors.

I've now stuck the ram down to 166MHz (333MHz) with 3-4-4-9 timings, and the 0.15v voltage bumps and all seems well.

I've also increased the CPU from 2200MHz to 2400MHz (1.35v to 1.4v) so that the RAM bumps up a little.

Memtest passes 100% with 2GB ram installed, and Prime95 passes the CPU at 2.4GHz. The current memory speed is 171MHz (342MHz)

I don't think these old Socket 754 boards do well with running mixed RAM at their rated speeds, I am leaving the settings as is because I'm happy with the system being stable.

When the socket 939 board arrives I'll try again to get these sticks to run at 400MHz, if they don't I'll sell them off and buy a 2GB kit of PC3200!

EDIT: Just looked at the SPD tables for my sticks, and for the speed im running it shows I'll be able to tighten the timings.

The sticks have now passed at 342MHz 2.5-3-3-7 :)
 
Last edited:
Okay I got the new Socket 939 board today, it's installed and I'm currently installing the last updates.

The RAM is now running at 400MHz 3-4-4-9

It's not running in Dual Channel, and I assume that's because they're mixed sticks?

There are no options in the BIOS to configure the memory settings.

I've tried all sorts of stick configurations including how the manual says to do it, but nothing works.

Do I need to replace these mixed sticks with a kit?

Also, the Front panel in this old Packard Bell case isn't HD Compliant, so it doesn't work with the Realtek HD card on this board, meaning when I plug my headphones into the front panel, the monitor speakers are still active :P

That's not much of a problem because mum has a USB headset :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top