Intermittent BSOD, can't find the source, could be RAM?

[fat-chunk]

Hi,

I have gotten the BSOD on my custom-built desktop about three times now over the last month. I can't really seem to find the reason for it happening though as it is sporadic and most of the time my PC runs normally.

I think it might be the RAM and here is why:

When I built my PC I bought cheap RAM thinking it wouldn't make too much difference to performance on my machine. It was a random low-end model, here is the product page where I got it:

Link

I bought two of these, therefore 16GB. The reason why I think it might be these is because 2 years ago I helped a friend build his PC using the same RAM and he had similar BSOD issues a few months later. He got someone at a shop to help him out and they put in some new RAM. He said it ran fine after that.

On top of that, the last time it happened this morning, I was playing Bioshock 1 and I seemed to be occasionally getting strange multi-colored artifacts which has never happened before. I ran Heaven to see if it was my GPU and that ran fine on full settings so I am pretty sure that isn't the problem.

The problem is I cannot really test whether the RAM is the issue. I can't seem to trigger a BSOD at will. I have also tried running MemTest and it is not failing (my friend had also done this at the time and it did not fail).

I don't really want to dish out more money on new RAM at this time and realise that wasn't the problem all along.

Does anyone here know what I could do to try and locate the specific problem? What usually would cause a BSOD like this? Next time it happens I will try to copy down the error message.


I am happy to provide any info which could be of use.

thanks for the help!

 

[plaintuts]

Go to your bios, then check if the correct xmp profile is set for your ram.

 

[fat-chunk]

Go to your bios, then check if the correct xmp profile is set for your ram.

Sorry, but could you be more specific?

I don't really know what an xmp profile is (from a quick Google search it seems quite complex).

Also, why would this only have affected my PC in the last month if it has been wrong for the last 2 years?

Cheers

 

[plaintuts]

The short version of what you found on Google is that you need to setup your bios to use 1600mhz speed of your ram at constant.

But as you said it been working for 2 years without a hitch then, your best way of diagnosis is using one stick of ram at a time then check if Bsod will occur.