Okay now Im going to put this all out in a clear coherent way:
I remembered several things that transpired that night that I havent mentioned before. They could mean nothing, or they could be a key to the 'issue' at hand.
One is that after I burnt the CD with Sonic Record Now from the image file of MEMTEST86, my AVG popped up and told me that it had caught a Trojan sneaking around Sonic Express Labeler's folder. That program is directly related to sonic record now. I clicked heal, and AVG told me that it was healed. Just adding it in, I dont know what It means.
Also, after removing the Radeon I noticed thick dust inside the edge of the PCIExpress slot, which I blew out the manual way. No other thick dust is present in my rig.
Okay now, we got that out of the way. Now I will say what I think is the issue.
A) Do I even have anything wrong with my rig?
All that I found was errors when all four DIMMS were running memtest, and only on the last new one. That 1st test got me 11 errors, the pic is in the 1st post. The 500 errors that I reported before cannot be vouched for, for I was extremely groggy.
B) Its probably a driver conflict/corruption:
As you will see below, my removing and installing of drivers was a long and bumpy road, in which I could have knocked a screw out of one of my wagon wheels. A conflict with drivers would easily explain hangups and the such.
C) Your suspicions could be correct, I could have knocked out a ram slot. Right now Im running sn92 of the new DIMMS in the 2nd ram slot. Its on its 3rd pass (I think, I havent actually been watching) with no errors. Read my previous thread for my plans.
What Im going to do about it:
A) the new ram in other slots testing mentioned above
B) Stability Testing: to fufill my first question if anything is wrong. All tests will be run without any interference of the new DIMMS, and no other hardware or drivers removed.
1- General Purpose: Ill run the typical programs that I run while using the PC to stress out CPU and RAM to an extent.
Length of time: 45 minutes
What Im gonna do:
a) AIM Triton
b) All of my 6 anti-stuff programs
c) Mozilla Firefox with a handful of windows open (Ill check my regular sites)
d) Azureus dl'ing 4 torrents, will take up all of my meager internet bandwidth
e) PSPVideo9 encoding avi to mpeg4 video (2 175mb videos encoded should take 40-42min)
f) Yahoo Widgets with 3 widgets open (maybe 60-70mb of RAM)
g) WMP11 watch an avi video playing
2- Gaming: CPU, RAM, but mostly Graphics
Just what I did the night of the upgrading when I ran FEAR, and what I do everytime that I game (dont knock it)
Length: 45min plus the time to shut down all the apps
What Im gonna do:
a) disable the wifi
b) close all unnecessary programs including my protection apps, azureus
c) go to control panel/ Advanced Tab, under performance click settings,
visual effect, set for best performance (this as well as the shutting down of unneccessary programs clears up hundreds of megs of RAM)
d) play F.E.A.R. singleplayer for 45 minutes w00t with all settings high enough
3- The final test:
Im going to re-install 3dmark 05 and 06, and then attempt to run them both.
Length: i dunno, probably 20-30 minutes for it all
Okay then, we've got that out of the way I would just like to add that now that sn92 of the new ram is on its second or third run in the last socket (the 'problematic' one)
Okay, Ive gone through my plan so far. Now on to what already happened.
Trumpets Playing in the Background:
a) I come home, open the box from the egg.
b) my PC is off, I open it and install the 2 new DIMMs in the 2nd and 4th slots (I must say, I am not very experienced at doing that and It took me a lot of pushing and shoving to get them both in)
c) I start up my PC, check the Task Manager that I indeed have 2gb of RAM recognized
d) the Sound Card
1-I go to Device manager and uninstall the driver under SB Audigy
2- Uninstall the Creative Console under Add/Remove programs
3- Shut Down my PC
4- Remove a mysterious cable from my sound card that lead to the front of the case, I believe that It leads to my front headphone and microphone ports (which I dont happen to use, because they got pushed into the case, and I cannot get at them)
5- Removed the Audigy Card and put in the Bluegears card
6- Started my PC and when prompted by Windows, inserted the Bluegears CD and installed the included drivers and such
7- It didnt ask to restart, so I 'believe' that I did not
8- I played some fun songs and basically screwed around like that
e) the Video Card
1- I uninstall the ATI Stuff in this order precisely (as well as I can though)
a) The Add Remove Programs Stage-
A) ATI Control Panel- it then asked to restart I then 'declined', (the guide did not say anything about restarting)
B) Display Driver- it then asked to restart, and I said "you know what the heck, it cant hurt" and accepted the restart
Unfortunately, It did not restart. Nothing at all happened, but since I already gave the order, I hard restarted it by holding doen the power button
C) after the restart: Addremove Programs and I uninstalled the ATI Uninstaller
it asked again to restart, I 'think' I said yes, and I think it also didnt shut down, I hard shut down again.
b) The Driver Cleaner stage
A) I booted into Safe Mode
B) I ran Driver Cleaner Pro
C) I ran (as the guide suggests under 'for users switching from ATI to Nvidia... or Vice Versa')
i ran: ATI, clean: ...twice...
c) The GFX
A)I removed the ATI Radeon with a bit of difficulty (dell had installed a brace system that was hard to remove)
- I noticed a bit of dust in the border of the socket and I blew It out.
B) I put in the GFX and its 6pin power cable (my ATI did not use that cable, it ran off the bus like the 7600gt)
C) I started my PC
D) Windows autodetect ran and I inserted the eVGA CD and installed the included drivers
d) Me having fun w/ my friend steven whom I invited over for the event
A) I played some songs, played around with the Bluegears tests for my speakers and such, ran a divx movie, you dont want to know which, okay, okay Ill tell you: Super Troopers ...... w00t
- the sound was great and really an improvement... surround like.. and clear... all from the little 700mb movie's compressed mp3 sound
B) I ran 3dMark06 with the default settings:
- I didnt know what was going on after I clicked on it (the loge was seemingly frozen on, well you know what I mean)
turns out it was just scanning my sys config, took a couple minutes\
- Ran the test, went fine, got a 4002
C) I uninstalled and reinstalled 3dmark05 (necessary because I registered it and changed the default settings, and then forgot them, so i just wanted to know what to test at to get the same results... whoo...)
-it ran without a hitch, and I got a 6941
D) F.E.A.R.
- I installed F.E.A.R.
- Fear autodetected at 1024x768 but thats not high enough for me so I set it to 1600x1200
- I left the other autodetect settings as they were
- The game experience was jaw-dropping, its really a very well-made game, with stunning visuals and immersive sound
e) Only the Beginning:
A) I fooled around, played some more of the divx movie, and dl'ed a couple torrents
B)My friend went to sleep so I got ready to shut down for the night
C) I downloaded memtest and burnt the iso to cd-r using Sonic Record Now.
it finishes...
D) AVG pops up, as I said way above, It found a trojan in sonic express labeler, related to sonic record now
I tell it to heal, it says it did so successfully
E) Shut down
F) Run Memtest:
1- now as you should know my RAM was in the config:
old/new/old/new so that the new DIMMS and the old DIMMS were in pairs of their own type, ready to embark on Noah's ark .... I kid....
2- After one 35min run, it shows 11 errors as seen in this pic:
Okay, we can see that the errors are in a small range of RAM, in the 4th DIMM, a new one. That is all I have to say, all the rest is self-explanatory
G) I let memtest run for longer, heck, all night FIVE HOURS
- I groggily remember waking up, checking the pc and seeing that it said hundreds of errors, but as I said, groggily I easily could have been mistaken
f) next day: the glee gets bad-
A) I turn on my PC after coming home from school, its all good until I try to show my sister my new PC's capabilities by running 3dmark06: it doesnt start... it takes a while, then shows up on task manager as being unresponding, I shut it down by end task
B) disturbed, I try to run 3dmark05 but it too doesnt start ok...
I try to end the task, but nothing good happens, I then try to end the process: nothing again...
C) I hard shut down, and restart
D) I attempt to run 3dmark05, it hangs, and then it freezes, my cursor is unresponsive
E) I restart several times trying to get my mouse and kb to work, trying another USB port and then a PS2 port, no dice...
I then get out a dusty PS2 kb and mouse, it work fine
F) I would like to say that my Logitech MX3100 kb and mouse require no drivers, they run natively in Windows merely by inserting the USB receiver in a port.
G) my KB and mouse dont do anything in my dads lappy, a Dell Inspiron 8600, except the hibernate key on the keyboard, which does as told
- I must add here: If it was a surge that took out the kb and mouse it was probably the receiver that got fried not the expensive stuff, later, I'll work at contacting Logitech to get replacement parts, Ill ask for the receiver to be replaced, if no dice: a new MX1000 and a G11, they dont make my kb and mouse anymore and I dont want the MX3200 because of its inferior mouse (compared to the mx1000)
H) I frantically begin this thread
I) Memtests ensue:
1- I try 1st the 2 old DIMMS in the 1st paired slots: 1 and 3 for
one run
2- I try the sn93, and sn92 in the 1st slot for a couple times, no dice either
Well thats all until tonite- nothing done but memtests
OLD DIMMS IN 1 and 3- for a while, new dimms in 2nd and 4th slots for around the sufficient time, 30min-1hr all around
at this time the last of the new dimms is at 1:01 in its last slot
My next objective is to run my test above with the new ram:
p.s. I remember, at some point during the night of upgrading I had some program stop responding, but couldnt get it to shut down, my friend who is not obscenely well read in computers, but relatively savvy, suggested I end the process
dumprep.exe, to get rid of the issue. It was taking up 500mb of ram, I ended it and the program successfully shut down
THE END
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram