RAM slots not working for good?

[Dasa]

Hello,

Found out that blue slots of ram are not working, the black slots are fine, ram sticks tested fine in memtest using the working slots.

When using blue slots alone I get 3 long beeps and PC restarts and 3 beeps again, today I used a vacuum cleaner to remove the dust from slots and PC stopped restarting after the 3 beeps but I still got 3 beeps, It would continue working with nothing on screen, I used tried each RAM stick alone and in each blue slot alone, same results, no restart now but with beep and black screen.

In light of this, is there anything I can do to make sure blue slots are not dead for good and forget about them?

P.S. I don't have bent CPU pins because this problem started recently and I never touched the CPU, I also remember using memtest on the PC where each stick was in a different color slot and got no errors and never touched cpu after (or before).

Motherboard: P55A Fuzion
Bios: American Megatrends
CPU: i5 760
OS: Win 7 32bit
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24) (Win sees 3.24GB)

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Were the blue slots tested when the system was initially built? It's always possible if untested, the problem existed from the time the system was put together. Of course, it's not common to go around testing each and every RAM module slot on a motherboard. It's usually only done when problems arise.

Vacuuming a PC is recommended against as it can generate unwanted static electricity, which is very incompatible with the longevity and well working of electrically sensitive equipment. Use compressed air instead. If after vacuuming your RAM module slots, you saw noticeable change in the behavior of memory modules in them, I would suggest better cleaning with compressed air. You may have simply not effected enough change yet.

It's pretty obvious that you won't get the full utility of your current RAM modules. You're running a 32-bit version of Windows. So, if you want both better performance and the full utility of even the currently installed RAM, you will need to move to a 64-bit version of Windows. Changing bit-depth for Windows, while it doesn't require a new license, does require a reinstallation, so keep that in mind.

Fixing your blue slots will be pointless unless you want to move to 64-bit Windows, as you're already addressing the maximum amount of memory possible, without tweaks that aren't going to gain you much, with 32-bit Windows.

 

[Dasa]

Were the blue slots tested when the system was initially built? It's always possible if untested, the problem existed from the time the system was put together. Of course, it's not common to go around testing each and every RAM module slot on a motherboard. It's usually only done when problems arise.

Vacuuming a PC is recommended against as it can generate unwanted static electricity, which is very incompatible with the longevity and well working of electrically sensitive equipment. Use compressed air instead. If after vacuuming your RAM module slots, you saw noticeable change in the behavior of memory modules in them, I would suggest better cleaning with compressed air. You may have simply not effected enough change yet.

It's pretty obvious that you won't get the full utility of your current RAM modules. You're running a 32-bit version of Windows. So, if you want both better performance and the full utility of even the currently installed RAM, you will need to move to a 64-bit version of Windows. Changing bit-depth for Windows, while it doesn't require a new license, does require a reinstallation, so keep that in mind.

Fixing your blue slots will be pointless unless you want to move to 64-bit Windows, as you're already addressing the maximum amount of memory possible, without tweaks that aren't going to gain you much, with 32-bit Windows.

Old problem not new: I used memtest while 2 sticks are in two slots of different colors a while back and got no errors but even if slot was bad from start it won't help and like you said nobody goes around testing new PCs if everything is working fine, plus the case is sealed for warranty so you can't do much when it is useful to do.

Vacuuming...: I know but sadly I don't have a blower and don't have extra money to spend on it, I could reverse the vacuum cleaner (possible according to manual) but it could create miss or kill it.

32bit vs 64bit: Yes I know I need 64bit to upgrade RAM to 4GB+ but what kind of upgrade relies on what slots I have working, since mobo does not support 8GB ram stick too

So beside cleaning and blowing, is there anything left to do to get the slot working or know what's wrong with it? I have zero clue what could cause it? jumper? cables? etc anything I can do or test?

 

[Dasa]

Old problem not new: I used memtest while 2 sticks are in two slots of different colors a while back and got no errors but even if slot was bad from start it won't help and like you said nobody goes around testing new PCs if everything is working fine, plus the case is sealed for warranty so you can't do much when it is useful to do.

Vacuuming...: I know but sadly I don't have a blower and don't have extra money to spend on it, I could reverse the vacuum cleaner (possible according to manual) but it could create miss or kill it.

32bit vs 64bit: Yes I know I need 64bit to upgrade RAM to 4GB+ but what kind of upgrade relies on what slots I have working, since mobo does not support 8GB ram stick too

So beside cleaning and blowing, is there anything left to do to get the slot working or know what's wrong with it? I have zero clue what could cause it? jumper? cables? etc anything I can do or test?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Not much you can do.

It's either a problem with the RAM modules, the slot, the memory controller on the CPU, the CPU socket contacts, voltage delivery, or any combination of the above.

I think you have ruled out most of those, as you can successfully use the RAM modules in some of your slots.

If the slot(s) was unpopulated and filled with dust, this is your most likely candidate. Dust accumulation can and does cause RAM errors, although it tends to be uncommon in my experience. Have seen issues caused on installed modules as well, not just unpopulated slots.

Sometimes removing and reinstalling the module a few times may help, if it's just a few dirty contacts. Maybe even take an old toothbrush to the slot if the dust is particularly greasy, like you see in some auto shops. This stuff can be hard to dislodge even with compressed air.

If the slot had dust in it when you tried to install a RAM module, you may have forced the dust further into the contact point, making it too tight for the vacuum to dislodge. Getting that out would be necessary to restore the conductivity in the slot.

 

[Dasa]

Not much you can do.

It's either a problem with the RAM modules, the slot, the memory controller on the CPU, the CPU socket contacts, voltage delivery, or any combination of the above.

I think you have ruled out most of those, as you can successfully use the RAM modules in some of your slots.

If the slot(s) was unpopulated and filled with dust, this is your most likely candidate. Dust accumulation can and does cause RAM errors, although it tends to be uncommon in my experience. Have seen issues caused on installed modules as well, not just unpopulated slots.

Sometimes removing and reinstalling the module a few times may help, if it's just a few dirty contacts. Maybe even take an old toothbrush to the slot if the dust is particularly greasy, like you see in some auto shops. This stuff can be hard to dislodge even with compressed air.

If the slot had dust in it when you tried to install a RAM module, you may have forced the dust further into the contact point, making it too tight for the vacuum to dislodge. Getting that out would be necessary to restore the conductivity in the slot.

Thanks for the detailed reply, only now I can see the thread properly I don't know what was going on, weird stuff.

The motherboard is somewhat clean, there are few places including the ram and heat sinks that needs cleaning, the vacuum did good in the ram as it is easy area but I don't have a blower for the rest of mobo...

To me it felt like a short circuit problem but am not expert at all, why did the PC and now it does not, could the empty slot of blue color cause the problem because the problem happened while I never have removed ram from its slots so if it is dust it is related to the empty slot.

Solving this would help a lot, I can buy 2 2GB rams which is much cheaper than throwing away the originals and get 2 4GBs

I will keep trying and leave this open in case anyone else have other ideas we did not think of?

Thanks again bigpinkdragon286! I appreciate your time!

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

I would theorize that dust can cause both an open and a short but it probably doesn't matter which since both will likely have the same net result of, memory errors.

If a memory slot was bad from the beginning, I would be highly inclined to think that either the motherboard slot or the CPU socket contact to be the culprit.

I'm a little unclear the full situation, as from your description of the "Old Problem," it sounds as though you have used the blue slots at some point, and at that point they worked without error.

Did you try memory in both blue slots? Perhaps only one of them is malfunctioning?

If at one point you did successfully use both blue slots then, either the memory controller on the CPU has become defective, which I think unlikely, or the slots themselves are where the issue developed. If you've never successfully used both blue slots, we really don't have a good idea where the symptom stems from and I wouldn't rule out CPU socket connectivity problems.

I would assume it's a human in a factory somewhere that installed the CPU into the LGA socket for your system, unless you had it custom built, but either way, humans make mistakes, or miss manufacturing defects. It's entirely possible unless you know otherwise to have bad contact in just the right place to affect connectivity to the motherboard's memory slots, even after all these years of correct functioning. If you never used the affected functionality of the motherboard, there's no way you would know the existence of any potential defect. So, in that case you could have bad contact(s) in the CPU socket.

 

[Dasa]

I would theorize that dust can cause both an open and a short but it probably doesn't matter which since both will likely have the same net result of, memory errors.

If a memory slot was bad from the beginning, I would be highly inclined to think that either the motherboard slot or the CPU socket contact to be the culprit.

I'm a little unclear the full situation, as from your description of the "Old Problem," it sounds as though you have used the blue slots at some point, and at that point they worked without error.

Did you try memory in both blue slots? Perhaps only one of them is malfunctioning?

If at one point you did successfully use both blue slots then, either the memory controller on the CPU has become defective, which I think unlikely, or the slots themselves are where the issue developed. If you've never successfully used both blue slots, we really don't have a good idea where the symptom stems from and I wouldn't rule out CPU socket connectivity problems.

I would assume it's a human in a factory somewhere that installed the CPU into the LGA socket for your system, unless you had it custom built, but either way, humans make mistakes, or miss manufacturing defects. It's entirely possible unless you know otherwise to have bad contact in just the right place to affect connectivity to the motherboard's memory slots, even after all these years of correct functioning. If you never used the affected functionality of the motherboard, there's no way you would know the existence of any potential defect. So, in that case you could have bad contact(s) in the CPU socket.

I'm sorry I did not get a notification about your reply, the site is functioning horribly for me on all levels.

Ah regarding whether it is factory problem, well I never touched the RAM since the day I got the PC and when I tried to fix the problem the RAM sticks were one in black and one in blue but I never got beeps, I only got windows error while running a game so I started testing slots then I got beeps when using blue slot alone, I had some blue screens from time to time but they mostly happened while PC shutting down and most importantly I saw that windows sees 3GB of RAM while using 2GB in blue and 2GB in black, I know this is related to OS 32bit but this means that blue slot worked but if I remove ram from black slot and keep blue nothing works so this is a thing that I don't understand, I have not tried to put a stick in blue and a stick in black to see if PC would run again like before and how much RAM is available, currently using black slots alone.

I tried all blue slots using different sticks, a stick of ram in blue and nothing in black does not start the PC, like I said in the previous paragraph, I don't understand how blue slots don't work when I only found out they don't work because of an error in a game that made me run memtest where I got a lot of red errors then I played with slots and found blue don't work.

My PC was custom built and I would say I don't trust who built it at all to tell me they screwed anything while building it, they couldn't even tell the mouse was defective even after I told them, I also just remembered that the Marvell controller that supports SATA III is reported to cause problems but I have no clue if this is related to RAM and I never tested it, HDD working on Intel I think.

I will try the blue slots and black together after posting this, I will try cleaning the blue slot with a brush or something.

 

[Dasa]

I would theorize...

I just finished some testing

Using a stick of RAM (2GB) in black1 and another stick (2GB) in blue1 PC starts and sees 3.3 GB RAM
Using a stick of RAM (2GB) in black1 and another stick (2GB) in blue2 PC starts and sees 2 GB RAM

Using a stick of RAM (2GB) in Black1 memtest pass once at least
Using a stick of RAM (2GB) in Black2 memtest pass once at least
Using a stick of RAM (2GB) in Blue1 PC does not boot and restarted once (did not do it again but I brushed slots between tests)
Using a stick of RAM (2GB) in Blue2 PC does not boot and did not restart

So PC reads from Blue slot 1 but does not read from it alone & does not read at all from Blue 2...

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

I'm sorry the site is giving you problems with notifications. If it continues, perhaps a moderator could look into it for you. They're usually pretty easy to find if you read through a few postings. Just look for the word Moderator under their avatar image.

On a hunch, I went ahead and pulled up the manual for the motherboard you list in your first post. On page 2-8 of the manual is an important note:

To enable successful system boot-up (Lynnfield CPU especially), always insert the memory modules into the DIMM1 first.

So, my first impression from this is, you need to always have a memory module installed into the slot designated as DIMM1, which is the black slot, closest to the CPU. Your board not booting when RAM is only installed in one or both blue slots would seem to be perfectly normal behavior.

As for your second test, where you populate one black slot and one blue slot, but see only 2 GB of RAM, I would ask if the black slot was DIMM1, or if you moved the RAM module to the other black slot, which is designated DIMM3?

Going back to the first test, where you have one black and one blue slot populated, and you see ~3.3 GB of RAM; this is normal behavior, and is the result of running a 32-bit version of Windows. This isn't actually an error or anything to do with a malfunction. The normal address space for 32-bits is 4 GB. The reason you end up only seeing between 3 - 4 GB of installed memory on 32-bit Windows is because things other than RAM also have to be addressed within that 4 GB limit, so, your graphics card, your sound card, network card, etc.; anything with on board memory that needs to be addressed by Windows, needs address space within the 4 GB boundary, and as a result, the most workable solution is to give up some primary RAM addressing to make room for the addresses of devices that probably won't function otherwise. Since these non-memory devices don't show up as generic addressable memory for Windows, you don't add their overall total address space to what Windows reports and thus see only the actual RAM that be addressed.

 

[Dasa]

I'm sorry the site is giving you problems with notifications. If it continues, perhaps a moderator could look into it for you. They're usually pretty easy to find if you read through a few postings. Just look for the word Moderator under their avatar image.

On a hunch, I went ahead and pulled up the manual for the motherboard you list in your first post. On page 2-8 of the manual is an important note:

To enable successful system boot-up (Lynnfield CPU especially), always insert the memory modules into the DIMM1 first.

So, my first impression from this is, you need to always have a memory module installed into the slot designated as DIMM1, which is the black slot, closest to the CPU. Your board not booting when RAM is only installed in one or both blue slots would seem to be perfectly normal behavior.

As for your second test, where you populate one black slot and one blue slot, but see only 2 GB of RAM, I would ask if the black slot was DIMM1, or if you moved the RAM module to the other black slot, which is designated DIMM3?

Going back to the first test, where you have one black and one blue slot populated, and you see ~3.3 GB of RAM; this is normal behavior, and is the result of running a 32-bit version of Windows. This isn't actually an error or anything to do with a malfunction. The normal address space for 32-bits is 4 GB. The reason you end up only seeing between 3 - 4 GB of installed memory on 32-bit Windows is because things other than RAM also have to be addressed within that 4 GB limit, so, your graphics card, your sound card, network card, etc.; anything with on board memory that needs to be addressed by Windows, needs address space within the 4 GB boundary, and as a result, the most workable solution is to give up some primary RAM addressing to make room for the addresses of devices that probably won't function otherwise. Since these non-memory devices don't show up as generic addressable memory for Windows, you don't add their overall total address space to what Windows reports and thus see only the actual RAM that be addressed.

I got the pm the last time as I played with the settings, the settings wording was confusing to me, the site seems slow to me, I click upvote or reply and takes ages to do it, as if voting is waiting for moderation approval, I got used to it, I post and leave and give it time, thank you for your concern!

I get the 3.3 GB thing, no problem there, when I say 3.3 I mean it sees both slots not one, maybe you misunderstood what I was puzzled about, I did not mean that part at all.

I honestly forgot my first testing and in light of the manual details you mentioned I re-did the test a little better this time and it is 50% confusing, if the manual instructions were the pics example of dual channels that work it would make sense but saying start with slot 1 don't make sense as you will see from results also I expect things not to work at all not work and cause few errors.

First of all here is the diagram of mobo

results:

Slot 3+1 = 3.3 GB memtest no error 2 pass
Slot 3+4 = 3.3 GB memtest 1st pass no error, 2nd 48 errors and more (did not continue) second pass
Slot 3+2 = 2 GB
Slot 4+2= Boot up error and restart
Slot 1+2= 3.3 GB memtest too many errors
Slot 4+1= 2 GB

Any combination that got me ram below 3.3 was not memtested

So the only combination that worked was 3+1 which is one of the two population rules in the manual dual channel usage section, 3+1 or all 4 slots

So why 4+1 or 1+2 didn't work? I don't get that. didn't they say "always insert the memory modules into the DIMM1 first" unless they mean fill slot 1 then the other one? the PC is off, who cares which one goes in first.

Also I noticed there is a link in the manual but it seems the page was removed from site, I wonder what I would find there...

link: http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=testreport)LANSupports
or this https://www.msi.com/index.php?func=testreport

So if I look at population rules illustrations only, my PC has zero memory problems???

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

The only combination of RAM slots I see being recommended in the motherboard manual is 1, 1 + 3, or 4 all slots filled. I suspect, to test the blue slots accurately, you're going to need 4 RAM modules. It sounds like a peculiarity of Intel's integrated memory controller on their CPUs, at least, certain generations of them.

Since you don't get memory errors when both modules are installed in the recommended slots, the errors are probably not due to the modules. I'm not sure how to test further without filling the slots according to the manufacturers design at this point.

When memory has issues, the addresses should be reasonably consistent if it's actually bad memory cells causing the errors. One thing you could do is to reverse the module order in the slots, in the configurations you tested that do produce errors, and the errors addresses should change. If the error addresses remain the same, it's not the module but somewhere further up the chain; motherboard or CPU.

I too find Tom's site to be extremely slow and unresponsive. It's not just you. You should see how bad it is on a low end computer. If you find it too unbearable, you can always test it in a different web browser. Sometimes that helps.

 

[Dasa]

The only combination of RAM slots I see being recommended in the motherboard manual is 1, 1 + 3, or 4 all slots filled. I suspect, to test the blue slots accurately, you're going to need 4 RAM modules. It sounds like a peculiarity of Intel's integrated memory controller on their CPUs, at least, certain generations of them.

Since you don't get memory errors when both modules are installed in the recommended slots, the errors are probably not due to the modules. I'm not sure how to test further without filling the slots according to the manufacturers design at this point.

When memory has issues, the addresses should be reasonably consistent if it's actually bad memory cells causing the errors. One thing you could do is to reverse the module order in the slots, in the configurations you tested that do produce errors, and the errors addresses should change. If the error addresses remain the same, it's not the module but somewhere further up the chain; motherboard or CPU.

I too find Tom's site to be extremely slow and unresponsive. It's not just you. You should see how bad it is on a low end computer. If you find it too unbearable, you can always test it in a different web browser. Sometimes that helps.

bigpinkdragon286, you're a king man, king of kindness, thank you for taking your valuable time to help me with my shitty PC day after day, I really appreciate it

I will do the test you spoke about, switching ram but I am not sure where to find 4 identical sticks for testing only, I think I will just order 2 4GB sticks from USA (ebay) and use 1+3, I don't think I need more than 8GB and if I manage to get them for 25 dollars that would keep cost to minimum, I mean I need a new PC but for now this upgrade will solve many problems, 3 GB is killing me, strange how fast I considered it at the time I got it lol

Best of luck man!

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Thanks for the kind words.

Remember, your Windows license covers both bit-versions so you can always install the 64-bit version of Windows when you do get more RAM.

You can also install 64-bit Windows now, if you wanted to make use of your last .7 GB of RAM. Even that will help. Plus since you will need to transition the bit-depth of your version of Windows at some point, doing it now will help you get the machine stable again. Making more than one change with your PC at one time, if something gives you trouble, it can be more difficult to troubleshoot.

Nothing wrong with 3 GB of RAM, until of course you run out. Having 8 GB won't actually make the machine any faster, just prevent it from running out and using slower means to manage memory address allocations sooner.

 

[Dasa]

Thanks for the kind words.

Remember, your Windows license covers both bit-versions so you can always install the 64-bit version of Windows when you do get more RAM.

You can also install 64-bit Windows now, if you wanted to make use of your last .7 GB of RAM. Even that will help. Plus since you will need to transition the bit-depth of your version of Windows at some point, doing it now will help you get the machine stable again. Making more than one change with your PC at one time, if something gives you trouble, it can be more difficult to troubleshoot.

Nothing wrong with 3 GB of RAM, until of course you run out. Having 8 GB won't actually make the machine any faster, just prevent it from running out and using slower means to manage memory address allocations sooner.

I keep forgetting about this windows licensee thing, thank you for mentioning it!

You know all this started because of a game error, so I was searching more about this error since ram is fine in 1+3 slots and after years of searching this exact error someone suggested to me to use command bcdedit /set increaseuserva 3000, I used it expecting either a windows crash or no change and suddenly the game does not crash at all when changing maps, I used 2500 instead of 3000, so finally! it is fixed, the dll used to crash with no error that could lead me to ram problem, pc is working fine so far.

Of course I still want to add ram because I heave to restart firefox when ram usage is high, I am doing it every 2 hours maybe with less than 10 tabs open, my motherboard supports 4GB max per slot but is there a way of knowing if a 8GB stick could work with my motherboard without testing? I am googling it but my motherboard seem rare and most people suggest testing.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

From the description of your problem, it sounds like a user space issue. Under 32-bit Windows, games tend to be bound to 2 GB or less. There have been plenty of games that zoom right on up to and past that limit, and then crash to the Desktop. If your game is wanting more RAM than it is able to have allocated to it under 32-bit Windows, that makes perfect sense and doesn't really represent an actual problem that your computer is experiencing. You're simply experiencing the symptom of poorly coded software.

You might get away with adding 8 GB modules, but you also may be limited to a maximum of only 2 modules. It's going to depend not only on your motherboard but the memory controller integrated into your CPU. The specs for the CPU list 16 GB as the maximum memory supported, so whether you go the route of 4 x 4 GB modules or manage to get 2 x 8 GB modules to work (questionable,) that's the end of the road for that particular platform.

If you had a local computer shop, it might be worth talking to them, to see if they would be willing to test an 8 GB module for you. Certainly wouldn't hurt to ask around.

Switching to 64-bit, the 2 GB limitation for programs goes away. That would probably solve your game's immediate issue, but you'll still eventually run out of RAM with 4 GB if the game isn't well coded to work within that limit.

 

[Dasa]

From the description of your problem, it sounds like a user space issue. Under 32-bit Windows, games tend to be bound to 2 GB or less. There have been plenty of games that zoom right on up to and past that limit, and then crash to the Desktop. If your game is wanting more RAM than it is able to have allocated to it under 32-bit Windows, that makes perfect sense and doesn't really represent an actual problem that your computer is experiencing. You're simply experiencing the symptom of poorly coded software.

You might get away with adding 8 GB modules, but you also may be limited to a maximum of only 2 modules. It's going to depend not only on your motherboard but the memory controller integrated into your CPU. The specs for the CPU list 16 GB as the maximum memory supported, so whether you go the route of 4 x 4 GB modules or manage to get 2 x 8 GB modules to work (questionable,) that's the end of the road for that particular platform.

If you had a local computer shop, it might be worth talking to them, to see if they would be willing to test an 8 GB module for you. Certainly wouldn't hurt to ask around.

Switching to 64-bit, the 2 GB limitation for programs goes away. That would probably solve your game's immediate issue, but you'll still eventually run out of RAM with 4 GB if the game isn't well coded to work within that limit.

I thought searching for specific model of ram would guarantee the 8GB ram would work or someone online would confirm if my board accepts 8GB, found nothing online, testing is a must as you said, just to void searching locally because prices are too high even used, I am going for ebay to buy 2x 4GB, maybe a cheap small SSD for windows too because I have a feeling ram won't solve all slow performance I am feeling, since I am reinstalling windows.

Bigpinkdragon286, big thanks to you man and wish you best of luck with your technical and non-technical life

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

An SSD will make a great difference in overall responsiveness when using the machine day to day. Make sure you get something reasonable though. Don't go so low end that you end up with a 32 or 64 GB SSD. Windows will outgrow those in short order and you'll soon regret it. I would say the minimum for a decent OS drive should be 90 GB, more if you plan to install much in the way of software to it for daily use.

Overall throughput of the SSD is not it's biggest advantage, despite the nifty looking advertisements claiming 400 - 500+ MBps transfer rates, most folks don't spend the majority of their day reading or writing 1000s of MBs of data to and from their OS drive. The real benefit average folks don't recognize is that an SSD has nearly uniform, and what is practically an order of magnitude lower seek time, for pretty much any storage location on the drive.

I suspect 8 GB modules may not be worth the extra trouble. If you end up purchasing a 2 x 4 GB module set, you can try to reuse your current 2 x 2 GB modules in the other two blue slots in a recommended configuration, and you may find that the slots are actually working correctly. All of the modules should have compatible specs, however, if you're going to attempt to run four of them. So, speed and voltage should match, along with having compatible timings.

 

[Dasa]

An SSD will make a great difference in overall responsiveness when using the machine day to day. Make sure you get something reasonable though. Don't go so low end that you end up with a 32 or 64 GB SSD. Windows will outgrow those in short order and you'll soon regret it. I would say the minimum for a decent OS drive should be 90 GB, more if you plan to install much in the way of software to it for daily use.

Overall throughput of the SSD is not it's biggest advantage, despite the nifty looking advertisements claiming 400 - 500+ MBps transfer rates, most folks don't spend the majority of their day reading or writing 1000s of MBs of data to and from their OS drive. The real benefit average folks don't recognize is that an SSD has nearly uniform, and what is practically an order of magnitude lower seek time, for pretty much any storage location on the drive.

I suspect 8 GB modules may not be worth the extra trouble. If you end up purchasing a 2 x 4 GB module set, you can try to reuse your current 2 x 2 GB modules in the other two blue slots in a recommended configuration, and you may find that the slots are actually working correctly. All of the modules should have compatible specs, however, if you're going to attempt to run four of them. So, speed and voltage should match, along with having compatible timings.

Yeah my C is 80GB after some clean up so aiming for 120GB, SanDisk SSD PLUS 120GB Solid State Drive (SDSSDA-120G-G26) [Newest Version] is what I was looking it and it's only 55$ on Amazon, I haven't searched a lot yet but I just remembered a thing, I keep forgetting it, a lot of people reported Sata 3 not working properly on my motherboard, there seem to be a reported problem with Marvell controller so might have to use intel Sata 2, I am not sure I have this problem or not, but is it still wise to get SSD if I only have SATA 2?

Regarding ram, I am aiming for 1.5 volt like the ones I have (Adata xpg 1600), regarding speed don't they all fall back to the speed of the other set if found? or they should have the default speed? should say 1600 too? it's not working at 1600, 1600 is overclocking speed which I don't do.

Edit:
If you can look at this imgur link, Marvell (sata 3) seem to be already used, I don't get that
In pic I can't tell which is the speed of the ram clock, I see two numbers 800 and 665 800x2=1600 and 665x2=1330
https://imgur.com/o5ZfGdK

I feel this post has turned into vietnam war for you, you can bail out anytime!

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

If the RAM auto configures, it should pick the speed of whichever RAM module it is deciding to use the configuration information from. You may have to manually set the speed in your BIOS.

Whether you use SATA 3 or 2, you'll still enjoy the benefits of the fast seek times. Most people don't use the throughput benefit of SSDs that often, which is where you will see the SATA 2 interface hold you back. Yes, maximum throughput to and from the drive is going to be lower, but how often does your system transfer 100s or 1000s of MBs for a single file at a time? I suspect that only happens rarely, if at all.

The picture really isn't telling me anything about your Marvell controller. There's certainly nothing wrong with attempting to use your Marvell controller if it's not physically in use by another drive in the system. It's supposed to have 2x ports available, so unless you know you've used them both, it should be available. For that matter, you could move devices around to free up one of the ports on the Marvell controller. Nothing else is going to need the SATA 3 speed as much as an SSD, so I don't see a good reason to leave slower devices on the faster port, tying it up.

Do you have the drivers installed for the Marvell controller?

Windows 7 Marvell drivers

I believe your current RAM parameters are in the Memory section of the image, on the bottom right. So, it's running at 668.3 MHz, in Dual-Channel mode, with the timings listed below.

The section above that is the information the software has read from the SPD of the memory modules. It lists the timings they are rated at, for a given speed. If you aren't already aware, for DDR RAM modules you want to double the bus speed to get your actual rate, so your 668.3 MHz would be 1336.6, which is 1333 with a bit of clock skew.

I feel this post has turned into vietnam war for you, you can bail out anytime!

No worries. That war was actually won. It's the peace that was lost afterward, when US Democrats refused to honor and protect South Vietnam.