RAM Upgrade Woes

[DarrenFrost]

I just got two Kingston Value 128 PC800 RDRAM chips I ordered in the mail today and I put them in with my existing chips (2 128mb PC800 syncmax) and started running neverwinter nights (new game) which is basically the reason I upgraded and about 2 minutes into the game my computer reboots itself after some very smooth gameplay. Beforehand it had proved extremely stable (though choppy, hence the upgrade) and my computer has not acted this way since I upgraded to WinXP. I did general use, browsing, word processing, and had no problems for about an hour with both sets in. I bust out 3dsmax and rendered something and the reboot was almost instant. I removed the new memory and the game worked glitch-free for an hour, replaced the new memory with the old memory and it worked fine for an hour. Put the old memory in the different 2 slots from the new memory and same thing. I proceeded to update my mobo's bios with no change. I'm wondering if the sets of RAM are incompatible or it has something to do with XP (as read in previous posts) and if so does anyone have a fix yet that doesn't involve clean install? (-loaths clean install-) The Kingston RAM is slightly larger than the SyncMax, I don't know if this effects anything.

My box:
P4 1.4ghz
Abit TH-7 RAID mobo
ATI Radeon VE video
Aureal SQ2500 sound
Realtek ethernet card
WinXP Pro

edited: because I read it over and couldn't understand what I was saying lol... hope its more clear now.

 

[papasmurf]

try lowering your ram settings that could be it also make sure your hard drive is formated with ntfs rather than fat32 windows xp just likes it that way and always seems to crash with fat 32. reinstall windows xp and make sure you choose to install it with ntfs formatting.

Introducing Tapeworms! The new big thing for weight loss!

 

[DarrenFrost]

which ram settings are you talking about?
I've been running XP for about a year and never an auto reboot.. never a real freeze or BSOD. I found that the two sets of ram are inherantly different.. the syncmax contains 4 chips and the kingston 8. My ram device total with kingston is 16 while ram devices with syncmax is 8, together it was 24.. could this have been a factor? I verified this in sandra which said the syncmax was 256x4 while kingston was 128x8.. both were PC800 45 ns. i'm thinking maybe these two types can't work together?

I tried a completely fresh install and it did nothing but waste about an hour of my life. I have too much old crap to do a reformat and no way to backup most of it -_-<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by DarrenFrost on 07/03/02 06:59 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[4Ryan6]

Have you tried running it with just the new memory and if it still performs the same is it possible to send the new ram back and try to match your old chip setup you could be running into a RAM conflict, if your machine ran fine before the new RAM except for some choppy performance. Just as a suggestion if the choppy performance was video and not sound related, you might consider how much memory does your video card have, the higher quality games tend to put a lot of pressure on the processor, the high end video cards relieve the processor strain considerably. Never the less if your machine was running fine before the RAM addition what would a reinstall solve, if it is a RAM conflict you'll still have the same problem after a reinstall.

 

[DarrenFrost]

It runs perfectly with just the new ram or just the old ram. It's putting them together that causes problem. I'm just saying that I've basically tried all the standard stuff in trying to resolve this.. I believe it is incompatibility and what i am probably going to do now is buy another set of the new ram so if it doesn't work then I know it's something else. My old ram I can just sell. I got 32mb video ram and though my radeon is considerably the weakest in the lot the speed increase from ram before autoreboot was VERY noticable, there was almost no choppiness at all with graphics settings turned up to maximum. My box runs XP with only 256 total right now so other applications run much better with 512 as well.

 

[papasmurf]

lower your cas latency, some sticks have different yields, you may one stick fine at say cas 2 for a year then buy a new one and find that that is just too much for it. make sure the cas is set to 2.5 so that you have no problems.

Introducing Tapeworms! The new big thing for weight loss!

 

[lhgpoobaa]

run memtest86!
i know it may be a bit complex with dual sticks of ram, but use as progressive mix and match method to determine what stick (if any) is playing up.

i.e. in 1 slot put a new stick, in the other slot put in a stick you KNOW is working
then after testing replace the new stick with the next new stick.

So I fixed my BIG PC problem by pressing the reset button. I'm not a moron am i? :lol:

 

[DarrenFrost]

I looked all over my bios and didn't find any CAS settings.. I checked mobo guide and no jumpers for it either.. I think you are right about the latency being at 2, but I have no idea how to change it -_-


None of my chips are faulty.. I have used each set for at least a week now on their own without reboot and never a problem. Once I have both sets in though there are random reboots once I start doing ram intensive things or just after a lot of general use.

 

[papasmurf]

so it seems that your new stick cant handle the speed at wich your system was running


Introducing Tapeworms! The new big thing for weight loss!

 

[DarrenFrost]

My problem is solved, it was chip incompatibility.. I got 2 more of the new RAM and I'm running perfectly with 512mb.