Random BSOD errors when I have more than 1 stick of ram installed, it worked fine before!

[dangerduckx]

My PC was was working fine for years, now I'm getting BSOD crashes almost instantly upon boot and I know the problem is related to the ram because when I remove all but 1 ram chip everything works perfectly. It doesn't matter which ram stick or which slot, so long as I only have 1 installed. Installing any other stick in any other slot results in BSOD crashes.

I've got 4 sticks of 2GB DDR2 ram. All ram chips work perfectly by themselves, all slots work perfectly by themselves. I've tested each ram chip and each slot individually and everything is fine but as soon as I install 2 of any stick the PC crashes with BSOD errors (a different error every time). I'm confused because I haven't changed anything or installed any new hardware, this problem just came out of nowhere.

Checked the bios and everything is running at the correct voltage and timing speed, all chips are running exactly at the correct specs... it just doesn't make sense! This shouldn't be happening if all chips and all slots are good and everything is running at the same speed and power in the bios. I'm really at wits end trying to figure this out. Any ideas?

(also I know it's not OS related or software related because the same issue occurs even when I swapped the hard drive to a different one running an entirely different OS)

 

[johnbl]

some older motherboards required that you lower the memory clock rate if all of the memory slots are occupied.
I has a old asus board like that. I found the * in the manual that indicated you had to do this.

you might want to check the motherboard docs

 

[dangerduckx]

some older motherboards required that you lower the memory clock rate if all of the memory slots are occupied.
I has a old asus board like that. I found the * in the manual that indicated you had to do this.

you might want to check the motherboard docs

Thanks for the answer. My mobo is a Foxconn G33M-05, I found the info on the mfg website but it's hard for me to understand. What utility would I use to adjust my clock rate anyway? The bios on this mobo doesn't have options for me to adjust that.

 

[rgd1101]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from dangerduckx : "Random BSOD errors when I have more than 1 stick of ram installed, it worked fine before!"

My PC was was working fine for years, now I'm getting BSOD crashes almost instantly upon boot and I know the problem is related to the ram because when I remove all but 1 ram chip everything works perfectly. It doesn't matter which ram stick or which slot, so long as I only have 1 installed. Installing any other stick in any other slot results in BSOD crashes.

I've got 4 sticks of 2GB DDR2 ram. All ram chips work perfectly by themselves, all slots work perfectly by themselves. I've tested each ram chip and each slot individually and everything is fine but as soon as I install 2 of any stick the PC crashes with BSOD errors (a different error every time). I'm confused because I haven't changed anything or installed any new hardware, this problem just came out of nowhere.

Checked the bios and everything is running at the correct voltage and timing speed, all chips are running exactly at the correct specs... it just doesn't make sense! This shouldn't be happening if all chips and all slots are good and everything is running at the same speed and power in the bios. I'm really at wits end trying to figure this out. Any ideas?

(also I know it's not OS related or software related because the same issue occurs even when I swapped the hard drive to a different one running an entirely different OS)

 

[johnbl]

generally, you would update the bios to get the most current default memory timings.
then boot and run memtet86 to confim your memory timings are correct.
if you get failures with memtest86 you would go and look up the timing specs of the memory modules you are using and confirm the settings in bios are correct. you might be able to select a slower clock speed for the memory in bios. Some bios versions will not give you access to the memory timings, if this is the case then you have to use memory on their qualified memory vendors list.

some older motherboards required that you lower the memory clock rate if all of the memory slots are occupied.
I has a old asus board like that. I found the * in the manual that indicated you had to do this.

you might want to check the motherboard docs

Thanks for the answer. My mobo is a Foxconn G33M-05, I found the info on the mfg website but it's hard for me to understand. What utility would I use to adjust my clock rate anyway? The bios on this mobo doesn't have options for me to adjust that.