I appreciate the comment, but the question is how to find the bad stick out of the 4 sticks in my computer? I suppose I could start yanking pairs of ram out and trying to find which pair has a faulty chip. But then how to determine which of the two sticks has the faulty chip?
Which makes sense. I was thinking my two sticks of 1 Gb ram wouldn't run Win7 individually... but then again, they don't have to... it only has to run memtest86. Also, I was thinking I had to run memory in pairs. Apparently not.
Doh!
As an update, this will really mess with your mind!
I ran memtest86 v4.20 and found that all 4 sticks of ram would individually fail in test 6 in any of the A dimms. I started testing in the B dimms and got a failure there too. WTH?
Sounds like a mobo to me since the odds of having all 4 sticks of ram go bad at one time have to be astronomical.
Being rather frustrated with the whole issue, I plugged all the ram back into the mobo and all seems to be running fine. Go figure.
But, just in case I need to buy an new mobo, ram, etc. I have all my data backed up. The scary part is all the custom tweaks I do to my programs... from custom storage options (vs default) to, well, you name it. I had two OS hd failures last year and recovering from them was no fun, even with my data being backed up.
Is there a nice and easy way to do a backup that will keep all my custom tweaks and program installs, etc. so that doing a system reset is not so painful?
Argh. The plot sickens... er, I mean thickens. Just had another BSOD... first one in 17 days. This one was a system_service_exception.
No. I see no point in buying new ram. The remote possibility of all 4 sticks going bad at the same time lead me to believe I either have PSU or mobo issues. Now I'm not a great troubleshooter, but I just can't imagine how the ram can all go bad.
For $50, a local shop will diagnose the hardware for me. If I can't find a blown capacitor on the mobo or problems with the PSU, I may take it there and see what they can find. If all else fails, it may be time to start shopping for a new mobo, cpu, and ram. :\
Update: here are the results of my PSU (Corsair HX520w) testing.
To test the PSU, I pulled the ram out and disconnected the power to the 3 HDs in the box. Had to listen to that infernal beeping error code during the time I had the system powered up for the test.
+12v lines measured 12.11v
-12v lines measured 11.98v
5v lines were all 5.01v
3.3 volt lines ranged between 3.390-3.394v
All the capacitors looked good.. no bulging tops or signs of damage.
And after I put everything back together, hooked up power and turned the system on, I got a msg saying the OC had failed. So I went into the BIOS and under AI tuning, set everything to default and saved it. I'll go back later and check the BIOS settings again. But I can't really tell any difference in system performance before or after.. just doing the 'net thing.
No smokin' gun found yet.
It dawned on me that I have another DDR2 mobo in the house in a computer the kids use. It's an ASRock 4coredual-VSTA and only accepts 2x1Gb DDR2 ram sticks, so I can't test my 2x2GB Adata sticks (tried it and it won't boot.)
I yanked the Kingston value ram (DDR2-333, I think) and put it in my main PC... ran memtest86+ for something like 10 passes and got no errors. Even more confusing, I ran my Corsair 2x1GB twin2x sticks in the kids' PC and also got no errors after many passes.
Sheesh. None of this makes any sense.
I tried the Corsair ram in my main PC again, but reset the BIOS to run in default (best I can remember) settings and now the Corsair ram seems to run without error (at least after 5 passes.) But I can't get it to run at it's listed timings of 4-4-4-12 without error. I think the BIOS default is 5-5-5-18. FWIW, I'm still getting errors with the ADate 2x2Gb sticks, even with the BIOS at default settings.
I hate to spend money on more DDR2 ram. But if my mismatched ram is the problem, it may be my cheapest and fastest way to fix my system (which frankly, seems to be running fine as it... go figure.) It would sure save the OS and programs re-install and tweak process (lengthy.)
Quote
