Upgraded from 8GB to 16GB DDR2 Maximum RAM - BIOS or Windows Issue?

A few days ago I installed 16GB DDR2 800MHz (4x4GB) into my ASUS P5Q SE PLUS desktop motherboard, which has run flawlessly for nearly eleven years with 8GB of Kingston HyperX 1066 MHz RAM on Win 7 x64. However the first couple of days of the new RAM, caused many blue screens of death, random shutdowns and BCE messages etc.

I put my old RAM sticks back in to try repair the situation, and get Windows happier again. I then put the new sticks back in, and eventually got the computer to boot once I had reset the BIOS settings to default, and then manually put the old non-RAM related settings back and also make the RAM voltage 2.0 instead of the rated 1.8, as this seems to bring stability once the computer is running. I do not recall any BSOD in Windows Safe Mode. The Windows 7 RAM checking function on the Repair Disc did not show any errors.

The problem I am left with is, despite running the computer for 16 hours each day with no problems on the new RAM, and then shutting down cleanly, the following day I power up it gets to the Windows desktop and then crashes with a blue screen and reboots the computer. The only solution so far is to go through the BIOS default values / manual reinputting routine, every time I wish to start the computer. Is there a better solution I can use, to not have to do this manual BIOS thing every day?

Megahertz07 said:

Did you check if the new memory is on the approved list for the ASUS P5Q SE PLUS?
P5Q SE PLUS Memory QVL

Yes I did check the list to see what the available options were, which was first published a long time ago. However 4GB sticks were thin on the ground at that time and still are, and likely eye wateringly expensive and probably very few manufactured. Fast forward 14 years or whatever to today and the choices left were few. Either wait for some brand Kingston sticks to show up used on Ebay or Facebook, or look on Aliexpress for some cheap unknown Chinese stuff. The option I went with was one of the main Chinese based sellers on Ebay, and that was three times cheaper than the only UK seller of similar spec sticks.

The cheap Chinese sticks I am running now, work fine once the PC is properly booted into Windows and with enough voltage. The problem is when I try to bootup the next day after shutdown, as I now have to go in the BIOS and do that whole reset to default settings and then manually enter things back in before booting up again. This results in a clean boot and runs fine until I shutdown again. So I dunno, maybe my Windows boot record is slightly corrupted since I did the RAM upgrade.

I planned on adding another hard drive and installing Windows 11, so maybe that will work better being a fresh hopefully non-corrupted install. My current Windows 7 x64 was created back in April 2012! Prior to this I ran Windows XP Pro and that usually needed a fresh install every three years, but would be degrading after a year or two.

Shredder11 said:

The problem is when I try to bootup the next day after shutdown, as I now have to go in the BIOS and do that whole reset to default settings and then manually enter things back in before booting up again. This results in a clean boot and runs fine until I shutdown again.

That is very strange. Can't you save the settings to a BIOS profile?
Why do you need 16G? Do you play games on tit? I have 8G and never needed more than that.

Is your Win 7 up to date? Single file with all updates - Simplix
I still use Win 7 on my desktop and laptop. Still think it is the best OS.

Megahertz07 said:

That is very strange. Can't you save the settings to a BIOS profile?
Why do you need 16G? Do you play games on tit? I have 8G and never needed more than that.

Is your Win 7 up to date? Single file with all updates - Simplix
I still use Win 7 on my desktop and laptop. Still think it is the best OS.

Certain things were becoming bottlenecked and sluggish, often freezing for 20 seconds, typical offenders were those annoying modern webpages that endlessly scroll adding more content, rather than the older way of clickable page numbers one at a time. Having 10 to 20 browser tabs caused slow down, page problems. Having many layers open in a graphic editor like Gimp / Photoshop became slower. Spreadsheets.............I could go on, and the 8GB was all used up when I looked at the Windows Task Manager. Anyway 16GB has solved all of that in one swoop.

I was looking for a save settings options in the BIOS; might be there not sure yet. There are saveable overclocking profiles, so there might be something for the regular settings.

I've used the WSUS Offline Update for more than ten years and currently at v11.9.1, and this pulls all the required updates minus the dodgy crap that Microsoft injects. Generally the OS is in good shape despite its age, although I have recently started to see some webpages failing to render properly due to ever changing demands in webpage standards. Not many but slowly starting I notice. My old ASUS Geforce GTX-550 Ti still hanging on in there though.

I personally don't trust Microsoft's RAM test software. So I use Memtest86. Here's what you do. Download Ventoy and then write Ventoy to a blank USB drive. Once that completes all yo do is copy/paste the Memtest86 image file to the USB drive. That's it. Now boot the USB drive. Ventoy's menu will show up. Memtest86's default options will work. I believe it's four passes. Do so! Now this is going to take a couple hours. Maybe four or so hours. Let it complete. But I have a felling you'll encounter an error early on in the RAM test results right before its sleep cycle. If so, you can stop the test right then and there. Memory is bad.

Next becomes a long process of finding what stick (or sticks). So obviously you test each stick one at a time. If all check out you now have to check each slot. But I doubt that's your issue as the RAM worked fine before.

Look on your RAM sticks. There should be a sticker with a long model number. Do ALL those model numbers match? I mean EXACTLY? Not one letter or number off? I know it's probably all the same RAM, but believe me, there are slightly different model numbers out there for one reason or another. I know because I was having a RAM issue and now I'm down to 12 GB of RAM from 16 GB and it seems like it was the one stick who's model number was ever so slightly different compared to the rest that was giving me issues. They were all the same type of RAM, too! Just that model number was slightly different. My thinking on this was that there is slight differences in the RAM manufacturing or something that was not playing well with the rest of the RAM. Again, this is just a theory, but so far that theory is holding up because ever since I removed that one stick my BSODs and all that you described are gone. I originally thought it was a bad RAM slot, so I tested each slot with a known good stick of RAM.

Make sure you default your BIOS RAM setting back. the XMP profile should be on. If you want, you can spend some 8 hours testing with the XMP profile engaged and not engaged.

I like to keep a good known BIOS config profile saved so that if all goes to hell in BIOS I can load that BIOS profile with a double click and reboot. No messing around with all those BIOS settings yet again. In my motherboard (a Gigabyte model) I can save those profiles to USB...

- - - Updated - - -

I was looking for a save settings options in the BIOS; might be there not sure yet. There are saveable overclocking profiles, so there might be something for the regular settings.

This option should (if it exists in your BIOS) be where you save settings and exit BIOS.

Generally the OS is in good shape despite its age, although I have recently started to see some webpages failing to render properly due to ever changing demands in webpage standards.

This is due to a Google Internet/web take over. Mostly with Google (bullshit) Web Components. It's absolute BULLSHIT to the nth degree, and websites the world over are f%&ing allowing it to happen. See that crap everywhere now where you can sign in with your Google account? Thank the Google code entanglement in these websites.

And let me guess, you use a niche browser or older version and have no plans on using the so-called "latest and greatest?"