Locking up - finally narrowed it down. But does this make sense?

FortuneSmiles · Mar 8, 2009

I have been trouble shooting an issue since the purchase of my new pc. In a nutshell my pc locks up (defined as still on but a black screen and unresponsive to mouse or keyboard forcing a hard boot) quite often especially when doing the following:

attempting to launch Windows Media Center. This action most consistently creates the lock up (virtually every time)
switching users
installing a program or really doing anything that would require admin permission
shutting down
launching some other programs

It is not unusual to have to hard boot a dozen or more times a day. I have hit the boards, googled the issue etc and found numerours others that have experienced the same problem. I had a thread on this board in which I had been attributing it to my ATI 4870 begin video card drivers as the problems did not begin until the drivers were installed. That thread ended with indication that it likely was not those drivers.

I just finished reseating the memory (again), swapping the memory slots etc to no avail. I then removed one of the two OCZ Gold 2GB 1600 DDR3 sticks and booted with only one. Lo and behold - the issues disappear. Thinking it might be a bad memory stick (one that slipped past the dozen or so times I ran memtest86+) I swapped in the other to confirm. Well - turns out it ran fine with the other alone as well. Guess it is not a bad memory stick. Now thinking it is a bad slot on the mobo I tried swapping each into other slots but all continue work correctly.

Bottom line, I am baffled. How is it that one 2GB memory stick will be fine in any slot but two will begin to create the issues?

pooch · Mar 9, 2009

FortuneSmiles said:
I have been trouble shooting an issue since the purchase of my new pc. In a nutshell my pc locks up (defined as still on but a black screen and unresponsive to mouse or keyboard forcing a hard boot) quite often especially when doing the following:

attempting to launch Windows Media Center. This action most consistently creates the lock up (virtually every time)

switching users

installing a program or really doing anything that would require admin permission

shutting down

launching some other programs

It is not unusual to have to hard boot a dozen or more times a day. I have hit the boards, googled the issue etc and found numerours others that have experienced the same problem. I had a thread on this board in which I had been attributing it to my ATI 4870 begin video card drivers as the problems did not begin until the drivers were installed. That thread ended with indication that it likely was not those drivers.

I just finished reseating the memory (again), swapping the memory slots etc to no avail. I then removed one of the two OCZ Gold 2GB 1600 DDR3 sticks and booted with only one. Lo and behold - the issues disappear. Thinking it might be a bad memory stick (one that slipped past the dozen or so times I ran memtest86+) I swapped in the other to confirm. Well - turns out it ran fine with the other alone as well. Guess it is not a bad memory stick. Now thinking it is a bad slot on the mobo I tried swapping each into other slots but all continue work correctly.

Bottom line, I am baffled. How is it that one 2GB memory stick will be fine in any slot but two will begin to create the issues?

Hi, Fortune Smiles,

I am no expert here but have you tried slowing the RAM down a bit when you have both sticks in?? Also make sure that you are using the right slots usually the same colour (see hand book for details)

Also as it is obviously a new PC It would probably be best to let your handler fix the problem

Pooch

PS. The Motherboard manufacturer will also have a list of recomended RAM manufacturers for that board

FortuneSmiles · Mar 9, 2009

Thanks Pooch. Have not tried slowing down the ram ... but I wouldn't think I should have to. The system is pretty well loaded. It should be able to handle running this ram at default speed.
RAM is in the correct slots - banks 1 & 3 same color. Oddly enough if I put them in the incorrect slots - 1 and 2 different colors it seems to be more stable.

Only option left with the mfg is to return it. The indicated that it would be at least 3 weeks with them and I just don't want to lose it for that long.

pooch · Mar 10, 2009

FortuneSmiles said:
Oddly enough if I put them in the incorrect slots - 1 and 2 different colors it seems to be more stable.

As it is running singly not dual that is why I suggested slower its worth a try even if you do not leave it like it
I even thought that maybe 4 1gig sticks maybe better, probably not an option though

as you are unlikely to have them just lying around

Have you thought to very carefully raise the voltage? be careful as this could damage the RAM

FortuneSmiles said:
Only option left with the mfg is to return it. The indicated that it would be at least 3 weeks with them and I just don't want to lose it for that long.

I understand this I can't live without my PC :D

Pooch

FortuneSmiles · Mar 11, 2009

any chance this could be a psu issue? Something about the second stick of ddr3 coupled with some action like an attempted launch of windows media center (always sends me to black screen) causing a draw on the psu? I have a 650 watt corsair psu.

pooch · Mar 11, 2009

FortuneSmiles said:
any chance this could be a psu issue? Something about the second stick of ddr3 coupled with some action like an attempted launch of windows media center (always sends me to black screen) causing a draw on the psu? I have a 650 watt corsair psu.

It could be possible that your PSU is bad, I do not know how much power the water cooling takes but otherwise I think that PSU should be good, I used to run more with only 550watt again w/out the water cooling

Do you have another PSU to test?

FortuneSmiles · Mar 11, 2009

I submitted a tech support request to the mobo mfg - Gigabyte. They responded by indicating that I should adjust the default voltages (1.8) in the bios to match the memory. Unfortunately 1.8v already matches the memory. We will see how they respond to this.

Locking up - finally narrowed it down. But does this make sense?

FortuneSmiles

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