It's my memory... right? Help needed! =(

A

altezza

n00b
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Nov 25, 2006
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My rig consists of a pair of Buffalo Firestix coupled alongside a Bad Axe 2. My baby has been down for about a month! I've been a bit lazy to rectify its problem. >_< I believe my problems began when I reset my BIOs to default settings, that’s when the random errors and blue screens started to happen. A few days later I couldn’t boot into XP anymore.

I’m guessing my sticks went haywire because I forgot that the Firestix are underclocked below stock settings, so I had been running them underclocked for about a week before the problems began. They’re set at 1.7V on initial boot I believe... but the Buffalo website says I need to change it to 2.1V after the initial boot, which I did do when I first received my sticks. I’ve tried swapping one stick out and vice versa but memtest always gives me the same result; all errors.

I'm thinking about RMAing, but seeing as how cheap memory is right now I'm thinking about just picking up a pair of G.Skill GZ or Super Talents. How is the RAM process with Buffalo? I've never RMAed anything before. :\

But bleh, with all those errors, could it be my motherboard? What are some tests that I could perform to make sure that the problem is with my memory, and not my mobo?

Thanks in advance! Here are my dreaded memtest results, lol.

img0305wi9.jpg
 
Have you cleared the CMOS (bios) ? That should set it back to 1.8v factory default and let you boot with one stick. then set the memory voltage back to 2.1V.

You may already have, sorry I had a hard time figuring out where you are now in regards to settings from your post.

Oh my bad, your saying you did clear the cmos and now it will not boot even on one stick and both show errors in memtest. Ouch !

Try clearing the cmos again, make sure the power supply is unplugged from the wall and hit the power button a few times to drain all the power, then do the clear cmos procedure. If that does not work perhaps you can borrow a stick of ram from someone to boot and set your memory voltages ? It does not sound good but until you can verify what you bios is set at its kind of hard to blame any one component. The odds of both sticks going bad at the same time is pretty high.
 
Try clearing the cmos again, make sure the power supply is unplugged from the wall and hit the power button a few times to drain all the power, then do the clear cmos procedure. If that does not work perhaps you can borrow a stick of ram from someone to boot and set your memory voltages ? It does not sound good but until you can verify what you bios is set at its kind of hard to blame any one component. The odds of both sticks going bad at the same time is pretty high.
Click to expand...

Just tried again, no go. >_<

BillParrish said:
Have you cleared the CMOS (bios) ? That should set it back to 1.8v factory default and let you boot with one stick. then set the memory voltage back to 2.1V.

You may already have, sorry I had a hard time figuring out where you are now in regards to settings from your post.

Oh my bad, your saying you did clear the cmos and now it will not boot even on one stick and both show errors in memtest. Ouch !
Click to expand...

Ah, sorry if my post wasn&#8217;t too clear. I can get it to POST and go into BIOS to change the voltage with my firestix. The thing I can&#8217;t do is get a fresh install of windows going. Once I get two seconds into windows setup I get errors such as "there is a syntax error in the .SIF file that setup uses at line: xxx" or &#8220;windows has failed to copy so-and-so file" + a stop address at the bottom, which I&#8217;ve read are both to be caused by bad memory.

I&#8217;ve tried deleting my RAID volume and trying to install windows on either hard drive but they both gave me those same errors.

I also thought maybe my XP disc has been scratched to hell that it can&#8217;t be used anymore so I bought a copy of vista, still no go... this is what happens after I try to enter Vista&#8217;s setup:

img0320zk4.jpg


I'm still leaning towards my ram being because of the voltage change from 2.1V to 1.7V... or just randomly dying on me.
 
Sorry I am so dense today,

So you were able to get into the bios and set your memory voltage back to spec and it stilled showed memtest errors ?

That error msg in the screen shot is a disk read error, it cannot find the AHCI driver for the SATA disks. Drives me nuts the way XP and Vista cant read SATA 3.0GBs drives when they are set properly in the bios.

I would set the drive controller to IDE mode, and SATA interface to "compatible", different bioses call them them different things but you want to let windows think you have a plain jane IDE drive, BUT be sure to F6 install your raid driver, that will give you the ACHI support and NCQ you are probally wanting. So let windows intall on what it thinks is a plain IDE but load your F6 driver, then when windows reboots, catch it and go into bios and set controller to AHCI or RAID, (hopefully it will allow you to add a disk to what will be a standalone and build the kind of array you want) and SATA mode to "native". When windows comes up it will "find new hardware", kill that, and load the windows drivers for SATA/RAID/AHCI from your motherboards driver download, reboot, pray, and you should then be good to go for the other mb drivers and then win update.

Best of luck.
 
I doubt your memory is the problem. You will need to get rid of the memtest errors before you an do anything at all, including installing Windows.

Test 4 can be memory errors, but typically an error before test 5 might be a CPU/memory controller issue.

I need to check your sig again after I post this. Maybe I can come up with some suggestions.
 
Well you have no signature. But you have an Intel rig, so the memory controller is on the motherboard.

Have you made any changes lately? Added video card or some other accessories?

if you list your components possibly we can help.
 
can u test the ram in another machine or get other ram to use in yours to see?
 
Wolf-R1 said:
This is interesting. Can you elaborate on this or point out a white paper?
Click to expand...

Copied from: http://shsc.info/Memtest86

I'm getting errors in test #x, what does that mean?

Interpreting memtest results is as scientific an endeavor as testing whether a person is a witch by the methods used in Monty Python's Holy Grail. In short, don't even start; it's not going to get you anywhere. Just interpret any error as you should any other and use the methods described in the previous question to determine the cause.

I'm getting errors in test #5 and/or #8 and have read a lot about it.
Yes there are just about enough discussions on the topic to fill a book, but it all boils down to the answer given above. The only thing that can be said is that many times, when memory latencies are incorrectly set in the BIOS you will experience errors in test #5 and #8. (Though #8 does not exist anymore as of version 1.40 and might be reinstated as a different test in a later version.) This does however NOT mean that errors in these tests are always the cause of incorrect settings; your memory might just as well be defective. However, if you have a failing module they will usually fail in test 4 no matter what frequency you run them at or at any given clock setting. And failures in test 5 or 8 usually would suggest that either one of a few things:

A. The settings are too tight or to aggressive for your system, IE not every MB can run with Cass timings of Cass 2-2-2-5 at DDR400 like with our XMS3200XL modules, and maybe relaxing the timings to check for this would be prudent to test. Try Cass 2-3-2-5 with the Rass to Cass set to “3” for example

B. You may have an un-stable power supply for your system configuration. Make sure that you have the correct type of PSU (Power Supply Unit) and that it has enough power for your system configuration.

C. All of our modules are rated up to 2.9 Volts, and in most MB’s I would suggest 2.7X volts with Most of our modules. In the case of our XMS3200XL modules and faster the minimum voltage would be 2.75 Volts. So you may want to look your specific modules part# up in XMS Qualifications and Testing to see if there are any voltage and/or MB requirements. Like adding extra cooling.

D. One of your modules may be failing, but that would or should become apparent when testing then individually.
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Of course that's just someone's opinion above.

Quoted from: http://www.memtest86.com/#details

Test 1 [Address test, own address]

Each address is written with its own address and then is checked for consistency. In theory previous tests should have caught any memory addressing problems. This test should catch any addressing errors that somehow were not previously detected.

Test 2 [Moving inversions, ones&zeros]

This test uses the moving inversions algorithm with patterns of all ones and zeros. Cache is enabled even though it interferes to some degree with the test algorithm. With cache enabled this test does not take long and should quickly find all "hard" errors and some more subtle errors. This test is only a quick check.

Test 3 [Moving inversions, 8 bit pat]

This is the same as test one but uses a 8 bit wide pattern of "walking" ones and zeros. This test will better detect subtle errors in "wide" memory chips. A total of 20 data patterns are used.

Test 4 [Moving inversions, random pattern]

Test 4 uses the same algorithm as test 1 but the data pattern is a random number and it's complement. This test is particularly effective in finding difficult to detect data sensitive errors. A total of 60 patterns are used. The random number sequence is different with each pass so multiple passes increase effectiveness.

Test 5 [Block move, 64 moves]

This test stresses memory by using block move (movsl) instructions and is based on Robert Redelmeier's burnBX test. Memory is initialized with shifting patterns that are inverted every 8 bytes. Then 4mb blocks of memory are moved around using the movsl instruction. After the moves are completed the data patterns are checked. Because the data is checked only after the memory moves are completed it is not possible to know where the error occurred. The addresses reported are only for where the bad pattern was found. Since the moves are constrained to a 8mb segment of memory the failing address will always be less than 8mb away from the reported address. Errors from this test are not used to calculate BadRAM patterns.
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So, test 4 is much like test 1, which normally detects CPU or timing errors, but can also catch RAM defects of course..

Does that help?
 
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