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Defective RAM or what?

B

Bop

2[H]4U
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Oct 1, 2003
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I just got my second stick of Kingston 512MB HyperX PC3200 ram and I'm getting alot of in-game errors.

What happened first was I used 1 stick of 512MB and 2 sticks of 256MB and ALL my games would crash in a matter of seconds. (KotOR, UT2k3, Planetside) No matter what configuaration they were in the game would CTD in seconds. I ended up ordering a second stick of 512MB to see if 2x512 would work.

When I got the RAM in I tried the 1x512 and 2x256MB to see if that particular stick was defective. Nope, same thing happened. So I took it out and placed the 2x512s in slots 1 and 3. I started up KotOR and then about 5 seconds into the menu everything garbles up and I am forced to reset, after that everything CTDs like before.

Right now my games seem stable with the RAM in slots 2 and 3, but in games like Planetside when the memory load is high the game will CTD when the memory load is around 97%.

Now I ordered each stick from 2 different places and if they both have the same problem I am starting to think it is not a problem with the RAM. Could it be a problem with my motherboard? Or was my Kingston RAM just crappy?
 
I just ran memtest for an hour, 2 passes and 0 errors. I'm beginning to think it is the mobo or something.
 
Check your timings, check the MB Website for any problems...Update the BIOS, test each stick of RAM in Memtest86, overnight...not for an hour, but over night, make sure all tests are enabled and it tests all the RAM...

If all the ram checks our individually, try it together in MemTest OVERNIGHT...
 
Alright, I checked the ASUS website and found nothing. I guess I will run one module in tonight and the other tomorrow night.

I read another post and someone said they were getting PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA problem with win32k.sys, I had the same problem before, and it was apparently not his RAM.

The only game that seems to crash on me now is Planetside, and it seems it does whenever I run out of memory and it tries to access the HD for virtual memory(VM is set to 1536 for me). Well this is what the crashlog reported:

Unhandled exception EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION at 0x007EE813
Application was trying to write to 0x8C12F48B
Region Begins At: 0x43EF07E0
Region Ends At: 0x8D93D8BC
Region Size Is: 0x49A4D0DC bytes
Memory Protection: Invalid | PAGE_WRITECOMBINE (42247C1C)
Memory State: Invalid (-1030333418)
Memory Type: Invalid (1239572)

I'll also run Prime95 and make sure it isn't my CPU.(maybe it hates more memory? :p)

If Prime passes overnight and memtest does too I'll assume it is my motherboard and I will either get a NFS-7 or the new A7N8X-E deluxe.
 
I had the same problem, random errors, with random files, BSOD's but mine was with a MAX3 board and it was the GAT (Game Accelerator) feature that increases ram timings and speeds automatically to increase performance, I set it to disable and no more problems,

Might be worth checking your bios for any such feature.
 
My BIOS doesn't have that option. I think I was getting lots of crashing before because I had my memory in slots 1 and 3, instead of ASUS's recommend slots 2 and 3.(I went to their help site, they said place dual channel RAM in the 2 blue slots)

Planetside is the only app that has crashed since I moved the memory to those slots, all other games seem ok now. But I play planetside for hours sometimes. When I had my 2x256 I could easily leave Planetside on for 9+ hours which I did before.

I tried upping the voltage to 2.7v, no improvement. I noticed the new HyperX modules have 2-3-2-6 timings while mine has 2-2-2-6 timings. Their website says it is because of problems with Pentium 4 motherboards so I don't feel I need to relax my timings, although if one of you can assure otherwise I will give it a shot @ 2-3-2-6.
 
Crap I forgot to leave my PC on overnight.

What should I run overnight tonight, Prime95 or memtest?
 
Ok, it failed 6 hours and 13 minutes into the test.

It said rounding was 0.4999980927, expected less than 0.4. It then said hardware failure detected.

I ran the blend test so I'm not sure if it is my memory, CPU, or motherboard. I'm leaning toward motherboard/RAM as I never had problems with my 2x256 sticks. Diablo 2 crashed once the second it seemed to start loading a level. Planetside seems to crash whenever memory is full and it begins to access the HD.
 
Ok...Don't do Prime unless MemTest86 passed...

Take out all RAM, stick 1 stick in Slot 1, and run MemTest, if it passes, stick the other in Slot 1 and run it again, if they both pass...Update the Bios, then try and run both sticks in slots 1 and 2...if it doesn't pass run them in 2 and 3, it'll take a few days if you do this overnight, but a couple if you do it during the day, try and do it during the day and get back with us on the results...

Either way, check the BIOS updates, if there is one available, do that...I know I'm just getting the memory situation on my P4S8X straight and it's been a year...
 
I already have the latest BIOS.

When you mean everything at stock settings you mean just set the mem to SPD? I currently have the mem voltage at 2.7v, recommened is 2.6 but I'm giving it more juice to try to make it run more stable.

I don't know if this could be it but my PSU is 350W and maybe the extra sticks are drawing more power but I don't have enough.
 
Wow, I placed 1 stick in slot 1 and ran memtest. After 20 minutes I had 272 errors.

I'm going to run 1x256 and see those results.

If I do not get any errors with that should I send back both my 512MB sticks?
 
Ok I tried each 512MB stick in slot 1 alone for memtest. One had 739 errors in 25 minutes, the other had an Unhandled Exception error and stopped after 2-4 minutes. It restarted by itself after 2 minutes at the error screen.

What confuses me is that when in slot 2 and 3 there aren't as many problems.

1x256 stick in slot 1 works fine in memtest, no errors. Maybe my motherboard has a problem? It shouldn't matter if my CPU is OCed a bit as long as my FSB is at spec right?

Its just that I find it odd that I get the same issue after ordering each stick from a different retailer. Maybe my motherboard has problems with 512MB or more RAM?

I need to find out soon as I'll need to send my RAM back to Kingston within 20 or so days if the problem is the RAM. I cannot test my memory on any other computer.
 
I set one of the 512s in and figured maybe I just need to lax the timings/FSB. I placed the FSB to 166mhz and the timings to 3-3-3-7, and the same thing happened. Bumped the voltage to 2.8v too.

The 256MBs run at 2-2-2-5 and 2-2-2-11 just fine.

It looks like the RAM is to blame, I'm sending both 512MB sticks back.
 
I am going to send both sticks back to Kingston today, got an RMA for each one.

If i get them back and they still don't work I'm going to check my motherboard as I doubt my CPU would be the culprit.
 
An A7N8X doesn't like Kingston Hyper-X. I had a similar problem...an A7N8X 2.0 Regular with 2x256mb of PC2700 Hyper-X and I had similar errors. The only thing you can do is either exchange the motherboard or exchange the ram.
 
I already set up the RMA for the RAM, unfortunately since BH-5 chips are discontinued they will either repair the module or give me refurbished memory... :(

If I have continuing issues I'm going to get a DFI or Abit motherboard as that'd be cheaper than getting Mushkin or Corsair memory.
 
Oh crap, just got a BSOD after exiting Far Cry. Only a blue screen this time, no page fault warning crap, and my sound kept skipping.

That is the first BSOD I ever had with my PC using the 2x256. Hmm if it happens again I'll start to get worried. I'm going to run Prime95 and see if my CPU/mobo/RAM is ok.
 
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