Need some help diagnosing an issue

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Cali3350

Supreme [H]ardness
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Mar 22, 2002
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Ok guys heres the deal. Around Christmas i built a new PC (E6300, Biostar 965PT) with 2x1gb Geil DDR2 800 and ran it at 2800mhz all day long no problem. I have since upgraded my ram to 2x1gb Buffalo Firestix Micron D9 and was running my system at 3430 (490*7) for a solid month without a single problem. Then out of no where i suddenly starting getting memory errors on my computer and so i bumped the timings from 4-4-4-10 to 5-5-5-15. These occurred after around a month of solid use.

What bothers me however is that these loose timings soon came to give me errors as well. I have since been bumping down the frequency to the point where i am now at 400mhz fsb once again. Now this sounds like a RAM problem so far - one of the ram chips was simply slowly dying. Here comes the part i cannot understand however. If i flash my Motherboards BIOS back to its stock setting (just re flashing my current bios) i can once again run at 490fsb 4-4-4-10 absolutely no problems for a couple of days. This will then slowly once again degenerate itself until it becomes unstable all the way down to 400. I do not understand why this occurs. Anyone have any ideas? Id greatly appreciate some input. Thanks!
 
Yar anyone? I think i should have named this thread something like Super Happy Fun Time Link of Ultimate Joy or something to get more views.
 
Cali3350 said:
i flash my Motherboards BIOS back to its stock setting (just re flashing my current bios) i can once again run at 490fsb 4-4-4-10 absolutely no problems for a couple of days. This will then slowly once again degenerate itself until it becomes unstable all the way down to 400.
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you mean flashing bios as in booting from a floppy and reloading a copy of the bois? or just hitting del and selecting "restore default settings"? if restoring default settings doesnt do what re-flashing does, then the problem sounds like something other then the ram. there is no reason why reloading bios would temporarily make your ram work for a few days again. unless your ram is somehow corrupting the bios in the first place.
 
Yes, Physically re flashing the bios makes the ram work again at the 490 speed.
 
if the ram is still under warrenty, might as well RMA it. though that sounds like a different issue entirely. im thinking #1) motherboard or possibly 2) power supply. download a copy of memtest and make a boot floppy. boot from this floppy and test your ram (at stock speeds and voltage).
 
Memtest is what ive used to diagnose all of these problems actually. Built into the motherboard, version 1.7.
 
built in? like programed into the bios or something? im a strong believer of simplicity. i dont usualy trust 'package deals' or all the bells and whistles, i like one product for one purpose. i dont need a cell phone that emails, takes videos and gives me stock updates. i need a cell phone that rings, makes and recieves calls period (and doesnt smash into 1700 pieces when i drop it). if your trying to find a hardware problem before ruling out your motherboard 100%, dont use software on that motherboard to test other components, you have no idea if it is accurate or not because there is more then one piece of hardware in question.
that being said... does your version of memtest say it passes or fails? if it passes that gives me more reason to think motherboard, i dont know exactly why but the bios shouldnt act like that, reflashing shouldnt make it more stable, even temporarily. if it isnt the motherboard then there is something else that is corrupting your bios. could be very dirty voltage coming from a failing power supply....
 
Power Supply is a Corsair HX 620W and ive never had a reason to believe its failing. Cant rule it out i suppose.

Memtest passes the first few days, however will fail later on. The system just progressively becomes unstable. I suppose once ive gotten the board to that point of instability again ill try a external memtest.
 
I just want to get this straight:

You run memtest through all the tests a few times at your stated 4-4-4-10 settings and it gets no errors? But then you go a few weeks and the system gradually becomes unstable and you run memtest again with the same 4-4-4-10 settings and it finds errors?
 
vexeus said:
I just want to get this straight:

You run memtest through all the tests a few times at your stated 4-4-4-10 settings and it gets no errors? But then you go a few weeks and the system gradually becomes unstable and you run memtest again with the same 4-4-4-10 settings and it finds errors?
Click to expand...

Yep.
 
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