testing bad ram?

[System]

I thinkerz I got some bad ram so how do I test what stick(s) are the bad one(s)?

Story goes I keep freezing and having to hit the reset button. It got so bad tonite that the moment I entered a game it would freeze and go to a black screen sometimes.

Finally after a few hours of struggling to play, my computer gave up and said no and the mobo would not boot up. It said "C1" on the flash or w/e. Note that nothing was booting up.

After thinking about it I figured maybe it was the ram and took out 2gb of ram. The computer booted but then crashed again shortly after. Now I'm on 1gb for now just to get some help on what to do. I figured and hope its only a memory issue in which I need to know how to check which stick(s) is deffective as I mentioned before.

[Storm{63}]

Re: testing bad ram?

check this out maybe it will help.

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

[System]

Re: testing bad ram?

Ok thanks I'll try it when I get up the next day so I'm not so tired and don't miss anything.

Right now I managed to get 2gb in and everything is running perfectly. I think maybe one of the two sticks that arn't in are the bad stuff. I shall fine out soon enough :)

[Storm{63}]

Re: testing bad ram?

I hope you get it sorted out.

It may just be faster to do what you are doing any way as it says the longer the mem test runs the better maybe if you do use it just let it run while you sleep?(Gamers dont sleep we just pass out) :)

Well good luck System let us know what you find.

[camper.]

Re: testing bad ram?

Memtest86+ is what you need.

My PC doesn't like mixed RAM very much.

[System]

Re: testing bad ram?

It's not mixed ram, they are all the same sticks.

I formatted my hd and sitll installing stuff right now but I have a new problem and I'll also update on the previous issue.

Since I removed the ram, after POST my computer stops booting up waiting for me to hit F1 to continue or DEL to enter setup. The message it displays is "Warning! The system case has been opened since last reboot please check the system blah blah". The only thing I changed inside was taking out 2gb of ram and switching my sticks around as one of them was defective I figure. The ram is in slot 0 and 1, the indicated slots by the manuel. I also hooked up another cd/dvd drive. So I'm wondering how can I get rid of this warning message so my computer will boot up without me having to hit the F1 key everytime now?

Now taking a step backwards to when I woke up today, I had some serious problems.

1) I left my computer on last night to DL a big file and it froze sometime during the DL in the night. Actually, when I got on the computer seemed to have tried to restart itself and froze on the logo show which is where you hit the DEL key to enter setup.

2) After getting the computer to boot, I tried to go into BF2 only for it to keep crashing or going to a black screen at which point I had to hit the reboot button again. Sometimes I was able to hit the BFHQ button and cruise in there but it would soon crash to a black screen. I didn't even get to find a server let alone try to play the game.

At that point I gave up and tried looking in the BIOS for the ram timings. The ram I have has 5-5-5-15 timings and what I saw was 5-7-7-20-2t on the "optimal" setting. I should be ok to set it to the proper timings right?

After that I did a slow memory scan through the BIOS and nothing happened. If something did happen I missed it because my computer went back to the BIOS after it finished and I was not around at the time so I may have missed something. Thats when I formatted my HD and tried to install XP. On the first attempt I got the blue screen of death so I assumed it was the ram again because I only started seeing this screen when I first upgraded to 4gb of ram. Anyways, I switched the sticks again and everything is going smoothly so far.

I'll do a memory test soon with that program listed above.

Quick sum up on the story above - How can I get my computer to boot up with out having to hit F1?

[sava700]

Re: testing bad ram?

make sure your bios settings for power is set correctly ... example if the ram should be running with stock timings at 2.8 then make sure you have the bios set for the chips at 2.8...sometimes auto doesn't see the correct setting the chips need.

[System]

Re: testing bad ram?

Yeah I ran into that problem in the beginning.

ram runs @ 2.3V and auto is 1.85 so I have it manually set to the appropiate volts... So then I can set my ram timings to 5-5-5-15 then?

[megawhompertoo]

Re: testing bad ram?

your ram issues do sound like you may have a bad stick, or a pair of them. 2.3v is pushing it for 5-5-5-15, it wouldn't surprise me if one of them got toasted (even if that is the mfg spec). what model ram do you have?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227191

^"reapers"?

with regard to your boot options, i'm guessing you just go into your bios and change your boot up alerts.

[TheButler208]

Re: testing bad ram?

my motherboard set the memory to 1.85 volts under auto setting. When it really needs 2.0 - 2.1v manuf. spec. DDR2 can require anything from 1.8 to 2.2 volts. If your memory works at 2.2 no problems, it'll be fine. People who overclock memory go a lot higher without messing anything up.