RAM Issues

IceNine · Posted: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 13:25:28 Post Subject: RAM Issues

I purchased some cheap Corsair 512MB PC3200 at Fry's about a week ago, adding it to the Kingston 512MB PC3200 already in the system. After putting the system under load with video games (FarCry, WoW), the computer would randomly reboot. I figured it may have been somehing to do with the ram or possibly my mobo. My steps:

1) Updated all drivers for my motherboard, CPU, there was no BIOS upgrade
2) Verify my old ram works by itself
3) Verified that the new ram would have problems in both of my DDR slots

After all that I figured I got a bad RAM chip so I took it back for an exchange. However, the new stick acts the same way. Do you suppose this is a motherboard issue or what?

Mobo: MSI K7VTA3V6.0 running an AMD Barton 2500+.

dadx2mj · Posted: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 14:12:22 Post Subject:

Mixing ram is always a roll of the dice. You might try loosening up the RAM timings in the BIOS to see if that helps any. Could end up being the two brands of RAM just wont place nice with each other tho. Good luck

jake_johnson · Posted: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 18:51:17 Post Subject:

Mixing ram is always hit or miss. Check what the cheap rams memory timings are and what the new one. Good chance their different. Go ahead and loosen up the timings as mentioned before. Or, take the stick back and buy the same exact stick as other one.

Spire · Posted: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 20:27:30 Post Subject:

Put the new sticks in and then set BIOS to optimal defaults.

Restart machine, shut back down, stick older set in (with newer stuff) and then boot up.

Seems to me that the SPD timings for the old stuff arent working for the new stuff. This will set the bios for the newer stuff and maybe the old stuff will be happy with that.

MrAndersen · Rated PG Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 14

Sometimes the motherboard chipset can be the limiting factor also.