Bad Memory cause random freezes?

kyomagi · May 9, 2015

can a single bad ram stick cause random freezes and restarts with no bsod?

i changed out my mobo and cpu and the ram that was previous working seems to have been the issue.

I tested each stick and one kept causing the crash where as the other one now is working fine without a single issue

RaDiKaL_ · May 9, 2015

Test them separately with memtest86, RAM does cause random freezes though usually with BSOD, test them and then we'll see other possibilities, a failing HDD can freeze the system with no BSOD, also a failing PSU.

kyomagi · May 9, 2015

psu is brand new, only a month old, no other issues before. the SSD is new too, everything was working fine until i swapped out the MB and CPU. like i said, the one stick has been running with no issues

Tradesman1 · May 9, 2015

Two identical sticks, from the same package?

kyomagi · May 9, 2015

no, two of the same brand, bought at different times, same make tho

Tradesman1 · May 9, 2015

The one may be going bad or simply not compatible. Over the life of a Model of DRAM they often change the memory ICs used, even the solder or PCB can cause an incompatibility

kyomagi · May 10, 2015

ok so it happened again last night. i left my computer on and it did not go to sleep, it was on running last night and i could not get a signal to my monitor. its running now. maybe a fluke? running memtest right now on it. could it be the MOBO? everything was fine prior to me installing the new hardware

Tradesman1 · May 10, 2015

Could try raising DRAM voltage + 0.06 to help stabilize the two

kyomagi · May 10, 2015

it was at 1.50, so are you saying to raise it to 1.56? The ssd tests were fine. the video card seems ok, could it be the mobo? i put the second stick back in and it took a couple of hours to lock up.

I ran whocrashed and my crash dump location has any dump files

Tradesman1 · May 10, 2015

DRAM voltage to 1.56 yes - it has nothing to do with the SSD or GPU

kyomagi · May 10, 2015

i know but im trying to narrow down the issue.

Tradesman1 · May 10, 2015

No worries, the DRAM voltage increase might take care of the issue for you

kyomagi · May 10, 2015

So it's more a motherboard issue than a bad ram issue?

Tradesman1 · May 10, 2015

No, sounds more like an issue the sticks just don't want to play nice, happens all the time, you can pull sticks right off an assembly line and they might not play - when you buy a package of DRAM the sticks in it were tested to play nice, thus they guarantee them to

johnbl · May 11, 2015

go to BIOS reset it to defaults and reboot. It will rescan your hardware and re assign interrupts and DMA channels and build a database of settings it then passes to windows and windows uses to configure your system. This would be the first thing I would be checking. I assume you have disabled any software overclocking already.

bad memory should produce a bugcheck
bad storage should produce a bugcheck on screen but not record it to the drive.
bad power can result in a reboot of your system, no bugcheck but there should be a event log that indicates a power 41 error.

bad hardware database passed in from the BIOS can cause system lockups.
windows gets the database is is blocked from using hardware resources because the BIOS told it they were in use. Then it detects the real hardware and has to try to configure it. Basically windows thinks you have two sets of hardware, one that the BIOS said was there (but is not) windows thinks it failed, and another set of hardware it found via PNP. Really messes things up.

kyomagi · May 11, 2015

Hmmm odd. The mobo was a clearance open box from microcenter. But increasing the voltage has fixed the issue it seems

Tradesman1 · May 11, 2015

Prob was just the sticks didn't want to play nice, increasing DRAM and/or MC voltage and timing adjustments can often smooth things out

Glad all is well!

Bad Memory cause random freezes?

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