Hi everyone. This is my first post on Tom's Hardware. This looks like an excellent site, and I'm glad I found some place where I can ask knowledgeable people about PC related troubles.
At any rate, I had a few questions regarding my system and the memory installed. My system has been rather unstable ever since I put it together a few years ago. At any rate, I decided to run a few diagnostic tools on the memory. BTW, I have two properly installed 1 GB sticks of Corsair DDR 400 (3200) installed. I began with the windows memory diagnostic tool. Well, my memory sticks failed every test. I then ran memtest86. Unfortunately, after about 30 seconds of testing, there was an "unexpected problem" and the diagnostic tool stopped analyzing my memory. I tried running memtest86 again, but this time the whole program errored out, and there were a bunch of funny colors/symbols flashing on the screen, and my computer froze up forcing a restart.
So I'm wondering, does this mean I need to get some new memory? I know Corsair has a warranty on their sticks, however, I wonder if the actual memory sticks are bad, or if this is a compatibility issue between the sticks and my motherboard (in which case Corsair wouldn't replace my memory sticks). I have an Asus A8N5X mobo, and when flipping through the manual, it listed all the "qualified vendors" for memory, and although a few specific Corsair sticks were listed, my memory sticks were NOT listed.
Any feedback on this whole issue would be appreciated. Are my sticks bad? Is it a compatibility issue? Are the memory sticks what have been causing my unstable system? I have run diagnostic tools on other hardware components, and all is fine, and I have also updated all drivers. Thanks!!!
At any rate, I had a few questions regarding my system and the memory installed. My system has been rather unstable ever since I put it together a few years ago. At any rate, I decided to run a few diagnostic tools on the memory. BTW, I have two properly installed 1 GB sticks of Corsair DDR 400 (3200) installed. I began with the windows memory diagnostic tool. Well, my memory sticks failed every test. I then ran memtest86. Unfortunately, after about 30 seconds of testing, there was an "unexpected problem" and the diagnostic tool stopped analyzing my memory. I tried running memtest86 again, but this time the whole program errored out, and there were a bunch of funny colors/symbols flashing on the screen, and my computer froze up forcing a restart.
So I'm wondering, does this mean I need to get some new memory? I know Corsair has a warranty on their sticks, however, I wonder if the actual memory sticks are bad, or if this is a compatibility issue between the sticks and my motherboard (in which case Corsair wouldn't replace my memory sticks). I have an Asus A8N5X mobo, and when flipping through the manual, it listed all the "qualified vendors" for memory, and although a few specific Corsair sticks were listed, my memory sticks were NOT listed.
Any feedback on this whole issue would be appreciated. Are my sticks bad? Is it a compatibility issue? Are the memory sticks what have been causing my unstable system? I have run diagnostic tools on other hardware components, and all is fine, and I have also updated all drivers. Thanks!!!