Help much needed

[Dashiva]

Hey guys,

First time poster, so if this topic is completely malplaced, I apologize.

Thing is I have some serious problems with my computer. A couple of days ago I bought another set of RAM and after installing that, applications crashes and files won't read. I've formated the drive and tried to remove the memory, but to no avail. If I try to install any bigger application, the file will eventually stop reading, stating that the installation file (data1.cab etc) is corrupt or similar. Firefox crashes randomly, and games such as World of Warcraft and Football Manager 09 crashes after a few minutes of play (ie randomly). The computer worked fine until installing that extra set of memory, and now it seems like every file is corrupt or unreadable.

Processor Name: AMD Athlon 64 3800+
Motherboard Model: Foxconn 6100M2MA-2.0-RS2H/6150M2MA-KRS2H
Motherboard Chipset: nVidia GeForce 6100 (C51) + MCP51
Video Chipset: nVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT (G86)
Video Card: MSI NX8500GT-E (MS-V096)
Drive Model: MAXTOR STM3250820A
Drive Controller: E-IDE (ATA-7)
Memory: Kingston K 1024mb PC3200 DDR SDRAM (both)

If anyone has any clue or can give me a shove in the right direction, I would be eternally grateful. I've never had a problem quite like this (and god knows I've had my share of problems). I have no clue whatsoever on what might be wrong or what the hell is going on.

 

[MTIH1992]

Ah yes, I was stumped by this problem too quite a while back. After months of trouble, googling with no help whatsoever, I gave up.

HOWEVER! A friend of mine advised me to go into the bios and reset it to Fail-Safe defaults. And to my amazement and joy, it worked. No more random blue screens saying I had corrupt memory, no more "application has encountered an error and needs to close" problems, and no more corrupt downloads.

It might also be noted that depending on your motherboard the fail safe defaults may underclock your CPU. I was running a 3.0GHz Pentium D, which after fail-safe was set to run at 2.0Ghz. Leave everything else alone in the BIOS, but clock your CPU back up to its original FSB. The voltage and everything doesnt need to be touched either.

If you're really feeling lucky, after success with fail safe defaults, try loading optimal defaults and see if that works too.

Hope this helps.

 

[Reynod]

Jeez ... <sigh>

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/support/downloads.aspx?ProductModel=6100M2MA-2.0-RS2H&TypeID=en-us0000003

Are both sticks in the yellow or blue slots ... or mixed ... you have 4 slots on that mobo.

Remove and clean the slots with a toothbrush to clear the dust and then put the ram back into the dual ddr slots.

 

[unclefester]

You may want to start over by putting the old memory back in. Get up and running. Then pull the old memory. Next add one stick and boot up your machine, play a game or something memory intensive. Shut down and add the second stick (or one at a time).
I killed one MoBo in the past by adding all the memory at once. Ever since I've always added one at a time and never a problem.
Good luck
Fester

 

[Dashiva]

Cheers for the feedback guys. I'm off to work now, but will be sure to test all suggestions you have.

Reynod, I have 1 stick in the white slot, one in the black slot (as the 2nd white slot doesn't work). Thing is, when I have the first memory in, it reads as DDR 400 and startup. When I have both sticks in, it reads as DDR 333. Could it be that the black slots only supports 333? Previously I had 2x512mb in, both of which where running at 333 (and in the same slots as I use for the new memories).

I understand that I come off as a complete moron with no clue whatsoever, but to my defense, I bought this cpu off my flatmate, as I moved from Sweden to Spain, and as it's been running fine until now, I haven't really bothered checking up on all the hardware (don't fix what ain't broke you know..)

Anyway, thanks a lot for the help. I'll check it out tonight.

Cheers guys.

 

[Dashiva]

Allright... some good news and some bad news. Good news is that I don't seem to get corrupt files anymore. I can install stuff without problems, and nothing has crashed on me yet.

Bad news is that I can only run with 1gb of memory. Whenever I put the 2nd memory stick in, windows won't load. All I get is a black screen with a mouse pointer.

Also, it seems as if out of my 4 memory slots, only 2 of them are working, the 1st and 3rd one. Each memory stick works perfect seperately, but together I just get the black screen.

So.. yeah, I don't really know what to do. Currently I'm just glad that I don't get random blue screens anymore, but I would like to have 2gb of RAM...