Random BSOD after a month of new machine

[Mattish]

Hello there,

I have recently a month or so ago purchased a new machine with the below specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.16GHz (1333FSB)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 "Toxic" 512MB GDDR5 x 2 - In Crossfire
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 Intel P45
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Dual Channel Kit (Twin2X4096-8500C5) x 2 Totalling to 8GB
Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache x 2 - stand alone, not raided.

The machine was all setup and installed fine, but I found that my machine would BSOD after about 2 hours of use. A friend's dad informed me that when using 8GB of RAM @ 1066 it would do this with vista64, so I lowered it to 800MHz and this stopped the issue.

Since then I haven't had any problems, until about 2 days ago. The machine when performing "heavy" memory tasks like playing games, causes the game "sometimes" to BSOD. It is very random, as for instance I could be playing WoW for most of the day for a few hours straight, then during the evening it would BSOD 4 times within an hour.

Some of the BSOD messages I get are "Bad Header Pool" or "Interupt Exception not handled"

I've made sure all updates are available. I've reformated and reinstalled OS. I've checked drivers. I've ran the machine with only a single gfx card, tried both cards in both slots. Tried combinations of the 4 sticks of ram in 2s in different slots. I've done chkdsk on both the drives and they have found no problems. I have done tests on my RAM with Burnintests and the RAM doesnt buckle under 30minutes of "torture". There is no OCing on the machine, apart from the gfx cards which are factory OCd.

I'm completely stumped now and wanting my machine to get back to the perfect state it was.

Is anyone able to help at all?

-Matthew

 

[r_manic]

I really think there's a problem with your memory. Sometimes memory tests won't raise any flags. Would it be possible for you to try other memory sticks?

 

[DaMAn42]

What are the blue screen codes. Rember 0x0a1 or any varation is memory issues. Or you could go here and look for it support.microsoft.com

 

[IH8U]

Disable Superfetch, and Prefetch. 10 to 1 these are causing the issue. However I would still run Memtest to see if there is a problem with that RAM. Also Vista does not care what speed the RAM is at, just make sure the voltage is set correctly in the BIOS. And Vista dosn't like Ganged mode for some reason, so try setting it to unganged in the BIOS (same area as voltage settings).

 

[Mattish]

Thanks for the responses!

I've disabled the above, and will see how this evening goes! If I get a BSOD will get the details and then try with some other known working RAM I have.

Will report back.

-Matthew

 

[techgeek]

If you really think that it could be memory related, 30 minutes of testing is unlikely to uncover memory problems. The real test would be to download memtest86+ and boot from it and let it run 8+ hours. In many cases it takes awhile before the memory starts to error under these test conditions. If it passes this test you can feel fairly certain that your RAM isn't faulty.

If I read your original post correctly, I am assuming that you have 4 identical sticks of 2GB each. I don't know your motherboard's BIOS setting intimately, but one thing to check is, if your BIOS allows you to specify Command Rate, that you have it set to 2T. It is very unlikely that the memory controller will be able to handle 4 sticks of RAM at 1T. This is probably a moot point because most BIOS's take this setting out of the hands of the user, so the motherboard likely has set the Command Rate to 2T already. Just thought I would throw it out there just in case.

 

[Mattish]

Well, in the evening I got a BSOD, I took out the 4 sticks and put in 2 sticks from my older machine of the EXACTLY same model. I put them and havent had any issues for the past 8 hours.
Just to test also, I put the sticks in 2 different channels.

Will dig out my M/B manual and see about the above from techgeek.

Much appreciated for the responses once again

-Matthew

 

[daship]

If you never set the volages then thats your problem. Motherboard default is 1.8 and I bet anything your ram requires more then that and when you run 8G you nee .1-.3 volts more then manufacturer specs.

Your friends dad is on crack, at the correct volts and timings it will run 1066.

 

[Mattish]

Thanks again for the response.

In regard to the voltage, I havent touched it at all in the BIOS.
I beleive the RAM is to run at 2.1v
I have 4 options in the BIOS in regard to DRAM voltage,

General voltage, Termination voltage, and then 1 for each channel.
Could you advise what I should be putting for each of these?
Currently they are at 1.8, .9,.9,.9

-Matthew

 

[daship]

General should be atleast 2.1 and with 8G of ram it should be 2.2-2.4, start at 2.2 and bump .1 if you still get bsod. Dont go over 2.4