Computer BSODs maybe due to RAM

utaustinstud

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Mar 5, 2008
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Over the past several months I've been getting BSODs under WinXP SP3 and up until now I've always suspected they were software related and some of them probably were. However now I believe they're related to my RAM. I've had 4-5 BSODs in the past few days, most of which have been related to page faults or other RAM issues. I had a BSOD tonight when I got home from work and decided I would run MemTest on my system so I put in the CD and rebooted my computer and sure enough within 45 seconds or so I got some errors. I then rebooted by system and ran MemTest again to see if errors were present and to see if I could repeat the previous results. And sure enough I was able to get errors within 45-60 seconds the 2nd time. I then turned my computer off and took out of the of RAM sticks. I currently have 2x2GB DDR2 800 Crucial Ballistix RAM and they're in RAM slots 1 and 3. Those are the slots they were in when I got the errors tonight. I wanted to see if it was just one of the RAM sticks or both so I took the RAM stick out of slot 3 and reran the test and it seems to give me no errors. Then I took out the RAM that was in slot 1 and put the RAM that was in slot 3 back in slot 3 and reran the test and received no errors. Now in all these tests I've just allowed MemTest to run a couple passes which I know is not very thorough. I then put the RAM in various combinations of slots and switched them around several times and reran MemTest each time through 2 passes and at no point have I gotten errors. I did this same thing a couple days ago after experiencing a BSOD and the same results were received.

It seems as though if I take out the RAM stick and put it back in I'm not getting errors--at least not for a few days but when I get a BSOD and restart with my MemTest CD and run MemTest I then get errors in MemTest and I can do that several times and the errors always appear except if I take out the RAM stick.

Could there be something in the physical act of removing and then replacing the RAM stick that would "reset" or something that would then make it work again? Is this a RAM issue or Motherboard problem? It seems as though these problems are sporadic and not readily reproducible.

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The other reason I believe something hardware related is going on with my system is I downloaded and burned Ubuntu 9.04 to a CD and the installation failed. Before trying the installation I ran the LiveCD and booted into Ubuntu to back my data up and that operation of copying the data from my NTFS formatted hard drive partition I have Windows on to my NTFS formatted 2nd hard drive I use to back my data up onto froze the LiveCD Ubuntu gui. I checked the CD to see if it had any problems using the disk check utility offered with Ubuntu and it said the disk was fine--no errors.

Any help would be much appreciated.
 

roonj

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Sep 24, 2009
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Obviously you've set voltage to manufacturers specifications which are printed on packaging which is usually different than bios defaults. This is a common problem but not always the answer. More importantly all of your described problems are typical of ram faults, set voltage! Then try the test again. Then RMA.
By the way zipzoomflyhigh can I have those chips to give to my Estranged wife and her boyfriend?