Strange graphics behavior in Win7 after doubling memory

[davbeisner]

Ok, got a strange graphics thing... I have a PCI-E ATI Radeon x1300 graphics card, nothing big or special, that I'm running on a brand new install of Windows 7 Pro x64. When I first booted up, everything ran marvelously and things were awesome. The graphics card didn't need its own drivers installed (which is good because the newest ones I found online were for Vista x64), and my 24" widescreen LCD monitor was showing a beautiful 1920x1080 resolution.

Then Windows update told me that there was a set of updates to be run, and I ran them. Don't remember if one was for graphics or not. Ran the updates, computer rebooted, and everything seemed okay. Then I installed more memory. The computer had started with 2 1GB sticks of ram, and I added two more 1GB sticks (my mobo supports up to 4GB of DDR memory in four channels).

After adding the memory, my display reset to 800x600 and now will not go higher than 1400x1050, even though it shows the ability to run up to 1920x1440 (doesn't even show 1920x1080 anymore, which is what I want). At first I thought it must have been something in the Windows update, so I rolled back those updates, but got no change; so now I'm thinking it was something to do with the memory. Also, the display runs really slowly when I'm in text boxes now, like when I'm typing this... I can type much faster than it will refresh. I also tried downloading the newest display drivers for my card, (for Windows Vista x64) but they're not making any difference.

The memory I added is exactly the same (DDR400 PC-3200) that was in there already, just a different manufacturer (original was Corsair, new stuff is G-Skill). And I do have the chips in the proper slots to take advantage of the dual-channel feature (original Corsair in slots 1,3 and new G-Skill in slots 2,4).

My mobo is an Asus A8R32MVP Deluxe and I'm running an older AMD 64bit processor. I am not overclocking anything.

Any ideas or suggestions for me?

 

[davbeisner]

So I bought a brand-new graphics card that is supposed to work with Windows 7, installed it, and it still isn't working properly. Windows 7 will not permit me to install the drivers, it's just using its own Vgasave driver... Any ideas?

 

[davbeisner]

Ok, I dug a little deeper and discovered that some sort of memory conflict was happening between the video card and a couple other devices on the computer. As soon as I removed the new memory I had installed, and rebooted windows, everything ran perfectly and the conflict is gone. The downside is that I am now down to only 2GB of memory, which for video editing, is pretty rough. Does anyone have any pointers for how I can put that memory back in and resolve the conflicts? There was some sort of memory address conflict, and maybe and IRQ conflict as well. I'm completely lost when it comes that stuff, though...

 

[x-nitrous-x]

I wouldn't mix the memory like that get 4gbs of the same stuff..

 

[davbeisner]

could that be the problem? I tried to get the same thing, but newegg no longer sells it and I can't afford to get a fresh four gigs... Is there any other potential fix besides replacing the Corsair with another set of G-Skill?

 

[x-nitrous-x]

memory (ram) is so unpredictable you can see what kind of chips are on the sticks like who manufactured the individual chips like hynix or micron and go from there

theres not much you can do for an irq conflict with the memory..

in other words there is no magic settings to make ram thats incompatible with each other work together properly..

i sure wish there was.. heh

 

[fatsauce]

The thing about ram is that you really want to get the same stuff...you have the right speed in there, but the timing could be off...look of the specs of the ram then 2gigs u have in there and google them to see the latency ex(2-3-3-5) annd look at the voltages as well. do the same with the g skill look for the timing specs and voltage. Wouldnt be a bad idea to disable the dual channel in both slots in the bios and see if that works..the ram will just work as single channel.

 

[davbeisner]

hmm... okay, might give that a shot

got a friend who needs 2 1gb sticks, so I may sell him my corsair and buy two more gskill... but just to be sure before i go buy more g-skill, what i described could/would happen if i had mis-matched ram? could there be anything else wrong?

 

[x-nitrous-x]

I am 99.9% sure that is your only issue at the moment from the symptoms and configuration you described..

 

[davbeisner]

ok, well, i'll give it a shot...