I had built my own system a little over a year back. It was working fine until recently the machine started showing BSODs with different error messages everytime. I am running Visa Business 32-bit on it. (using only 3GB of the available 4GB RAM). One restart Vista indicated a couple of times that the HDD has some problem so I ran WD diagnostics but that came out clean.
I have 4 RAM DIMMS.
I removed 3 and using Windows Memory Diagnostics tested just 1 DIMM installed in Slot 1. The advanced tests (run over at least 8 hrs each) passed with 3 DIMMs and failed with 1. Now I started the PC with only 2 DIMMs installed in dual channel mode. Vista BSOD crashed. Windows memory diag failed. Now again I tested the 3 DIMMs one by one and they failed the memory diagnostics. Sometimes some DIMM used to pass the test.
So now I installed one DIMM in slot 1 and set the RAM settings from BIOS manually. I did set
Memory voltage : 1.90V
DDR2 SDRAM Clock Manually set to 800MHz
SDRAM CAS Latency: 5T,
SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 5T
SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 5T
SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 18T
Command Rate: 2T
The memory diagnostic still failed. I know I haven't used memtest but by now having spend days and hours on the problem I am too frustrated to try on a new diagnostic utility. If someone highly recommends using memtest then I will give it a try.
At this point I am leaning towards the assumption that the motherboard has gone bad. Any thoughts to further troubleshoot the problem?
Also if I were to get a new motherboard what would be a recommended one (I dont want to spend a lot). What other components would/should I upgrade to make the system stable? I am leaning towards Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P or the cheaper Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR.
Current System spec:
I have 4 RAM DIMMS.
I removed 3 and using Windows Memory Diagnostics tested just 1 DIMM installed in Slot 1. The advanced tests (run over at least 8 hrs each) passed with 3 DIMMs and failed with 1. Now I started the PC with only 2 DIMMs installed in dual channel mode. Vista BSOD crashed. Windows memory diag failed. Now again I tested the 3 DIMMs one by one and they failed the memory diagnostics. Sometimes some DIMM used to pass the test.
So now I installed one DIMM in slot 1 and set the RAM settings from BIOS manually. I did set
Memory voltage : 1.90V
DDR2 SDRAM Clock Manually set to 800MHz
SDRAM CAS Latency: 5T,
SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 5T
SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 5T
SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 18T
Command Rate: 2T
The memory diagnostic still failed. I know I haven't used memtest but by now having spend days and hours on the problem I am too frustrated to try on a new diagnostic utility. If someone highly recommends using memtest then I will give it a try.
At this point I am leaning towards the assumption that the motherboard has gone bad. Any thoughts to further troubleshoot the problem?
Also if I were to get a new motherboard what would be a recommended one (I dont want to spend a lot). What other components would/should I upgrade to make the system stable? I am leaning towards Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P or the cheaper Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR.
Current System spec:
1 x Pioneer 20X DVD±RW IDE
1 x D-Link Wireless-G 54Mbps PCI adapter
1 x Western Digital Cavier Green 500GB
1 x Antec Sonata III Mid Tower Case with 500 Watt PSU
1 x BFG GeForce 8800GT OC 512MB Video card
1 x Corsair TWIN2X2048 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory 1.90V (5-5-5-18)
1 x Corsair TWIN2X2048 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory 1.90V (5-5-5-12)
1 x Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 GHz Socket 775 1333MHz 6MB L2 Cache with heat sink
1 x MSI P6N Diamond Motherboard