Certain games crashing due to bad memory?

[jimblob]

Hi when i play certain games like sven co-op, rome total war, counterstrike source my pc crashes, bioshock 2 also crashes but only to the desktop, the rest crash my whole pc, it never crashes on other games like team fortress 2 or dirt 2 etc etc, so why does my pc crash on only certain games but not all of them, is it because of my ram? Because i have heard that that is a symptom of bad ram. Here is my whole system.
intel core 2 duo e8400 3ghz
asus maximus II formula
sapphire ati 4870
4GB generic ram
700w ocz modXstream psu
windows vista home premium 64bit

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
First of all install the latest VGA drivers and also download and install Memtest and run it and check if it reports any errors or not

 

[sub mesa]

Not testing your RAM is like not testing the brakes before a car leaves the factory.

Go download some random ubuntu cd and run Memtest in the boot menu. With unstable RAM, you can get the most weird errors on your PC.

 

[jimblob]

Thanks for the suggestions, i have ran memtest all day today and it showed no errors, i have already installed the latest drivers, so i dont know what could be the problem now :/

 

[Maziar]

Can you test your VGA in another system?

 

[Guest]

I had this issue a long time ago (back when DDR3 was still about $50 a gig) and what it was in my case was that some sticks of ram require a little extra juice. The example I can give is that in my case my sticks were labeled at 1.5V (standard for DDR3) and I would get crash after crash in bioshock (1) and when I tested it, it always passed. I did some digging and it turns out that the type of memory (Manufactured by PDP aka Patriot) needs about 1.65-1.7V to be completely stable. So the first place I would go is to up your voltage about 0.1V at a time until your system is no longer crashing out. WARNING! Doing so may void your warranty so contact the manufacturer. Also if your running 0.3V over spec, your in danger if frying your ram. Don't go beyond that!

 

[jimblob]

Can you test your VGA in another system?

Thanks but when i first got my pc i had a 4850, but i didn't want it any more so i broke it and said that "it just died" lol so i had a reason to get a new one, this problem happened when i had the 4850 as-well so i don't think it will be my graphics card

 

[donpacific2k]

It still sounds like a driver issue rather than ram. What about completely uninstalling and trying an older build?

 

[jimblob]

It still sounds like a driver issue rather than ram. What about completely uninstalling and trying an older build?

its not drivers i know that for sure becuase it has happened for a while, not just started happening recently

 

[donpacific2k]

I guess I should have said "it sounds like a software issue". Something corrupted either in windows, directx, drivers, the ntfs volume, or the game itself (less likely since it happens with multiple games). If you've been installing one driver over another for a while now without completely uninstalling, the problem file could be still hanging around. You could also try reinstalling directx. I have heard that some games have refresh rate problems with dx10 that cause a crash to desktop, that could sometimes be solved by forcing the refresh rate in game to 60hz.

Memtest isn't the end all, but if you ran it all day, it's problably fine. Honestly for all the talk of bad ram as a cause of problems, I personally have never once gotten a bad stick, even with generic. Whereas I have had tons of motherboard and video card problems.