New build. Freezing

[alextheawesome]

Hello, first off here's my specs to let you guys know.
AMD X3 720
Gigabyte GA-MA790GPT-UD3H
G.Skill Ripjaws the 7-7-7-21 one's
OCz StealthXstream OCZ700SXS
Radeon 5870

So here's the problem. I installed windows 7, everything worked fine at first. Installed all my drivers and some programs. Now when installing programs or just surfing the web it freezes. Nothing respons, no C-A-D or anything. Have to turn it off and boot back up and windows doesn't say any errors. I'm thinking the problem is that I got some bad RAM. I'm going to be running some Memtest. What do you guys recommend?

 

[dndhatcher]

Make sure bios has the correct memory timings and voltage. Sometimes the autodetect gets it wrong.

 

[alextheawesome]

Hmm, well this is weird. My mobo is putting the voltage for the ram, which is rated at 1.5; at 1.6 and up, can't chose 1.5. I can't put it at the stock voltage. Should this be an issue?

 

[alextheawesome]

UPDATE: Both ram sticks checked out okay. When I only use one stick it works. So I'm thinking it's something with the sockets on the mobo, I will try switching to a different socket and see if that check out.

 

[alextheawesome]

UPDATE AGAIN: Hmm so everything seems to be working now. The only thing that I can think of that I did was update the firmware on the DVD burner which added windows 7 support.

 

[notty22]

Just you resetting the ram is PROBABLY what fixed it. Lot of contact points with ram (stating the obvious) on both sides. And its very common taking the ram out and reseating fixes many "strange" problems.

 

[alextheawesome]

Really? Well you learn something new every day (even if it takes your whole afternoon)

 

[ace700]

alot of times ram gets some power from the cmos battery and stores certin information on the ram.

 

[alextheawesome]

Damn, it's doing it again. It seems to only do it when I have two sticks installed.

 

[dndhatcher]

Increase the RAM voltage a little bit. Some motherboards need more voltage with more RAM sticks. Also try the other pair of RAM sockets.

 

[alextheawesome]

Well everything now seems to be working. The only thing is, the computer will only freeze when I use a torrenting program.