1st time builder freezing problem

[Myrrh]

Hi there I was wondering if I might be able to trouble all you fine people for a spot of help. I'm 90-95% sure its a motherboard/RAM issue my brother believes my PSU is insufficient.

I've got a Phenom 2 965 on an ASUS m4a77td pro with a Ati Radeon 4670 PCI-e card with a single 2 gig stick of Samsung DDR2 1333 Mhz the PSU is a 500 watt 20 pin affair.

In the early days it was freezing all over the shop, it'd freeze in the BIOS, it'd freeze before I could load the BIOS, installing windows was an utter impossibility as it'd complain about files on the windows disk being corrupt. My brother came out to take a look at it and underclocked the RAM and over-volted it (I'm unsure to what).

A couple of weeks later I note that my motherboard has a BIOS update to address a freezing problem with this single stick samsung DDR2 1333 so gleefully I download it, hoping I can restore defaults and everything will be super.

Having restored defaults the freezing it back. Never in BIOS now, always as windows is loading, safe mode seems to indicate its freezing on atipcie.sys, though once when waiting for a while on this file, the computer restarted itself. Putting my windows disk in the drive and booting from it, it said that it found a problem with the windows install and I asked it to repair it. This did nothing, and now future attempts to repair lead to it freezing either immediately after I click repair or while it detects windows installs.

 

[Myrrh]

Sorry thats DDR3 not 2, it won't let me edit the post unfortunately. Also the windows in question is 7 64 bit ultimate.

 

[MadAdmiral]

Start by setting the RAM to the exact manufacturer's specs (find them on their website) in BIOS. This is the most common cause of freezing problems.

If that doesn't fix it, it might be that you have a bad HDD. It might be worth it to backup all the data and do a complete rebuild (reformat, reinstall Windows and programs).

 

[Myrrh]

The website seems to load a blank page for the samsung k4b1g0846d hch9 DDR3 are there any other places I might be able to find that information (And thank you for the swift reply)

 

[MadAdmiral]

Are you sure? It would be near unheard of for a manufacturer to not list the product on their website. Wherever you bought it should have it. Or you could check Newegg.

 

[Myrrh]

Eventually got a hold of it, though apperently the part number of my RAM means its a 1 GB module, when in fact its a 2 GB RAM stick.
JEDEC standard 1.5V ± 0.075V Power Supply
• VDDQ = 1.5V ± 0.075V

Does this mean I should run it not underclocked at 1.5volts? (just double checking before I blow anything up)

 

[Myrrh]

I've tried from 1.5 to 1.575 volts on it and it still hangs on safe mode loading at atipcie.sys

 

[shortstuff_mt]

The RAM should have a sticker on it that lists what speed/timings/voltage it's rated to run at. Those are the exact values you need to enter into the BIOS. Just changing the voltage without changing the voltage and timings probably won't help.

 

[Myrrh]

Its at the correct speed 1333 Mhz but the stick on the RAM stick doesn't detail a voltage for it at all,. Before my brother tells me he had to push the RAM voltage up into the yellow zone to get it running, and he lowered the clock speed to try and compensate. He said that this was a stop gap solution only though and I should get it sorted in the long run before it shorted and killed the RAM and the motherboard.

 

[MadAdmiral]

Well, setting the RAM to the specs is a critical step. I have a feeling your brother made it worse by not knowing what to actually do. Once you figure out the true settings, you should run MemTest 86+ overnight to see if the RAM is faulty. It won't work right if you don't have the RAM setting correct.

 

[Myrrh]

I've checked it at every single voltage setting in the 1.5 +/- 0.075 range that the documentation seems to suggest and the only one that seems to get it working is 1.59 Which is of course 0.015 over that supposed upper range.