First Homebuild

[Simpee]

I'm not a huge technical guy but I know a little bit about computers here and there so i thought i would build my own pc.
The parts arrived today and everything has gone fine, the build was ok and windows 7 64 bit installed with few problems. However, i appear to be having problems with the RAM (2 x 2GB sticks) and windows 7:

1. At first, the computer would not boot, it would get stuck at the windows screen then do nothing. I took one of the sticks of RAM out then everything worked fine.
2. Eventually, after a bit of tweaking (although not sure what made the difference), windows 7 will now load with the full 4GB, however it will crash whenever i try to run the index base score. I can't remember off hand which section it crashes on.
3. Finally, the second time i got it to boot with 4GB i chose not to run the base score, however it then crashed when installing a game.

I have read around, on google etc, and found out that the problem does seem to be the RAM.
So any help would be greatly appreciated.

The motherboard:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/258680

The RAM:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/192049

I realise the RAM is not branded and may not appeal straight away, but i read the reviews and they all say that it works fine and is perfect quality.

 

[rwpritchett]

First, verify that you have the memory set up properly in your motherboard's BIOS.

Next, download Memtest86 and burn to a CD. Boot up to that CD and run the memory test for a few hours and report back. You may want to test each stick individually, and then both sticks installed in dual channel mode.

 

[Simpee]

I've tested each stick individually. They both load windows 7 and they neither crash when using the computer for everyday purposes so i'm assuming that the RAM itself is not faulty. However, when using both sticks at the same time, the pc still crashes when trying to run/install games.
I've edited the bios so all the settings are correct from what I can tell. Just about to run the mem test now.

 

[ethel]

1) Try swapping the RAM round. Unlikely to work in these days of dual-channel RAM but worth a try

2) Do what rwpritchett said. It is not uncommon to get a faulty RAM stick and memtest is the best way to test for that