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More than 1 stick of memory = lock up

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Last response: in Memory
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Hey guys,

Been searching all over for a good answer/fix for this issue and I cannot find one.

This is the issue:
When I go to this website (and a few others, sometimes youtube will do it) www.speedtest.net and begin the test my computer will freeze up right before it starts the upload speed portion of the test. This happens 100% of the time.
Odd thing is it's never crashed while playing games. :/ 

Through the process of elimination I've discovered if I have more than 1 stick of memory the PC will lock up!

My system: (nothing is OC'd)
ASUS P6T SE
i7 920 @2.67GHz
Kingston DDR3 1333 (3 x 2GB)
GeForce GTX 260 x 2
Crucial 256GB SSD
Anything else?

All of the memory settings are at auto and I've updated my BIOS and drivers thinking that may fix the issue.

Need help please! Considering just buying new memory but I'm afraid that may not fix the issue :??: 

More about : stick memory lock

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Updated to latest flash player, 11.3 and installed Chrome... no luck, still crashes at the same exact point.

Used the Win7 memory diagnostic and everything checked out fine also tried running memtest86 but for some reason I'm unable to boot from my a usb drive or an iso CD image :/ 
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Memory Expert

The ISO file has to be deconstructed and the contents put onto the CD or usb stick. Just copying the ISO file won't work.

ImgBurn should be able to do this if whatever other thing you regularly use isn't capable of it.

Go into your bios and set the memory parameters yourself. You want the voltage at 1.6-1.65; set the first 4 values to what your memory is rated for at the speed it is running at. The memory speed on your system is tied the the base clock speed. Try using an xmp profile choice in the bios as a test. Often the auto settings are not correct. Use CPU-Z to check your memory profiles available and the memory settings for the speed you select. You say all is good with one stick. Is that the case with any of the 3 sticks in any of the 3 slots? Are you using the correct (same color) slots for all 3 sticks?

Thanks Raid, I was using MagicDisk, thought I set up the iso correctly, I'll give ImgBurn a try.

Thanks Dog, yeah, 3 sticks of memory all in the orange slots=freeze, even 2=freeze. I've also tried each stick in the main (orange) slot and they all work fine individually. I'll try changing the bios settings.
Memory Expert

I don't know if Magic Disk can do it, but I think I have used ImgBurn myself in the past to do a similar task. It just matters which settings you choose. If there is some kind of ISO -> CD option it should work. It wouldn't work with a CD -> CD option.

Ok, here's the latest.

I borrowed a friends 8gig G.Skill DDR3 1600 single stick of memory thinking it may fix the issue, installed it and ran the same test (http://www.speedtest.net/) got the same freeze. Restarted and selected an XMP profile and boosted the DRAM Bus Voltage to 1.64.... tested again with the same freeze.

Could this be a motherboard issue?

A couple of thoughts; speed tests use typically either flash or java as does YouTube and similar sites. Make sure yours are up to date to the current versions. Also try shutting down the active protection of your AV and fire wall. They may be blocking the actions. Why only 1 stick gives no issue does suggest that either the MB or CPU may be defective in some way. The 920 (I use one myself) is designed to have a triple channel memory config.

Dogsnake said:
Yes he has said he can run 1 stick in any slot but as soon as he goes 2 or 3 the issue arises.

Correct... until now 1 stick of the 2gig was fine, with the 8gig single stick in its freezing again.

Updated java and flash and turned off my firewall and AV, still getting the freeze up.

Is there a way to tell if the CPU or Motherboard is defective?

I'm stumped at this point.

Only way is to swap one of them out. Some very good repair shops may have a cpu tester but few and far between. If it is the cpu consider an upgrade to a more current model. If it is the MB it might be cost effective to buy a new one. Hard choice either way.
Memory Expert

Did you try the new 1 stick with 8 GBs in every slot, or only the original 2GB sticks in every slot?

Also, just to make sure I have this right, the 1 original stick doesn't freeze in any slot, but the borrowed 8GB stick will freeze in the one you tried it in?

Also, did you manually adjust the RAM settings in the BIOS when you inserted the 8GB 1600 stick? The motherboard must be OCd to use 1600 RAM.

Raiddinn said:
Did you try the new 1 stick with 8 GBs in every slot, or only the original 2GB sticks in every slot?

Also, just to make sure I have this right, the 1 original stick doesn't freeze in any slot, but the borrowed 8GB stick will freeze in the one you tried it in?

Also, did you manually adjust the RAM settings in the BIOS when you inserted the 8GB 1600 stick? The motherboard must be OCd to use 1600 RAM.


Tried the single 8GB in all 3 slots, freeze happens in all of them

Correct, the original 2gb stick would work by itself in all 3 slots, borrowed 8gb freezes.

I set the bios to XMP and manually plugged in the voltage, frequency was already set correctly at 1600.

The 8GB is rated for 9 9 9 24 I believe but set for 10 10 10 (30?) with the XMP setup when I manually try to change it to 9 9 9 24 the overclock fails.
Memory Expert

I am about out of stuff to try at this point other than just reinstall the whole OS.

Bad motherboard is a remote possibility as and bad CPU is still a far remote possibility, but I would think with either of these that you would be able to reproduce the problem some other way which AFAIK you can't.

The issue seems related to the amount of ram in use. 2g is ok in any slot. More than that in a single or multi stick config. causes the issue. This points to some problem with the memory controller. If you had 2 or 3 1g sticks it would be interesting to see what happens when they are used one at a time. MB fail more often than CPU but either could cause this issue.
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