New overall topic: RAM vs MOBO issues!
Okay, where to begin.
All right, so lately I have been trying to rebuild my computer with some upgrades here and there, needless to say, things have not gone well.
My original setup was:
2.20 ghz Dual Core Socket 775 CPU
A-Bit FP-IN9 SLI mobo
Geforce 8600 GT
3 GB Single Channel DDR2 400mhz Ram
and I planned to upgrade.
So my first upgrade with my GPU, and i planned and did pick up others as well.
Currently I am running:
2.93 ghz 7500 Dual Core
A-bit FP-IN9 SLI mobo
Geforce gtx 260
4GB (2x2) Dual Channel DDR2 800 mhz Ram
Needless to say, I have been having massive issues with this tech move. Originally I saw all the product I was buying and said "oh hey, this looks good, it's all compatibile etc.. let's do it," so for a relatively small price I would be able to play SC2 competitivly (I mean really competitively), do well with no lag in games, make some money (I told you it was competitive) and have a decent rig to start off with before I started to make a move towards a progaming computer.
Well, well, well, the problems have surely amounted to something that I simply cannot fix. It seems that A-Bit went under a couple years ago. Originally with the processor, it was permanently reading 92c/198f, I had assumed that it was an issue with the processor and declared it DOA, well the second one came in with similar results. It turns out that the motherboard didn't initially partake to that CPU, but had the POTENTIAL to support it. After digging around me and a few of my tech buddies managed to find a 'nonpublic bios 18' for the FP-IN9 SLI Mobo. After installing it, the motherboard properly read the CPU temperature (we also had used a program in windows to confirm that the CPU wasn't actually running at that ridiculous temperature at the time,) and a friend of mine which is superior to me in the journey of tech, unlinked the memory and the CPu, set it up correctly (at least I think it was correctly) to the CPU running at 2.93 ghz, and the ram running at 800 mhz frequency.
Now after that fix, I started running into problems. In Windows, I experienced a variation of crashing, and 'corrupted data,' and I was even unable to load WoW up from time to time, once it loaded, a couple times it crash, it loaded, etc.
So after these problems, I assumed that maybe, just maybe, it was time to reformat the computer. I figured at this point I wasn't going to reinstall the Starcraft 2 beta, I felt that I had a good enough reason to reformat. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I went to reformat my computer back onto my Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and alas I got an error while unpacking/extracting phase around 10-20%. And this happened repeatedly. I had a couple different Disks I tried. It was an attempt at installing the 64 bit version each time. At this point, which is my closest 'destination' since than, I figured perhaps a RAM problem?
So I took some advice off the handy internet here, and I downloaded a program called Memtest86+, during the first cycle I had an error on 'test #7', which I read could be a voltage issue. Not wanting to smack down a good friend of mine that does this sort of stuff as an extensive hobby, it made me want to look a little further. Upon my research I found that some people experience some of these malcontent issues with memtest86+ but do not in memtest86, also memtest86 is a little more recently updated by a couple months. So I figure the newer program might lead to some more valid and accurate results.
Currently I am residing in memtest86 through my first Pass through with no errors whatsoever, after recieving 31 errors during test #7. I am wondering what my next step here is.
A few questions to go with this:
- Why didn't windows 7 extract correctly? Or unpack.. it's the second step I don't remember off the top of my head, that doesn't make sense.
- Memtest86 coming back clean and memtest86+ giving me errors on test #7? That seems odd.
- Could my motherboard be truly causing all these problems? I really want to diagnose this thouroughly and understand what is going on before I toss a few more dollars down the drain, especially if I don't need to.
Any help, suggestions, guiding lightj on this insane situation would be most appreciated, I have been up for almost 12 hours now dealing with this computer, looking for information on what my next step is while doing various tests. I can't even pin down if my RAM is truly stable, and my instincts say motherboard. To be quite honest, I don't really feel comfortable using a BIOS that is made essentially by the community. I feel like there could be so many variables and issues that could arise later that I would simply be stuck on. But as I said, I am very reluctant to make a decision that the motherboard is the problem without more testing or community feedback, and to be honest, I don't know anyone in real life at this point that I could talk to, that's why I turned here.
Sorry for the ridiculously long post, the adrenaline to get this made public and the possibility of getting some well thought and educated answers has me pretty excited and nervous about the variations.
Okay, where to begin.
All right, so lately I have been trying to rebuild my computer with some upgrades here and there, needless to say, things have not gone well.
My original setup was:
2.20 ghz Dual Core Socket 775 CPU
A-Bit FP-IN9 SLI mobo
Geforce 8600 GT
3 GB Single Channel DDR2 400mhz Ram
and I planned to upgrade.
So my first upgrade with my GPU, and i planned and did pick up others as well.
Currently I am running:
2.93 ghz 7500 Dual Core
A-bit FP-IN9 SLI mobo
Geforce gtx 260
4GB (2x2) Dual Channel DDR2 800 mhz Ram
Needless to say, I have been having massive issues with this tech move. Originally I saw all the product I was buying and said "oh hey, this looks good, it's all compatibile etc.. let's do it," so for a relatively small price I would be able to play SC2 competitivly (I mean really competitively), do well with no lag in games, make some money (I told you it was competitive) and have a decent rig to start off with before I started to make a move towards a progaming computer.
Well, well, well, the problems have surely amounted to something that I simply cannot fix. It seems that A-Bit went under a couple years ago. Originally with the processor, it was permanently reading 92c/198f, I had assumed that it was an issue with the processor and declared it DOA, well the second one came in with similar results. It turns out that the motherboard didn't initially partake to that CPU, but had the POTENTIAL to support it. After digging around me and a few of my tech buddies managed to find a 'nonpublic bios 18' for the FP-IN9 SLI Mobo. After installing it, the motherboard properly read the CPU temperature (we also had used a program in windows to confirm that the CPU wasn't actually running at that ridiculous temperature at the time,) and a friend of mine which is superior to me in the journey of tech, unlinked the memory and the CPu, set it up correctly (at least I think it was correctly) to the CPU running at 2.93 ghz, and the ram running at 800 mhz frequency.
Now after that fix, I started running into problems. In Windows, I experienced a variation of crashing, and 'corrupted data,' and I was even unable to load WoW up from time to time, once it loaded, a couple times it crash, it loaded, etc.
So after these problems, I assumed that maybe, just maybe, it was time to reformat the computer. I figured at this point I wasn't going to reinstall the Starcraft 2 beta, I felt that I had a good enough reason to reformat. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I went to reformat my computer back onto my Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and alas I got an error while unpacking/extracting phase around 10-20%. And this happened repeatedly. I had a couple different Disks I tried. It was an attempt at installing the 64 bit version each time. At this point, which is my closest 'destination' since than, I figured perhaps a RAM problem?
So I took some advice off the handy internet here, and I downloaded a program called Memtest86+, during the first cycle I had an error on 'test #7', which I read could be a voltage issue. Not wanting to smack down a good friend of mine that does this sort of stuff as an extensive hobby, it made me want to look a little further. Upon my research I found that some people experience some of these malcontent issues with memtest86+ but do not in memtest86, also memtest86 is a little more recently updated by a couple months. So I figure the newer program might lead to some more valid and accurate results.
Currently I am residing in memtest86 through my first Pass through with no errors whatsoever, after recieving 31 errors during test #7. I am wondering what my next step here is.
A few questions to go with this:
- Why didn't windows 7 extract correctly? Or unpack.. it's the second step I don't remember off the top of my head, that doesn't make sense.
- Memtest86 coming back clean and memtest86+ giving me errors on test #7? That seems odd.
- Could my motherboard be truly causing all these problems? I really want to diagnose this thouroughly and understand what is going on before I toss a few more dollars down the drain, especially if I don't need to.
Any help, suggestions, guiding lightj on this insane situation would be most appreciated, I have been up for almost 12 hours now dealing with this computer, looking for information on what my next step is while doing various tests. I can't even pin down if my RAM is truly stable, and my instincts say motherboard. To be quite honest, I don't really feel comfortable using a BIOS that is made essentially by the community. I feel like there could be so many variables and issues that could arise later that I would simply be stuck on. But as I said, I am very reluctant to make a decision that the motherboard is the problem without more testing or community feedback, and to be honest, I don't know anyone in real life at this point that I could talk to, that's why I turned here.
Sorry for the ridiculously long post, the adrenaline to get this made public and the possibility of getting some well thought and educated answers has me pretty excited and nervous about the variations.
Welcome to TF!
