Blue Screen help needed please

[ctrlaltdel72]

Hey

I just bought that new nice rig, six years after my last one:

Case: Full Tower - CoolerMaster CM Stacker
Power Supply: 650W Antec Trio
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Conroe E6700 (Dual Core 2.67GHz - 4MB L2 - 1066 FSB)
Graphic: ATI Radeon X1900XTX
Mainboard: Intel Bad Axe (Intel 975X - 8 x SATA RAID - 3 PCIe x16)
Memory: 2048 MB DDR2 PC6400 (800MHz - 2 x 1024MB Dual Channel) Corsair
Sound: Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
Storage :
2 x WD Raptor SATA - 74 GB (16MB - 10'000RPM) - in RAID
1 x 250GB (7200RPM - SATA2 - 16MB)
Optical Drives:
16x DVD Writer 8.5GB? (Double Layer)
16x DVD-Rom
LAN: Gigabit 10/100/1000M

As you guess, it costed me some money, but as it's been 6 years since my last rig, I decided to buy a good one.

Now I'm experiencing IRQL_DRIVER_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL crashes. Sometimes I get that nice blue screen, sometimes the PC just restarts without warning. That happens often when I'm playing BF2, but also when playing other games, or even when just surfing the web.

I brought the PC back to the shop, they told me they update the RAID drivers, and reinstalled it fully. This didn't change a thing.
So I used Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to check the RAM. The basic test succeeds no problem, so does MEMtest86+ v1.65. But when I run Windows test in extended mode, I get 5 errors on MATS+ uncached test (well I think it's that...maybe WATS+ ? if both are possible I'll check for the right one tonight and upadte my post.)

As my shop runs memtest and say it's the best memory tester, they hardly believe it's a RAM problem as the test passes no problem.

In short: I spent a lot for a lovely rig that makes me lots of trouble. Any help would be very, very appreciated. If you need more infos, please ask, I'll post that.

 

[OatesyX]

you best option is to take out 1 stick of ram, and use 1 gig for a few hours and see if you get a blue screen and then try the other stick in on its own,, a quicker option would be to borrow other ram from some1

 

[vagnozzi]

Also, what are you using to cool down that beast of a processor?

Overheating is an issue as well, especially if you have the stock heatsink/fan combo take it from me, I know!

 

[doox00]

yep, I would try one stick of ram at a time first off as well.

 

[ctrlaltdel72]

Also, what are you using to cool down that beast of a processor?

Overheating is an issue as well, especially if you have the stock heatsink/fan combo take it from me, I know!

I have a Scythe Ninja that should do the job. The computer's been entirely built by the shop (with suggestions from myself), so they should have sold me enough power/cooling/etc for the beast. And I don't think it's a problem like that as this can happen when I only browse the web, or when I hardly play hudge resource eating games.

I'll try IrishNinjaX idea of taking out 1 stick at a time tonight (should have thought about it myself.....)

thanks anyway guys, I'll keep this post updated with the results and/or questions

 

[ctrlaltdel72]

well, I tried to use that Windows Memory test with one stick at a time, and the results are surprising: Both stick pass the tests when they are alone on first slot of MOBO. I then thought this might come from the 3rd slot of my mobo (second blue one), so I did put one stick on this slot and none on the first one, and this gave me an error on first pass. BUT I did let it do a second pass and this gave me success...

I still want to test the second stick on 3rd slot, to make sure, but it's weird that one pass gives an error and not the next one. By the way the only error I had is not at the same address than any of the five errors I get with two sticks on slots 1-3.

So my question is: is this Windows Memory test reliable ? (it's mtinst.exe, found after clicking on "send report" after crash).

Second question how can I configure memtest to get deeper analysis of the RAM ? The error I get always come from MATS+ Cache off tests, which does not seem to happen (or be tested) with memtest.

Third question: can I use the two other slots on my MOBO instead of these two ? (the black ones instead of the blue ones). Will this have any effect on performance ?

Any help /advise appreciated as I'm quite lost here...

 

[vagnozzi]

feel free for anyone to correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have (4) slots for RAM, and you plan on using two of them, isn't it good practice to put one module in slot 1 and one in slot 3?

i thought putting two modules in slot 1 and slot 2 is not reccommended for some boards?

 

[ctrlaltdel72]

yep, that's what I have, 1 and 3, and am asking if 2 and 4 would be the same as that. I think you're right about 1 and 3, that's what I heard too

 

[OatesyX]

usualy if theres 4 dimm slots the dual channel options are (1&3) and (2&4) thats the only way dual channel work

 

[M3Cosmos]

Does anyone know why you should use 1&3 or 2&4? I heard this but it's never been proved to me.