Flashing the BIOS ... can this corrupt the RAM?

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Vormund

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Last night I downloaded the latest BIOS update from Asus for my M2N-Plus SLI Vista Edition motherboard. I flashed it from within Windows using Asus Update program, then the PC restarted and all was well.

I had the PC downloading the past few weeks of WWE on Azureus throughout the night. I woke up, hopped on the PC, and started IMing a few people, while checking email etc. Soon after, a nice blue-screen came up, and the computer shut off. I figured it was one of those one-time flukes, but then Vista booted up...tried logging in, and another blue-screen, with the header of "MEMORY_MANAGEMENT".

I then reflashed the BIOS backup, but the errors remained... so I again flashed the latest BIOS.

So I downloaded Memtest86 1.7, ran it, and boom! Hundreds...thousands...of errors. My memory setup is this:
2x 512 MB Dual-Channel
2x 1 GB Dual-Channel

Equal models, same timing etc. The same I had been using for the past five months without issue.

I took out the 2 x 1 GB sticks, and there were no errors. I then placed just the 2 x 1 GB sticks in, and boom! Solid errors. I tried using the alternate memory slots (one pair in dual channel can be used in either set, according to the motherboard manual)... and the same thing... tons of errors with the 2 x 1 GB, and errorless with the 2 x 512 MB.

Now the question is... is this a coincidence? ...or could flashing the BIOS somehow lead to some RAM being corrupted?

Thoughts or ideas?
 
there was no need to flash the Bios , run Memtest one stick at a time and see which ones are dead, if it shows even 1 error on a stick then toss it out as its useless .
 
there was no need to flash the Bios , run Memtest one stick at a time and see which ones are dead, if it shows even 1 error on a stick then toss it out as its useless .
You can't say there was no need to flash the BIOS - I didn't even give the reasoning behind it, nor did I ask anything about how to use Memtest. My only question is if flashing the BIOS can somehow corrupt some of the installed RAM. No offense intended, but please don't respond unless you read the post.
 
It could be your HDD. I had the same problem and was saying something about my memory until i took out my hard drive and put it into another computer boom, it was a HDD. But for your question, no clue.
 
Hi. Flashing BIOS can never damage RAM. When you flash the BIOS, the only thing you're doing is using specific software to re-write the firmware recorded on the corresponding chip on the motherboard. It could never affect a piece of hardware.
 
Flashing BIOS? I don't think flashing the BIOS can have anything to do with the RAM. Anyways, there wasn't really a need to update your BIOS unless something was going wrong.
 
i just skimmed over your post so dont get to upset about what i wrote, anyway no your BIOS has nothing to do with killing your RAM , and like i said test your ram one by one and see which one of those are causing the "MEMORY_MANAGEMENT" problem
 
Flashing BIOS wouldn't actually harm your RAM, but it might make it have errors if it isn't reading it properly and such.
 
Flashing BIOS wouldn't actually harm your RAM, but it might make it have errors if it isn't reading it properly and such.
The BIOS has nothing to do with it. He said tt was running fine for a while.
If the BIOS was at fault, he would have noticed it very quickly.

I still say it's a software problem.
 
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