Hello everyone, hopefully someone could be kind enough to offer me a bit of advice as to what some possible problems might be for my situation.
The computer in question is one that I've had for a couple of years now (it's a home build). It recently started exhibiting what appeared to me to be RAM problems. It started with small things such as randomly corrupting zip archives that I had download via Bittorrent. It then progressed to actually BSODing with errors that referenced specific memory addresses.
This of course prompted me to use memtest86 to run a scan on the RAM. It naturally came up with several different errors, so I set off to replace the RAM.
My motherboard is an ASUS P5V800-MX:
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
The "bad" RAM was 2 500 MB sticks of PC3200 dual channel RAM, made by Gigabyte. Again, this RAM worked in this machine for a couple of years before showing these problem.
As it happened, my wife had recently purchased some new RAM for her computer, and her machine happened to use the exact same type of RAM as mine. So I took two of her 500 MB sticks that she no longer needed. The RAM that I took from her machine was not replaced because it was bad, it was replaced because she simply got 2 bigger sticks to put into those slots. It never showed any sort of problems in her machine.
This is the RAM that I got from her, and that I am now attempting to get to work in my machine:
Kingston Memory 512MBx2-Dual Channel Memory KVR400X64C3AK2 1GB PC3200 DDR400 DDR Memory Non ECC DIMM Memory-Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com
As you can see it is also dual channel PC3200 RAM. The specs match what my motherboard is compatible with perfectly, from everything that I can see.
So I installed this RAM, and boot went perfectly fine, detecting the proper amount of RAM. However, after about 5 minutes of being booted, the machine restarts itself without so much as a BSOD or anything. After this occurred several times, I was forced to install my old RAM again. While this does give me problems, it at least will sometimes let my PC go without rebooting for a day or two at a time.
At this point, I'm beginning to think that the problem is not with the actual RAM itself. Does anyone have any ideas what the issue may be? Unfortunately, I suspect that it's an issue with the board, and I may just have to replace it altogether. Other theories are welcome, however.
Thanks for your time.
The computer in question is one that I've had for a couple of years now (it's a home build). It recently started exhibiting what appeared to me to be RAM problems. It started with small things such as randomly corrupting zip archives that I had download via Bittorrent. It then progressed to actually BSODing with errors that referenced specific memory addresses.
This of course prompted me to use memtest86 to run a scan on the RAM. It naturally came up with several different errors, so I set off to replace the RAM.
My motherboard is an ASUS P5V800-MX:
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
The "bad" RAM was 2 500 MB sticks of PC3200 dual channel RAM, made by Gigabyte. Again, this RAM worked in this machine for a couple of years before showing these problem.
As it happened, my wife had recently purchased some new RAM for her computer, and her machine happened to use the exact same type of RAM as mine. So I took two of her 500 MB sticks that she no longer needed. The RAM that I took from her machine was not replaced because it was bad, it was replaced because she simply got 2 bigger sticks to put into those slots. It never showed any sort of problems in her machine.
This is the RAM that I got from her, and that I am now attempting to get to work in my machine:
Kingston Memory 512MBx2-Dual Channel Memory KVR400X64C3AK2 1GB PC3200 DDR400 DDR Memory Non ECC DIMM Memory-Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com
As you can see it is also dual channel PC3200 RAM. The specs match what my motherboard is compatible with perfectly, from everything that I can see.
So I installed this RAM, and boot went perfectly fine, detecting the proper amount of RAM. However, after about 5 minutes of being booted, the machine restarts itself without so much as a BSOD or anything. After this occurred several times, I was forced to install my old RAM again. While this does give me problems, it at least will sometimes let my PC go without rebooting for a day or two at a time.
At this point, I'm beginning to think that the problem is not with the actual RAM itself. Does anyone have any ideas what the issue may be? Unfortunately, I suspect that it's an issue with the board, and I may just have to replace it altogether. Other theories are welcome, however.
Thanks for your time.
