OK - now I'm confused

GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
edited January 2004 in Hardware
This whole thing started when my girlfriend was experiencing lockups while playing Age of Mythology. I tested the RAM and it tested bad with memtest.

I replaced the RAM with two known good sticks of Kingston, which I pretested with memtest before installation into the PC. It worked fine for a few days. Then, after I shut the PC down to replace the video card with a 9600, Windows began giving me major errors and wouldn't log in to any profile. Every time I tried to log in, I would get a series of 'file read/write' errors for a whole bunch of different files used in startup.

I pulled the stick of RAM in bank 3, leaving one stick in bank 2. XP ran chkdsk on the next boot and then worked fine. I tried putting the RAM in slots 1 and 2. Same problem. It ran just fine for 2 days with 1 stick in slot 2. Assuming RAM banks 1 and 3 were bad, I intended to RMA the board, but in the meantime I brought over a known good stick of 512MB and put it in slot 2, to keep her running with 512MB.

I got the same error.

Now I'm really confused. I thought that she had some bad RAM slots, but it apears that for some reason the PC is no longer capable of running with 512MB of RAM, but works just fine with 1 stick of 256MB, which I tried in all 3 slots after the 512 didn't work. One stick of 256 works fine on the PC in any slot.

What is going on here?

Here's the PC's specs:
A7N8X-Deluxe
XP2100+ @ 13x166
256/512MB Kinston PC2100 @ 133, stock timings OR
512MB Samsung PC2700 @166, stock timings
Radeon 9600
Maxtor 60GB
420W CWT (AMD Approved) PSU

Thanks in advance for any help.

Comments

  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Let me get this straight, you can run a single stick of ram, 256 or 512, in any slot. But you can't run two sticks in any combination??
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Not quite.... Looks like board no longer accepts 512 in any one socket. Hmm.... Let's see if this is a TOTAL limit or a socket\slot limit per slot.... GH, do you have another 256 stick??? Try TWO 256 sticks, see if this is a per socket mapping limit. If you did that already, RMA board, power circuits for RAM voltage and\or amperage supply are bad.... Low voltage dropdown circuit has defects in that case, and RAM, video card, and CPU are fighting for limited total watts. One other thing Possible is a bad PSU, here, if it cannot feed enough low leg then the PSU may be heat damaged or have taken a surge that partially damaged it.

    Edcentric, he said when he stuck just a 512 MB in box, he got same error, which says to me it is either wattage overload or a wattage underpower on cirucit of leg on mobo for voltages less than 3 volts or 5 volt leg in box has an intermittent ground short in it. Could be from PSU out into box, could be board low voltage reg or supply circuits, possible bad CAPs in power supply chain for low voltage, that is just marginally failing right now-- IF 2 256 sticks does not work.

    GH, do this:

    Try a second 256 RAM stick, preferably same specs as one that works. If tests bad, swap out PSU OR plug box into a different surge strip(retest after changing surge strip, if good, was bad surge strip), retest. IF still bad memtest test, RMA BOARD if plugging box into a different surge strip does not work and P{SU has been swapped out and test fails. If good test, was bad PSU or damaged PSU AND\or bad surge strip failure (both being damaged inside could cause this also, and this would mean a damage cascade chain effect, surge strip damaqged, undersupplies PSU, PSU then has more draw than it can handle versus supply, heats up, and gets damaged more and more gradually). Bad PSU or surge damaged surge strip can cause this, PSUs have total watt limits, and if underpowered can feed less unevenly on any one leg than others, based on details of inner design.

    John.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    bro, the boards jacked. why bang your head against the wall? you're already RMA'ing the thing, just get on with your life.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    John - yes, it does fail with 2 256MB sticks as well. I'll try both a different PSU and different surge strip and see if that clears anything up, otherwise it's off to RMA.

    kanez - I bang my head against the wall because my girlfriend demands a working PC with 100% uptime - so I need to find a replacement mobo before RMA. :banghead:
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    OK - it's definitely gone totally bust! My gilrfriend told me yesterday that the PC is now having the same problem with only 1 256MB stick of RAM in it. Time for an RMA - I hope Asus is reasonable and doesn't put me through too much crap...
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