took the plunge and built my first system february this year and so far it has run better than any i have bought or had upgraded.

so far so good i thought i would treat myself to some more ram from 512 to the full gigabyte with an extra stick of ddr every time i try this all my programs run for about a minute and crash out with no explanation from xp bar the usaul reporting pop up .
it aint the ram itself as i have just swapped it today and get the same result.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte k7 triton GA-7n400 pro 2 which gets rave reviews and so far has been excellent it should take 3 gig of ram any ideas what i am doing wrong.

do i need to update drivers ? as all ram i have installed before on other systems has been recognised immeadiatley no problems.

any ideas any one

 

Is it trying to run in dual channel mode? Been reading that you need to get matched pairs for dual channel, minimum of timing, size, no. of chips. Even some from the same manufacturer don't work together.

Try moving the RAM to another DIMM slot, and if poss, try it so that Dual Channel is not in use (if it's not already).

Do a google for memtest86 and download and run that. It makes an image on a floppy disk and stress tests the memory in your system.

You may just have a duff stick. Just seen you've ruled the duff stick out. However, if they are running dual channel, they may be compatible with your current stick. Another thing to do, particularly with the memtest86, is to test each stick individually to make sure they are OK.

 

mixing the wrong type of ram will cause the pc to crash/hang try using the pc with only one stick of ram

 

try just the new RAM on it's own with no setting changes to determine if it's the new RAM at fault or simply the mixing and matching.

Memtest86 is good and you do not need to do anything to XP before or after installing more RAM, unless you go over 4gig.

 

What power supply?


M

 

thanks for replies

Hanslow
may be onto something there.

Stvebt
i was careful about selecting ram as the place i bought it from checked with what i had already bought and matched it

Lum
it has already run aok on one stick of 512 since march this year but i will try the new stick on its own first.

Meridian
power supply was initialy in issue on the build and had to be upgraded so its unlikley to be that plus this is only an issue when extra ram is installed

 

Actually the symptoms you describe are typical of inadequate power: RAM pulls big power, especially at startup. And you didn't answer the question... If it's less than 400W it's very likely to be the PSU. Over 400W less likely, but not certain - depends on the brand and specs.


M

 

agreed, mine was a pain in the **** untill i replaced my 350 watt P/S

 

ok power supply is ENCER ARX 350W.

 

things are getting stranger.

on board agp fan is fecked and i also find they have given me an ss ddr when i have already have double sided.
also the way i had installed meant it was in single channel mode so i now have to look for a new agp fan and a 400 w power supply

By the way tried moving around the ram to different slots with results, from boot then an immeadiate freeze, to being forced into safe mode(which didnt work) to no boot at all