flashgordon666

I upgraded my pcs ram to 2gb max it and maybe because it was very cheap ram it screwed my pc up crashed it about 20 times in 10seconds every restart, then it came up systems32 file missing and I had to reinstall my windows wiping 2 years of work on my hard drive.

I dont want the same to happen was it just that ram?

Shark Man

Could be; it can corrupt any file written back to HD...and those will be critical system files that are read/written to memory whilst the system is running. However you should recover your own files...its only the system files and file in use at the time that the errors occur will corrupt; so no need to re-format. Just a system repair or re-install should sort it (making sure you copy everything out of "my documents" using a recovery console) Word of advice; don't store critical data in "My documents" Or "my Pictures" etc. stick it in its own directory, preferably on a seperate hard disk partition - otherwise you risk losing it all when re-installing windows..

I learnt the same the hard way too (lucky it was a new PC, so nothing critical lost). Inccidentally; I tested two other new machines (same batch) that were working ok and found one also RAM errors - even though it appeared to run fine.


Do yourself a favour; whenever buying new ram ALWAYS run a memory diagnostic program before booting the system:

Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

and/or

Microsoft Online Crash Analysis


Preferably leave it run overnight and see if any errors pop up. Also run it with your old "good" RAM to ensure that's ok and that there isn't an underlying problem with the system causing the new RAM to trip over (for example a dodgy power supply can cause errors on a faster/larger RAM chips but appear ok on slower chips).


RAM erros can also be caused by incompatiblity with the motherboard, where the BOIS doesn't detect the correct SPD timing/voltages. If the options in the BIOS support it: Set the memory timing and voltages to the reccomended setting given by the RAM manufacturers (they are often found on their website).

Finally mixing old RAM with new RAM can cause issues - especially if they are different makes and specs. Although the motherboard should default to the settings for the slower RAM, depends how good/fussy the board is.

Some RAM manufacturers do have good tech support as well; Corsair has a good forum for their memory "RAM guy" is the man in the know

jpor

iTrader: (1)

That takes me back a few years. This happened to me once when I built a brand new set-up. At the time thought it was my HDD at first. Restarted from scratch and noticed Windows wouldn't install correctly and crashed. Then with abit of investigation found that the default settings in the BIOS had the wrong RAM timings set-up for the RAM i was using. Did a bit of research and manually set the timings to something slower and then never looked back after that. Not always faulty RAM but faulty settings can cause this.

scoobyverysoon

iTrader: (1)

You should always try and make a backup even if its just once a month

flashgordon666

thanks for your help, it came up "recovery systems disc" but I haven't one of them, tried with my windows xp but wasn't having it. Its ok I reformated my HD and lucky enough all 80% of my work is on my second HD.

P.S. i hate when people say you should back it up, it took me to copy 250GB to my back up 3 straight days.

Shark Man

Unfortunately with back ups, thats the ways it is. You have to forgive the IT clan; as its importance was drummed into me for my IT GCSE at school.

If its done regular and once you have a complete backup set. After that, you should only need to back up whats changed or been added. No need to repeatedly backup the same old stuff over and over.

At work we only backup data files that have been worked on during that day. Consequentally, a 5 disk DVD-RAM back up set will last 6 months. Whereas if everything was backed up, I'd be needing new set of disks every week and a daily backup would take an hour instead one minute.