Bought more RAM v. computer went bonkers

MouSe-2005

MouSe-2005

Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time
Rage3D Subscriber
So, I bought and built my computer 2 years ago with 6 gigs of RAM. Now this amount is still perfectly good for my PC, it doesn't even use half of it. I just felt like buying some more because it's cheap and I got the money. So, I go to New Egg and find the original order so I can buy the EXACT same memory as what's in my machine.

New stuff gets in and I notice that the new RAM is a new version. Makes sense, it's 2 years newer. I compare to my old stuff and it's the same speed, same timing, just basically 3 new sticks of the same stuff.

I put it in and my machine starts acting crazy. It would take forever to boot, whenever I would go to My Computer it wouldn't load the drives right, programs would crash, etc.

So, is it possible that this new stuff doesn't like my old stuff? Even though it's supposed to be "the same"?
 
You got bad RAM. You didn't need it anyway. Send is back, get your money back and buy something you can actually use.
 
Well, I actually was wrong on that assumption. I think that RAM was fine.

My computer is STILL doing all those weird things.

I just tried to open a movie on one of my drives and while I could see it in Explorer, WMP and VLC failed to load it. That's never happened before.

I'm starting the think my CPU is failing because the last time I restarted my computer I got an error message stating that overclocking failed.
 
Oh, the way I figured out the RAM was fine is that I repeatedly booted with one stick at a time. They all worked just fine. I noticed the CPU failed overclocking message during this test. Also, while booted on one stick each time I tried to do those simple tasks like opening videos. It went retarded every time.
 
Voltage is stock. Are you saying I should increase it or decrease it?

I honestly don't think it's the RAM. I got to thinking long and hard and I've been experiencing my Firefox problems since before the RAM upgrade. Haven't installed any new software. It just started happening.
 
How about running everything stock to see if there's a stability issue withthe oc?
 
Your using 6 sticks of memory correct? You need to up the QPI/DRAM or QPI/VTT voltage depending on who manufactures the motherboard.

http://www.techreaction.net/2010/09/07/3-step-overclocking-guide-bloomfield-and-gulftown/4/

Take a look at that guide, using more memory or larger memory sticks will definately require a higher QPI/VTT voltage, right now in mine I use 3x4GB I require 1.3v for stability, you may require more.

I've been following this guide trying to get to a 4.4GHz stable overclock, so far got to 4GHz at lower voltages then previous and its stable.
 
check your RAM voltage if you have it auto, set it to manufacturer recommended, ddr3 will most likely have to be 1.65. Maybe loosen the timings a bit. You now have 12 gigs all 6 slots populated? did you test all the RAM slots on the MB? If you were overclocking before, and just added 3 more sticks of ram you will most likely need to rise the voltage to the IMC. my 920 got fried (IMC) a couple of weeks after I installed 6 stick of RAM. had all sorts of errors, and unexplainable bsods. when I got my new CPU I bought 3 sticks of 4GB per stick instead.
 
H001iGAN said:
check your RAM voltage if you have it auto, set it to manufacturer recommended, ddr3 will most likely have to be 1.65. Maybe loosen the timings a bit. You now have 12 gigs all 6 slots populated? did you test all the RAM slots on the MB? If you were overclocking before, and just added 3 more sticks of ram you will most likely need to rise the voltage to the IMC. my 920 got fried (IMC) a couple of weeks after I installed 6 stick of RAM. had all sorts of errors, and unexplainable bsods. when I got my new CPU I bought 3 sticks of 4GB per stick instead.
Click to expand...

Aye thats exactly what I did, minus the fry my chip part, had 6x2GB sticks originally when I went with the new build I went 3x4GB sticks. Prior to the upgrade I had to run the IMC @ 1.4v for stability, now running 1.3v. I also run my ram at 1.66v not 1.65v due to the fact that Asus has poor voltage settings in the bios.
 
Zero said:
How about running everything stock to see if there's a stability issue withthe oc?
Click to expand...
Everything is running stock now since that BIOS error when I booted that one time. It will NOT let me boot with an OC on the CPU. Even while running stock settings I'm still getting all these weird errors.
Hapatingjaky said:
Your using 6 sticks of memory correct? You need to up the QPI/DRAM or QPI/VTT voltage depending on who manufactures the motherboard.

http://www.techreaction.net/2010/09/07/3-step-overclocking-guide-bloomfield-and-gulftown/4/

Take a look at that guide, using more memory or larger memory sticks will definately require a higher QPI/VTT voltage, right now in mine I use 3x4GB I require 1.3v for stability, you may require more.

I've been following this guide trying to get to a 4.4GHz stable overclock, so far got to 4GHz at lower voltages then previous and its stable.
Click to expand...
I was running 6, now I'm running 3. The original 3, that never gave me problems before.

Even now, with all BIOS settings stock, I'm still getting my random errors. Not true errors, but things just aren't running right.
 
When you uninstalled all the RAM and tried it one stick at a time, that rules out insufficient voltage to the sticks. So let me get this straight- with ANY of the RAM sticks in there (old or new sticks) the machine has this problem with not loading some programs?

Have you tried to reinstall VLC to see if maybe the program just got corrupted? Also, try to reinstall your video codecs- it sounds to me like the problem is a corrupted codec pack or a hard drive failure. Does this happen with any other progrmas or just VLC and WMP?

Also, installing only the original known-good RAM and setting the BIOS to the original defaults will help to rule out bad BIOS settings. Start with a known-good configuration. Don't overclock or tweak anything. Put the hardware in as close to out-of-the-box condition as possible.
 
If your power supply is going bad and isn't sending enough current to your hardware or isn't able to maintain proper voltages across its rails you could have all sorts of weird glitches going on since your CPU, memory, FSB and such aren't receiving adequate juice or it's fluctuating a lot. This could be why you can't overclock.

If you have another PSU you know to be good you could try swapping that in and see what's what.
 
Guybo said:
When you uninstalled all the RAM and tried it one stick at a time, that rules out insufficient voltage to the sticks.
Click to expand...

Only for single stick configurations. Many mainboards need the memory controller and vdimm settings to be increased slightly to use all slots.
 
Guybo said:
When you uninstalled all the RAM and tried it one stick at a time, that rules out insufficient voltage to the sticks. So let me get this straight- with ANY of the RAM sticks in there (old or new sticks) the machine has this problem with not loading some programs?

Have you tried to reinstall VLC to see if maybe the program just got corrupted? Also, try to reinstall your video codecs- it sounds to me like the problem is a corrupted codec pack or a hard drive failure. Does this happen with any other progrmas or just VLC and WMP?

Also, installing only the original known-good RAM and setting the BIOS to the original defaults will help to rule out bad BIOS settings. Start with a known-good configuration. Don't overclock or tweak anything. Put the hardware in as close to out-of-the-box condition as possible.
Click to expand...

I'm running this setup right now. Everything is setup to my last known good, minus the OC. I'm also starting to think it's a HDD failure. I have one HDD that takes a long time to CheckDisk and seems to not want to defrag. This is also the drive that I was checking files on.

Basically it does things, but VERY slowly. Ran CheckDisk on it, took about 10 minutes longer than another drive it's size. Tried to defrag it and stopped it because it was taking over an hour. It WILL open videos...but they take a long time to open. My other drive that's the same size/type with similar files (videos/music) works at normal speed. When I open a video off it it's instant.

I think I want to attempt to move all of the files off of it and onto a new drive. See if that does anything.
 
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