Ok, something is fu..ed up with my W3!!!

OK, here's the deal :
I have W3 with newest BIOS (the one that fix grainess) and after putting second 1gb stick I have serious problems with laptop, for example : all game's don't want to work, company of heroes even makes system crashes. When I remove the second stick all is fine, games run with no problem. So there are two options :
1. BIOS is making this
2. Second RAM stick is bad or the ram slot in laptop is broken
So, can somebody with newest BIOS and 2x1gb 667 confirms that there's no problems with his system?! Or maybe some another solution or good advices?!
All help will be greatly appreciate
cheers

 

Sounds like bad RAM. It happens.

Memtest86+ should be able to tell you. Download it, burn to a CD, boot, and let it run for a while (overnight is best, some errors don't crop up on the first pass).

My housemate just built a new C2D desktop, and he had to return a $250 set of OCZ 1GB sticks - one threw errors on the first Memtest pass, and the other after several hours. He went with some Mushkin the second time around, and all is well. 'Gaming RAM'....heh.

 

You should try both sticks individually and in both slots. Keep in mind that if you only have one stick, you have to use a certain slot. I know know which one (probably the one you have been using). If both sticks work, try the sticks in the computer in the opposite slots. If all of that yields results where both sticks work indiviually, but only one at a time, something is wrong with the BIOS.

 

I tested ram for couple of hours last Saturday, no errors :]

 

Yeah, test one stick and then the other...... if it's a bad stick, you'd have problems with one or the other (meaning it's not simply putting in 2gb that's causing it). If you can find that with one stick of 1gb everything works and with another it doesn't - it's the ram...... if neither and only at 2gb - report it to Asus as something with the bios may be funky..... but no one else has reported that while running 2gb, so I'm thinking you should look into that ram.

Also, after you simply swap the ram sticks - swap the slots just to make sure it's not one particular slot. If it is, then the motherboard would need to be replaced.

So there are 3 options you've got... hopefully one will work and hopefully it's the bios or the ram.

 

I have newest BIOS and can't flash the older one Tomorow I will go to some shop and test system with another 1gb stick. With the first one there were no problems since I got W3 which was in April. So I don't think it's the first stick. The second or the BIOS IMO.

 

My housemate had to run for 3 hours before the errors on his second stick showed up, and that was with only one stick in system. The Memtest tests take a long time to run all the way through on 1GB of RAM, and he had to run through them 10-15 times before the error showed up.

I would strongly suggest overnight Memtest, not just 'a couple hours'.

 

Ok, I will leave it for whole night but I think it won't show anything but maybe, who knows...I think I just have to be patient which may be harder than I think.
BTW. I hope you're right and the problem is bad memory cause I really would like to have 2gb and play CoH

 

If it does show up, tomorrow you can return the RAM you bought for a new stick, rather then going to a shop and swapping RAM modules around until you figure out what is wrong.

 

And what if not ?:>

 

If not, I'd go to the shop and try some different sticks if they will let you. But Memtest over a long period of time is very good at catching errors.

My housemate was experiencing the same type of instability you describe. He ran Memtest, and it immediatly tossed errors on one of his two sticks after the first pass. After removing that stick to RMA it, he continuted to experience random crashes and instability. Running Memtest on the remaining stick, it took 15 passes before the error was caught by Memtest, but it was there. So he returned both sticks and bough two sticks of normal Mushkin RAM - problem solved, runs like a champ now.

 

OK, last time it passed 5 loops in 4 hours, so maybe it will detect some in overnight test, will see, wish me luck

 

i'm using the new bios (209a i think), and i've got 2 1GB sticks. the first one is the stick that came with it and the other one is a corsair stick that i bought last month. it's working fine for me, so it might be a bad stick.

 

Same as lord_roddington,

I also have the new bios installed with (2) 1GB sticks (Nanya & Wintec brand from what CPU-Z says). Everything works fine, games all work fine as well.

 

Yeah mastha212,I got my W3J not long after you and I have got 2 x 1gb Corsair 667mhz RAM, I flashed my bios at least two weeks ago, it is running fine, an I have been doing large photoshop work using all of my RAM and page filling.

Hope you find an answer

 

I had a similar problem with the stock standard RAM that was in my z92m.... and each stick worked fine in either slot by itself....

had to return the notebook, new one works great.


what brand of ram did you get? and what are the specs if it?


insane

 

I think you can flash to the older one using "winflash /nodate" command-line from Start - Run... but ignore this if I misunderstood your post.

BTW mastha212, my W3J has a T2400 like yours, and I installed 2 sticks of 1 GB 667 Kingston RAM, with the beta BIOS (209a), and no problems at all-knock on wood-so I think the culprit is your new RAM, or you installed it wrong at the first time.

 

Both sticks Corsair, DDR2-667. I left W3 for over night test in MemTest, 20 loops with no error. I'm going to shop, change the stick and test it. Hope it's the only bad memory stick, I don't want to replace my W3

 

And here's the funny part, I made some test with games, all went with no problems, only CoH crashed the system like before. To be honest I don't know what to do...

 

Ok, a little raport :
I checked games with "new" stick in old place (under the keyboard) - all games run fine except CoH which means that probably CoH is messing and have some problems with hardware, but why - don't know. I will make ultimate test, format->fresh system->Catalyst 6.8 WQHL + CoH, if it won't run that will be 100% sure answer that soft is the problem. If it will run...than I don't have any ideas what may be wrong.

 

OCZ is really not doing well with Its faster DDR2 Memory. If you check newegg's reviews, close to half of the people on most of the OCZ RAM are reporting at least one stick is DOA. I guess I'd stay away from them until they pick up the slack.

 

I agree. My housemate had his heart set on OCZ DDR2-800, but after a week of messing with the system and having neither stick work, he ended up going with Mushkin DDR2-667. Plugged it in an it worked with no issues.

My favorite comment on the OCZ RAM on Newegg was the guy who said "this RAM would be great if it worked, but after 12 hours of it not working, you want to shoot yourself."

The 'normal' RAM vs 'gaming' RAM debate has been around for a while now. I usually get whatever is reliable at the current mainstream speed, maybe trying to get a good deal on something with low timings. I think DDR2-800 is pushing it for a lot of manufacturers right now, so the quality control is not so good and a lot of sticks are bad. I doubt there is any real-world difference between -667 and -800, just a few points in benchmarks.

 

I would like to test a gig of RAM I just put in a week ago. But, I have no idea what to download when I click on the link in Jumpers second post, can anyone point me in the right direction on what to actually download and use.

Everything has been working fine for the past week of using the new second gig of RAM (Corsair 667) and then today all hell breaks loose on my laptop (freezes, shuts down on its own, flashes of a blue screen, won't start, temps increased on average of 3-4 degrees C, fan is on more, won't stay on for more than 5 min., all while being online only, nothing intense). As soon as I take out the second RAM chip, it works fine again? I figure it has to be that, but would like to confirm before I send it back and ask for a new one.

Thank you for any help you can give!

 

I recommend Patriot RAM, I bought a 1gb stick to upgrade my S96J and its working great.

 

http://www.memtest.org/download/1.65/memtest86+-1.65.iso.zip

Download, unzip, burn CD, boot from CD

 

Thank you Jumper