Blue screen of death! Is it because of new RAM?

I just installed 2 x 1gb cosair RAM on my laptop. Everything seemed to work fine and the computer was running faster than ever.

But after 40-50 mins or so, the blue screen of death comes up on Windows Vista. I'm assuming its the RAM thats the cause of this. Do i need to update my drivers or something after installing new RAM? Does anyone else have this problem?

 

What does the BSOD say?

Check the event log.

Run Memtest

http://www.memtest86.com/

 

well when such a thing happens, the first thing you assume is the culprit will be anything that you installed recently. If this hasnt happened before at random intervals then one or both of those sticks could have caused it. As above run memtest, first with one stick installed, then the other. if one or both show faults then there's your fault.

 

Happened to me too. Don't know why. Once it recovered it hasn't happened since. I'm using K-byte chips.

 

i tried running the memtest but its asking for a floppy disk to work? Did i download the right program?

Checked my core temperatures:
Core1: 58 degrees C
Core2: 52 degress C

Is it a overheating problem? possibly caused by the new ram?

Oh and to expand on my original post: after the bsod, the computer restarts itself. Vista's Problem and Solution center reports that: Windows unexpectedly shut down... or whatever.

 

I burned it to a CD and booted off that. Found no errors. Also, used the memory test from Vista. Found nothing. Ran tests on hard drives. Found nothing.

 

Temperatures for both cores stabilized around 61C - 63C

Running Vista's memory diagnostics tool.... if no problems found I will try memtest again.

 

It's not an overheating problem. It's almost certainly the new RAM. Memory test programs will sometimes pass memory that fails when the system is under load but if they flag any errors you know you have a problem. I use MemTest86+. Download and burn the .iso image to CD.

As a rule I recommend buying Crucial RAM, especially for AMD machines. mwave.com has the best prices at the moment. You want DDR2-667 SODIMMs.

 

ok burning cd now... will report later on with the results.

 

Just for the sake of talking about it when mine crashed here's what I got:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damages to your computer.
BAD_POOL_HEADER
If this is the first time restart your computer. If this screen appears again follow these steps.
Check to blah, blah, blah.

Tech. Information
***STOP: 0x00000019 (0x00000020,0x8259A3D8, 0x8259A478, 0x081400007)

I have no idea what any of that means but it never occured again either. Is this what you got when yours crashed?

 

I'm not sure. It said something along the lines of

"if this is what your first time seeing this...."
"disable any drivers listed below..."

Thats about how much I can recall.
Strangely the problem has seemed to passed. Its been 2 hours and my laptop hasn't restarted yet. Which is quite a different story from last night when it spontaneously restarted 4 times.

I hope its working now, cause it would be too much of a hassle to return an online purchase from the other side of the country.

Thanks for your help guys, if I have any problems I'll come here again. Remind me to rep you guys when I get any sort of repping power.

 

ok... speak of the devil. My laptop can't even get into windows now....

 

so why dont u jus go back to ur old RAM?

did u check memtest to see if it's the problem

 

it may happen when the laptop is under load.
Run the tests as stated earlier, if one of the ram sticks is bad... return it

 

yeah I already put back my old RAM and its working flawlessly.

 

That looks like a software error, probably in a device driver, rather than a hardware error. Assuming you're all caught up on Windows Updates I'd check hp.com for updated device drivers.

 

I used to get a blue screen error too. Turned out to be an issue with the Agnitum Outpost Firewall driver. I uninstalled Outpost and the BSOD issue resolved.

 

Thanx for the hot tip. Seems odd that I would have a driver problem right after I replace the ram? I haven't had any issues since that one but wouldn't hurt to check it out.

 

If its working fine with your old ram, i doubt its drivers or anything like that.

What you can do aside from trying to reinstall windows with the new ram in the machine, is download a Linux live CD. You can download Ubuntu, and run the OS off of the CD. No installation, and it doesnt touch the hard drive. but if you have problems in ubuntu, then you know its the ram for sure.