losimagic Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 System: Asus p5q-e Intel E8500 Corsair TwinX 4GB Twin2x4096-6400C5 Gigabyte 1GB HD4850 Samsung 500GB Spinpoint F1 Vista Home Premium Within the BIOS the frequency was set to DDR2-800 and voltage at 1.9v. Problems first arose after I installed Vista. I first tried to install drivers for the 4850, however, the second I ran the installer and told Vista I was sure I wanted to run it, I got a message saying: "This program might not have installed correctly" I could either 'reinstall using recommended settings' or say 'this program installed correctly' Neither option did anything, the box just closed. I turned of UAC and tried again - this time nothing happened when I ran the installer. I ran memtest on each stick. 1st stick completed 5 passes, no errors. 2nd stick gave me errors straight away. Whenever I tried to restart with just the 1 good stick in I would either get Blue Screens of Death or blank black screens. Contacted the retailer to begin the RMA procedure but as it would take up to 5 days to receive new ram, I also ordered another set. Received that set yesterday, installed it, switched on the system, nothing, no POST, no motherboard beeps. removed both sticks, installed 1 and ran memtest, it completed 1 pass with no errors. Replaced it with the other stick - no POST or beeps. A really dead stick? I tried to install Vista with just the 1 good stick and at various times during many installations I either just got blank black screens for 5+ minutes (that I had to power off/on to get around) or Blue Screens of Death. Looked on the Asus site to see that my new motherboards bios was very old and several revisions included memory compatibility updates so I updated it. Used the 1 good stick from the NEW set. The system ran and I began to install Vista. After the first black/grey screen with the 'windows is copying files' screen, it went to a blank black screen for 5+ minutes - I powered off/on and tried again, this time I got much further into the installation, Vista performed it's first installation reboot but after the vista startup progress bar i got the blank black screen again for 5+ minutes. On the reboot I got the 'windows error recovery screen' with the option to start normally, start in safe mode, etc etc. Restarted a few times and either got the error recovery screen or the blank black screen again, and occasionally, a BSOD. Throughout the whole procedure I did try changing the voltage and frequency to auto but that often made things worse. Apologies for the very long post, but I think I have a very long and bad problem It's also entirely possible that I've left a few things out, but with the number of times I've installed/uninstalled ram and vista over the last few days, it's all become a bit of a blur, lol Many Thanks for any help, I'm beginning to get a bit desperate now :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losimagic Posted October 16, 2008 Author Share Posted October 16, 2008 On the recommendation of Yellowbeard (another corsair employee) I have changed my timings from auto to 5-5-5-18 and disabled legacy usb support and now re-running memtest on ALL sticks. Takes about 45 minutes per pass per stick so it'll be a while till I've done that again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted October 16, 2008 Corsair Employees Share Posted October 16, 2008 NP Please let us know the results! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losimagic Posted October 17, 2008 Author Share Posted October 17, 2008 Results: 1st pack to be RMA'd: Stick 1 - 6 passes Stick 2 - Many many errors - Walltime: 0:00:14 Cached: 2047m rsvdmem: 636k memmap: e820-STd cache: on ECC: off Test: std Pass: 0 Errors: 1794 ECC Errors: 0 Error Confidence VAlue: 18 Lowest Error Address: 00000000003 - 0.0mb highest error address: 000e485fb00 - 3656.9mb bits in error mask: ffffffff bits in error - total: 32 Min:1 max: 32 Avg: 16 max contigious errors: 2 ECC Correctable Errors: NA (blank) Errors per memory slot: 0: (very big number getting very big very fast for many minutes) (75million when I switched off) All this in TEST 2 2nd pack: Stick 1: System won't even POST Stick 2: 5 passes So both packs are definitely faulty, however, how come even when I use the 1 good stick of either pack, I still either get blank screens or BSODs? :( edit: I'm now testing 1 of the good sticks in the 3 remaining slots on the motherboard as whenever I've been testing, or trying to install vista with 1 stick, I've only used slot A1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losimagic Posted October 17, 2008 Author Share Posted October 17, 2008 I have now tested the other slots: A2: 3 passes, no errors B1: 3 passes, no errors B2: 3 Passes, no errors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted October 17, 2008 Corsair Employees Share Posted October 17, 2008 Let's get them replaced, please use the On Line RMA Request Form and we will be happy to replace them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losimagic Posted October 17, 2008 Author Share Posted October 17, 2008 OK, thanks - i'll go through my retailer though as I only bought them a few days ago. This still doesn't explain why I can't get Vista installed with 1 good stick though does it? :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted October 17, 2008 Corsair Employees Share Posted October 17, 2008 You would have to talk to the MB maker about that, can you test the modules in another MB to be sure? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losimagic Posted October 17, 2008 Author Share Posted October 17, 2008 You would have to talk to the MB maker about that, can you test the modules in another MB to be sure? no, unfortunately this is the only compatible motherboard I have Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted October 17, 2008 Corsair Employees Share Posted October 17, 2008 I see well we can swap the modules but they might not be the problem, except you stated one module would not post the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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