Can these Problems be caused by my Corsair RAM?

Hi, I bought a new PC in October 2003, with the following parts: ABIT K7-MAX2 (now: KT4AV-L) 3* Corsair CMX512-2700LL AMD Athlon 3000+ ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (retail) SATA IDE Drive (now: Maxtor IDE drive) NEC DVD-1300A 52x IDE CD Reader In addition, i bough a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Soundcard (retail), but after installing i got heavy problems (instable system), so i removed the card some days later. I think it was a problem with the onboard Highpoint SATA controller and/or PCI latency time. But the whole system did not run well since the day i bought it, WinXP Prof SP1 runs very slow, games hang up, the system needed some minutes (!) to start. I have no clue about overclocking, I only want a working PC to do my job and play some games. But I read in some support forums and find a link to memtest86, wich i tryed out. Memtest found several problems with my ram, but after loading "fail safe defaults" in bios, memtest worked fine. But not my windows - crashes in games, slow booting, etc. Some days ago, i noticed that some files on my system are corrupted. So i tried this out, and packed large files / directory structures with WinRAR and compared the files after that - WinRAR tells about many CRC-Errors in the files. Secondary, i tried to burn my data on CDs and DVDs, but got CRC errors too. Finaly, i got errors when trying to (re)install Software or games. The installers told me that specific files are not on the source medium, but they are. I copied the files to harddisk and compared them, that works. But the installers made the same problems, if i try to setup from harddisk or choose a different installation medium. Now i did two steps - i bought a PCI SATA card, put them with the SATA Hard Drive above in my second PC - that works fine, i can access/compress/copy/burn my data with no CRC problems. Second, I went to my hardware shop and demanded for a stable mainboard without SATA controller on board. I buyed the MSI-board KT4AV-L and a maxtor IDE-drive and put this in my "problematic" PC. Now, I ready get errors when i try to install windows. Sometimes, windows XP setup hands direct after booting (before windows setup start to load drivers for storage media etc). Only the blue screen with "Windows Setup" appears, nothing more happens. If i reboot sometimes, i can start the installation. During the setup process, when windows copies the files to harddisk, i get error messages that some files cant be copied. This appears always, no matter if i install from my CD-ROM or the NEC DVD burner. So, i removed all cards and put a very old graphic adapter in (any working else geforce 1 graphic card), but that wont help. So i think, the Problem could only be the processor, the ram or one of the ide devices (but if thats the problem, one of the ide device has to interfear the ide bus, so the other ide device cant work proberbly again). I removed my athlon processor and put a working athlon 800 from a other pc, did a cmos-reset - same problems with this processor. I did memtest86 again, i got memory erros when all 3 modules are on the board. So I did memtest86 three times with each module alone, one module made problems. I put this memory modules byside, but with 2 modules i got the same problems again. Now, I am trying to install windows with only one module. Until now, it looks good, but I dont trust it at the moment. I am totaly frustated and short before throwing my pc out of the window. I hope anyone here can help me. Thank you! Thorsten

Hi, thanks for you reply. I have the 333-Version of the Athlon 3000. With one RAM module, i can install windows fine, without CRC errors. Memtest had no error with one or two modules, but with two modules i get CRC errors while installing windows and the necessary updates / drivers. The soundcard, which makes problem with the old board, runs fine on the new board. But with the new board, i get graphic errors (textures shown on wrong places) when playing 3D-games (tried hitman 2 and moorhuhn kart 2, a racing game). Games with 2D-graphics work fine. I think the ATI card make problems with the AGP port from the new MSI board, with the old board the card worked fine. With the new board, I did not install the AGP part of the VIA 4in1 driver, because there are wrong displayed colors and "lines" in the windows enviroment if i would install the AGP driver. With the old board, I never had such problems. So I think, one prob is the combination of my ATI card and the AGP port of my new mainboard. But i have no clue if this conflict can result in CRC errors while installing windows (the appear very soon, in the text mode when windows copies the files). I will contact ATI with this issue. But further I am not sure if I can trust my RAM modules - one module of the three has problems when running only this module with memtest, the other two work fine with memtest if i try them alone or together. Together, i get the CRC errors described above. On my old mainboard, the RAM would not run with "Optimized defaults", only with "Fail Safe Defaults". With Optimized defaults i got memtest errors. If I can remember correcly, the Optimized defaults get their informations by SPD, the Fail Safe Mode uses restrictive parameters for the RAM. If you need further information, please ask me. As I said, I dont want to get the last performance out of my system, I only want a system that runs stable and gives me the required system power to play actual games. Even if the ram is not the problem - I am happy for every suggestion that might help me to find and/or fix the problem. Thanks! Thorsten

Hello, I am the Hardware-Dealer of truehl ;-) I am looking forward to solve the Problem, too, but without help I think we have no chance.

Hi MY specs are as follows Big ass ANTEC BLACK CASE WITH 5 3.5 bays for Hard Drives and 3 5.25 bays and about 7 or 8 USB ports 2.6 GHZ Pentium 4 w/Hyper Threading Soyo Dragon Mother board P4VTP w/ SATA and 800Mhz Front Bus CMS512-2700LL Memory Module Mator 120 HD 6Y120M0 SATA 48x CD ROM USB Sound Audigy Platinum 2 (I think..hehe The one that cost 240 dollas..) Old Permedia 8MB Graphics Card (Yea...I..Know..we're in 2004 not 1997....) I put this computer together myself. At first, i thought the old graphics card was the reason why it keeping crashing and restarting. But then i had other problems. I tried to install Windows XP and the files on the CD weren't readable even though the CD had no scratches or blemishes. Then i noticed that when i made RAR files on my other computer and then tried to extract them on this one I always got CRC errors. And then all of sudden files on my HD became corrupted and i had to reinstall everything (this happened about 15 times atleast) So then i got it working again then i realize that almost none of my software on my backup CD's or Retail can install correctly there was always an error. So searched on Google found this thread. As i was reading this thread i thought damn this sounds like the exact same problems I'm havin. So i read somewhere in the forum that if you downgrade the speed by 33MHz it solve the problem. And what you know it worked!! That fucked up though cause i paid for 166MhZ (333MhZ) not 133MhZ (266MhZ). So thanks alot Corsair :(( just kidding I don't really care bout the speed as long as it works I'm fine :)) :mad:

Hi Ramguy, thanks for your offer to replace my RAM. Update: I wanted to try out something before I send the RAM to you, so i bought a Intel D875PBZ and a Intel 3 Ghz Processor (Prescott) - now the CRC errors are gone, but i have trouble with the graphic card and the ram again. Memtest makes errors with my modules. So i fill out the form now. I spoke with the Sapphire Support, which will replace my card too. The RAM makes problem with other Graphic cards too, so i think both has problems. Bye & Thanks, Thorsten