Motherboard / RAM issue?

[klaatu]

Hello there, back in mid september I bought the following upgrades from Aria for my system (well I say upgrades... nothing is left from the old system):

Asus P5Q-E iP45 Socket 775 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz (Retail 775)
Zotac GTX 260 / 896MB / PCI Express 2.0 x16 / Graphics Card
64GB Crucial M225 2.5" SSD
2 x Corsair 4GB PC2-6400 C5 XMS2 (2x2GB)
Samsung F3 500GB 16MB Sata II HD502HJ
LG 22x DVDRW/RAM SATA Internal Drive

Which is all slung into a sexy Cooler Master Cosmos S 'Sport' Case.

None of the components are overclocked, all of the speeds and voltages are set correctly. I have 5 x 120mm case fans installed plus acoustic dampening materials and from QuitePC.com, the system runs very cool (and looks cool too).

The system has worked fine for a couple of month and then about a week ago it started bluescreening with a variety of errors mostly centric to NON_PAGED_POOL.

Upon removing 2x2GB from slots 2 & 4 the system works fine. So I assumed that the RAM had gone bad.
I bought another Corsair 4GB PC2-6400 C5 XMS2 (2x2GB) kit on Friday which when I install causes the system to Bluescreen again. Of the 6 x 2GB RAM modules I have no combination other that in slots 1 & 3 work.

Is it fair to assume that it was the motherboard that was faulty rather than the RAM?

[Nifty]

So have you tried using only one stick of RAM you know works and moving it between all the slots?

If it works fine on all the slots then we could rule out the mobo. If not then RMA the mobo.

If it's not the mobo then repeat the process with the other sticks until you find the offending sticks and RMA them.

Another thing you could try overvolting your RAM a bit, having more than 2 sticks of RAM installed might be making your mobo do more work, so a voltage bump might help.

[klaatu]

The motherboard has 4 RAM slots and I assume the RAM has to go in pairs; if I put any two into slots 1 & 3 it boots and works fine, but if I put then any other two into slots 2 & 4 it blue screens. I'll try putting RAM into slots 2 & 4 without RAM in 1 & 3 to see if that configuration boots.
In the BIOS it does say that if the memory clock speed is lower than 800MHZ it can cause issues.

You think that if I increase the Mhz / voltage on the RAM a bit it may help?

[Nifty]

You can install just one stick, it will just run in single channel mode instead of dual channel.

Move a working stick between slots and see if you get a BSOD.

I wouldn't up your MHZ as that will just make an problem worse. Just increase the voltage a little, 0.1 or 0.2 of a volt.

[marsey99]

it will be a voltage issue more than a speed issue m8y, i would imagine you will need to up the mch voltage a couple of notches to get full stability with all the dimms populated, maybe even slacken off trfc or trd.

if your concerned about the sticks test them in pairs in slots1 and 3 (or channle a) with memtest and i would bet they are all fine, same i imagine they will all pass if they are in 2 and 4 (channle b) and the issue only arises when you have both channles a and b in use.

[MrFawlty]

I have had a lot of issues with RAM voltage in the past - it seems some Mbds default to a too low voltage for the RAM if you leave it on SPD settings, especially if you use any sort of 'decent' ram like you are using - it seems to default to 1.8v when a lot of enthusiast's ram is supposed to be run at 2 or 2.1v

[Umar]

I have had a lot of issues with RAM voltage in the past - it seems some Mbds default to a too low voltage for the RAM if you leave it on SPD settings, especially if you use any sort of 'decent' ram like you are using - it seems to default to 1.8v when a lot of enthusiast's ram is supposed to be run at 2 or 2.1v
Thats deffinately a valid point, because I had some RAM issues with my MSI Neo2 Fr. As you said it set the default ram voltage to 1.8v and with my Patriot 2x1GB set it wouldn't even POST. I had to buy a 512mb stick of generic stuff to set the voltages to 2.1v then swap in my Patriot set to get it to work and then it was just fine.

Umar :)

[marsey99]

2gb sticks of ddr800 cas 5, i cant see them needed much more than 1.8v if any at all tbh.

the chipset however will need a voltage increase to stay stable with all the diims full of 2gb sticks.