Win 7 64 - Recent BSOD or scrambled screen crashes.

Hi folks,

I am having a bit of an issue with my machine recently, and its getting beyond my ability to work out what it could be.

My machine is a win 7 64 bit Home Premium (Serv pack 1)

CPU - Intel I5 750 2.55ghz
(Think mobo is a gigabyte brand for the i5 socket, sorry cannot for the life of me remember the model number :-( )
Ram 12gb
GFX - MSI R7950 Radeon


Only additions hardware wise is a memory upgrade to 12gb, where i added 2*4gb sticks bought from scan.

I had 2*2gb sticks in first, i just added the 2 4 gig sticks.

I also added a new sata HDD, this has nothing on it but works fine.

The graphics card was an upgrade from a HD5850 Radeon. I have installed the most recent drivers from AMD website

All of this was in March and all have worked fine till now.

I havent added any new software bar re-installing an old game and a steam copy of Mass effect 2.

The only thing i have noticed just as i am typing this is that in the system window, it is stating that my memory is "12gb (6gb usable).

This is new, surely the system should be able to utilise the entire 12gb with 64bit home premium.

Could this mean i have a hardware fault in my memory, and how i would be able to check this, or if my motherboard has stopped recognising some of the sticks??

I dont know how to get crash reports from BSOD, but when it does crash, it hangs on blue screen and doesnt finish compiling the cache etc.

Any help would be great as its bloody annoying and totally random when it dies it.

Sometimes its fine for a day or 2, then does it 3 times in a row.

Any help would be great lads.

If worst comes to worst, i can wipe and re-install clean windows but thats always a pest.

All the best

Rick

 

Quick update, i have noticed on the resource monitor, the memory tab is showing that 6149MB is reserved for hardware.

No idea what would need 6gb of Ram, as the gcard has about 3gb onboard.

 

Carefully follow the instructions here to collect the memory dumps and other data to enable analysis of the crashes. Zip and attach all the collected files and attach them to a reply please.

To see what's happening with your RAM, open Task Manager (right-click the Taskbar), click the Performance tab then on the Resource Monitor button near the bottom. Click on the Resource Manager's Memory tab and take a look at the Physical memory graph, what amount do you see for Hardware reserved? Is the Installed total correct?

EDIT: hardware reserved usually means that a BIOS update is needed; we'll collect your motherboard details etc. during the above files collection routine, best to check if there's another reason for the 'loss' of 6GB in each case, BIOS updating can be risky.

 

Thanks,

i will follow the instructions.

The memory is reading at 12gb, but is showing hardware reserved as about 6.1gb.

 

I saw, check my edit

 

Okay, i have done the tests, i hope i did them correctly and saved them under the correct names etc.

Any problems please let me know.

EDIT: hmm, the file wont upload, do i have to name it anything specific ? Ah, found the issue, the zipped "Windows7_Vista_jcgriff2" folder is 2.08mb big, so is too big, is there anything i can split up ro remove from the folder?

 

Just split the larger files, autoruns.arn and msinfo32.exe, for instance so you can upload as 2 zips, or use a hosting service like http://ge.tt/

 

Right, this time :-o

 

Right quick update.

I opened the case and had a look at the memory sticks, they all looked fine, but i gave them a press down to see if they werent seated correctly, none seemed to move.

However upon turning the machine on again, the computer system tab shows the full 12gb, and looking at the resource monitor, hardware reserved is now only about 5mb.

I will monitor it to see if any BSOD's happen, but i can but assume one of the sticks wasn't seated correctly so was causing the mobo to go on the fritz.

Cant think how the sticks could have moved, as i don't bash the machine.

hmm.

Thanks for all your help, though, in case its not that simple.

 

Well, that may have saved us more work, nice :major now work it hard for a few days and see if that has fixed your problems.

GigaByte have more recent BIOSes than your F5, from F7 onwards better memory compatibility was added. You'll need to find out whether you have a Rev.1.0 or a Rev.1.1 'board, I don't see that in the info I've looked through.

 

I have always wondred how i update BIOS, its the one bit i have never really dablled with when building my PC's.

Any tips about where to get BIOS updates and how i install them, can it be done in windows or is it done in DOS with a USB or something?

 

Some information on BIOS update: http://www.gigabyte.com/webpage/20/HowToReflashBIOS.html