Memory?

I recently switched to a AMD 64 3000 939 CPU and Gigabtye GA-K8NS Motherboard.
I am using 2 Sticks of 512MB Pc3200 Kingston ram with this motherboard and this ram is only 2 months old. I used it for 2 months with no problems on my old Intel board
Now I am having problems with it and I am not sure if it is the ram or Motherboard. I play World of Warcraft and get constant crashes and a few minutes ago I was looking through the error report and it said something about Couldnt read memory. Then sometimes when I am on AIM it all of a sudden says Out of Memory try to free some up. My Pagefil is at max size of like 4000 and when I check to see how much memory I have avaible I still have like 600mb free.
If the memory was bad wouldnt not work at all. Why would it work one second, then stop, then work again. Could it be a bad DIMM on the Motherboard causing it? I really want to get this fixed. Yes my Motherboard and Memory is compatible.

 

try running memtest overnight ... try different slots

also .. does the BSOD point to a driver? what is the error code?

is your page file in your boot drive? sometimes windows can be picky about that ... also is it kingston value? cause some boards are real picky about RAM ,,, it could be a combination of things too ... but I think it may be a driver issue, so I would make sure you have the latest updates of your mobos/graphics/sound drivers

 

i have all latest drivers, can you give me a link to a mem tester?

also i just moved the 2 sticks to 2 different DIMMs... going to test them out for a bit and see if i get any crashes
how would i check if page file was in boot drive also?
yes its kingston value

 

uggh just crashed again.. at the very bottom of report it says

Percent memory used: 59
Total physical memory: 1073201152
Free Memory: 438734848
Page file: -1712783360
Total virtual memory: 2147352576

why does the pagefile say negative?

 

http://majorgeeks.com/download4226.html

that's memtest

also check if this is set ... right click my computer>properties>advanced tab>start up and recovery settings>under system failure untick "auto restart" ... then you should get a BSOD when it crashes ... or you might not ... sometimes those codes can come in handy

might try deleting you pagefile too ... ~advanced tab>performance settings>advanced tab>virtual memory>change ... then set no page file then reboot ... after reboot reset it to what it was before

also what is in your memory that is taking up 59%?

 

also, i feel its good to mention that optimally your pagefile should not exceed 1.5x your total RAM. if you allocate too much pagefile and windows decides to use it, you will notice performance degradation.


some other things to check:

1) are you using default (Auto) RAM timings/settings in the BIOS?
2) Some RAM like slightly higher voltages--check around to see if people report improved performance with a higher voltage for your specific RAM (also check the manufacturers recommended voltages)
3) have you tried different RAM slots in the motherboard? Often a slot or two could be troublesome.
4)I install CachemanXP (freeware version) to handle my RAM, as I've noticed it to be slightly better than Windows at memory management. http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4102

i do recomment running Memtest 86+, perhaps overnight to check for errors.

 

World of warcraft is taking up 59% im guessing... big game. requires a lot of ram

 

how exaclty am i suppose to use that memtester

 

Download and put on floppy or burn to cd. Make sure your 1st boot device in the bios settings is one of the above that you choose. Boot from cd,floppy and let it run. I bought some ram 1month ago and decided to test it. One stick had errors. I caught it in time to send it back and got another.

 

i tried that.. i burned it to a cd and put it in and it said press any key to boot from cd so i hit enter and it wouldnt work.. it gave me some type of error message saying it couldnt find something and to enter the system disk.. not sure what i did wrong.

 

Make sure these 7 files are located at the root of the Floppy Disk or CD:

sys.com
command.com
kernel.sys
autoexec.bat
ctmouse.com
ctmousep.com
docmem.exe

And also in BIOS settings whichever media you are using to run the memtest, that drive has to be the first drive in the boot sequence, ok?

Hope it helps.

 

where do i get those files from? they werent with the thing i downloaded.. all i got with that was a iso file

 

if you don't have a CD burning utility then dl this: http://majorgeeks.com/download4242.html

file>write Disk from ISO file ... that should do it

 

i have a cd burner but where do i get those other files from? when i downloaded the mem tester all i got was a iso file that my computer didnt have anything to open it with...

 

those files are in the ISO file ... you have to burn the ISO as previously stated

or dl this version: http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1247

then extract and execute rawrite.exe w/ a FD in you drive ... then reboot

 

none of that makes sense to me really....
i burned the iso to a cd, opened bios set it boot from cdrom, restarted computer WITH cd with iso file on it in the drive and it wouldnt work.. how do i get those other 7 files off of the iso file? my computer cant open a iso file it says it doesnt have a application that will
and what does "then extract and execute rawrite.exe " mean? im new at this and dont really understand that part.

 

ok .. forget the CD version ... the ISO i mean ...

dl the memtest in message #15 .... you will have a .ZIP file ... extract that .zip file ... you see a bunch of files ... one of them called "rawrite.exe" ... put a formatted floppy in your FDD ... then execute "rawrite.exe" ... and follow the instructions you may have to type in the path of your FDD ex. A:\

 

If you cant work out what to do and you can do without a pc for a while check the web and see if your mem comes with a lifetime warrantee if it does "return to manufacturer."At least you know its not your mem,but as usual thats my dumb ass "fix a bent pin with a sledgehammer" aproach.

Iv just glanced over this whole thread but im sure you only state you have a problem with warcraft.
Could this not be a software resource manager problem and not a hardware fault,do you have problems in other apps or games usually if something works one minute and stops the next its a software problem "besides heat."
Hardware usually just brakes!

 

not just with warcraft... while on aim i also sometimes get a message saying "out of memory, free some up" and then aim quits on me and when i look i still got tons of memory left (around 600mb) and tons of pagefile left.

 

ran it with floppy.. did 5 complete passed test with no errors, going to run it when i go to sleep
if its not the ram then why would aim say what it does and the crash report from warcraft all mention the memory?

 

WEll, I didn't want to say it and put down that program but IMO that RAM test software is useless, I specifically ran that program on two different systems that had RAM problems (wrong speed/type single stick RAM module) and two incompatible with-each-other ones and the RAM test after hours and hours of running in Burn-in mode could not detect anything! If it does find anything, it'd be the obvious, meaning you should be able to tell without running any software to tell you so! Cheao memory manufactured using lower grade materials and fewer layers subject to abnormal performance especially with little heat are not easy to detect, other cases are mixing different brand RAM sticks even though they might be same type.

I read your initial post and frankly I am not saying it can not be the RAM but I would think about troubleshooting other things before RAM because if it was RAM, you would have more instances of the problem and with random times/applications. If the problem occuring with one or two applications only, it could be a problem with those applications. If problem is mainly with grafical applications, problem with the Video card or its drivers could very well cause problems as well, Are any of the components overclocked? Also what type of PSU do you have? Is it old or run hot? How about the system and mainly the CPU? Overheating would create stability issues: RAM getting too hot could mean errors and freezing, CPU overheating could cause shutdowns or reboots, faulty or inadequate PSU could cause reboots as well as degraded overall system performance and depending and the the PSU problems it could cause other components to look suspicious since it forces them to fail or give errors.

Last but not least, an virus infected system could give similar issues not to forget a corrupt operating system or registry...try to give more info about your system, when the problem started and if you replaced or changed any parts, etc...just my $.02 for now.

 

Lets see.
Nothing is Overclocked and I think we can ruel out virus because I reformated my Harddrive and installed a fresh copy of XP right after I put this hardware in. My PSU came with a Intel Celeron 2.5ghz computer that I use to use and just took it out of that case and put it into a new case with the hardware. I think its 350W
Using MBM5 my CPU never gets above 42C and my PSU seems to keep cool to.
My video card WAS giving me a little trouble back on my old system a few days before I installed new Motherboard and CPU. It was giving me tears in game and i tried to reinstall drivers and it didnt fix it.

So I moved it to a differnet PCI slot and it worked fine and still is with no tearing. Its about a 1 1/2 years old, PCI 5200 FX 128Mb (Sucks, I know) A while ago the fan died out on it but after talking to some people on other websites they said as long as I dont leave my computer on long that wouldnt be a problem.

I dont leave my computer on long, only 3 hours max because I like to restart and free up all ram from time to time to keep the game running smooth and I always leave it off at night. The Harddrive also came with the Celeron its a MAxtor 40GB one and thats all I know about it. I do plan to get a new Video card and HD soon.
The case never seems to get hot because I dont stress the system really but I think whatever was and is causing these crashes is somehow dieing out because I am getting less and less.

I use to get a crash like every 10 minutes now I only get one maybe once every 5 hours. I am using Direct X 9.0c if that helps you at all and have all latest drivers for everything.

Also I reinstalled Windows 2 times so I doubt it is a corrupt OS File. Also the computer shutting off hasnt happened in a few days now and only happened about 3 times total.

Hope that helps

 

If a video card came with a fan, frankly it needs it, if it is not running at all, it is only a matter of minutes before it could get hot enough to cause problems. 3 hours of operation for a video card that doesn't have a working fan is (IMO) a very long time and could easily cause problems, even worse damage the GPU itself.

Nothing much for me to do thru posts, you would be much better off getting a newer, better video card no doubt but since you are using a PCI type at the moment, I take it that you have an integrated AGP video which is even worse than the PCI one, in that case a future Video card upgrade will involve a new mobo and quite possibly a new CPU, a new RAM....well, pretty much a new system...

 

a new video card would require a new video card and thats it... my mobo accepts agp and i do plan to get a 9800 or even a 6600 within the next few months.

 

I am not sure what you meant with that but I take your word for it!

Great, then you should definitely get a new AGP type video card and replace the one you have, if problem still continues afterwards let us know but either way a new AGP Video card such as a GeForce 6600 would satisfy you even if you are a gamer and don't want to dish out $300+ for the 68xx series.