Bad RAM

ok im fairly convinced that the 512M stick of PC133 ram i bought is bad.

if i run my computer using only the new stick, i can hardly run any program without having it crash, and its only a matter of time before i get a STOP error. (im using win2k)

this all seems to go away if i use only my original RAM.

i have tried the program memtest86, but im not sure what its supposed to do. when it loads on reboot, it cycles about once a second, and each cycle gives something that looks like:

@X: 0000
AX: 0000
BX: 0000
CX: 0000
DX: 0000.

the 0's are actually numbers, though they never change. ive tried letting this continue for around 45mins, but not seeing it get anywhere, i gave up on it.

sadly i was dumb enough to not save the receipt, which is unfortunate, since i paid $200 (canadian) for the ram.

gb micro says they have a 'lifetime warranty' on their ram. i wonder if they would honor it without a receipt? i cant seem to access their website so im not sure.

 

well now ive confirmed it. running microsoft windows memory checker, all tests fail, and i get 1000's of errors with the new 512 stick.

with my old 256 stick, i get absolutely no errors, and all tests pass.

such a shame...
at least now i know better

 

I can't raise GB Micro's site either, which is not encouraging. Hopefully that's temporary, not that they're going belly up.

Address & phone numbers for them are here:
http://www.motionnet.com/cgi-bin/search.exe?a=sc&no=16498

Try calling them live. If you bought the ram via credit card, you should have a record of the purchase on your credit card bill, which may help your case with them.

As far as Memtest goes, in the lower section of the display, there's a field that should show how many errors it's found, if any. Try running that again and watch for the errors to start adding up. It runs about 8 tests, and takes quite a while. Watch the test number that's being run; when it starts over on test #1 again, it's run them all. If it does run them all with zero errors, you're ram's probably good, as that test is very thorough.

If the ram test is good, post back and we can look deeper for problems, although since swapping out the ram cures it, it DOES sound like a ram problem. Possibly your BIOS ram settings are too aggressive for that that particular stick, and it won't handle them.

 

well, im using the 'BY SPD' setting and also both my sticks are the same brand and speed.

hey, thats brilliant. I used debit card, so it will be listed on my bank statement.

 

I missed your second post. Yeah, it sounds like dead ram stick. Hope they treat you right wiht replacement.

 

did either of you guys ever get a reply from GB?

I've got a bad stick of 512DDR that I need to return, but they don't seem to answer email at that damn company...

 

I think a PM woulda been sufficient, this thread is ancient!

 

my bad

 

they did reply to my email, but in the end it wasnt necessary to go through them for me. the store that i bought the RAM from (Staples Business Depot) exchanged the ram without reciept or packaging.