New RAM is causing games to crash.

(hope it's ok to start a new thread for this, I thought it would be best if it had a new title)

Hi, I just upgraded my RAM from a single 512MB stick to two of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-1GB-...5682910&sr=1-8

as per the advice in this thread: http://www.hardwareforums.com/couple-questions-before-i-buy-ram-24002/

Not that I think I got bad advice, hopefully it's a fixable problem with something I've done wrong. Same motherboard involved as in that thread, ie Shuttle FN41.

Anyway, I got them in the post today and installed them without problems. My motherboard manual says it should all work automatically, no need to fiddle with jumpers and things so I just stuck them in. The memory check at startup counts up to 2GB fine, windows boots fine and I can tell I've got extra RAM under the hood, so far I've had no problems at all until I try to run a game.

Nothing spectacular, the games just crash to desktop with no error message coming up, doesn't seem to be any specific event that triggers it. Also it's happening with multiple games running in different engines and I've never had any stability problems before today so it's 99.99% likely to be a problem with the new memory. All crashes so far have happened within 15-20 minutes of running the game.

There was actually one crash to desktop that did have an error message associated with it, I was connecting to a server in Call of Duty Source, hadn't got into game yet when it crashed. The error message was:

The instruction at "0x14417F72" referenced memory at "0x0de22c34" The memory could not be "read"

That's the situation at the moment. Please help me, the games are running so much more smoothly now, until they crash that is...

 

that error message is probably referring to a faulty DIMM, download Memtest86+ & burn the ISO image to a blank CD / DVD & set BIOS to boot CD & leave running for a while, like overnight

if it finds an error, remove one stick run memtest separately on each stick until you identify the faulty stick, when you have identified the faulty stick return it to your suplier for refund or replacement

 

I downloaded and ran several tests with memtest earlier today on someone else's recommendation, the results are pretty confusing, not sure if they point to a fault with either stick, or even either DIMM.

Here's a summary of what seemed to be happening and a table of the tests I did:

Any configuration including either or both of the new RAM sticks in either DIMM socket will boot up and into windows without difficulty but will still cause games to crash (although in varying ways: crash to desktop, game freezes up or total blue screen lock up). It is possible to get a clean result in memtest86 by putting either of the new RAM sticks into DIMM1 however this still produces game crashes, and any other combination of new RAM also gives multiple reproducable errors in test 5 of memtest. The only completely stable configuration (giving no memtest errors or game crashes) is the old RAM alone in either DIMM socket.

Hope that makes sense, if not here's the exact results I got:

Test 1 DIMM1: New RAM 1 DIMM2: New RAM 2 Results: Errors in test 5, games crashing

Test 2 DIMM1: New RAM 1 DIMM2: Empty Results: No errors in memtest, games crashing

Test 3 DIMM1: New RAM 2 DIMM2: Empty Results: No errors in memtest, games crashing

Test 4 DIMM1: Empty DIMM2: New RAM 1 Results: Errors in test 5, games crashing

Test 5 DIMM1: Empty DIMM2: New RAM 2 Results: Errors in test 5, games crashing

Test 6 DIMM1: Old RAM DIMM2: Empty Results: No errors in memtest, games stable

Test 7 DIMM1: Empty DIMM2: Old RAM Results: No errors in memtest, games stable

Test 8 DIMM1: Old RAM DIMM2: New RAM 1 Results: errors in test 5, games crashing

Test 9 DIMM1: New RAM 1 DIMM2: Old RAM Results: errors in test 5, games crashing


The only combination I didn't try is the last two again with the 2nd new RAM stick, but I thought there was just a little bit of a pattern emerging by that point so I didn't bother.


Any thoughts or suggestions? I read that consistent errors with test 5 could possibly indicate a problem with CAS latency (I have NO idea what that means by the way), is that something I could try and change in BIOS?

 

Hey, it was a problem with the CAS latency, and all the timing settings and what have yous. The 'optimal' settings in BIOS were too high for my motherboard, or too low, or however all that stuff works. At any rate I used everest home edition to find out the correct settings and changed them in BIOS.

Probably a really obvious mistake to make but in my defence I do have the technical knowledge of a prehistoric lizard possesed of neither the manual dexterity or cranial capacity to even spell RAM, much less fix it.

Anyway, thanks for the help, thread over