Computer freezing randomly

[Cessna Skyhawk]

Gave the eraser method a try to no avail. Rubbed the gold gently with a soft eraser for a minute, then slapped it back in. Within 5 minutes the computer froze. I want to run that Memtest thing, but I don't have a disc write drive for the .iso.

I'm not too familiary with .bin files. What can I do with that? Do I have to burn it?

At the very least I'm happy I've pinpointed the problem to that one RAM stick. I wish I had money for a replacement, but I can live with 2GB for now.

[aj]

Do you have a USB drive? Because they have a Auto-installer for USB Key that probably works.

[Cessna Skyhawk]

My BIOS doesn't support booting from a USB drive, so I used my grandfather's computer to burn the .iso. The Memtest passed the "bad" stick. I have only the "bad" stick in the machine right now, and I'm kind of hoping it will freeze and prove to me that it is, in fact, the one stick, and not the process of using them together.

The Memtest site said not to test 4GB or more at a time, so I can't test them together.

[aj]

Hmm. Can you let Memtest run overnight? That might pick up an error or two.

Alternatively, you might have better luck just RMAing the stick now, since you've isolated it. The manufacturer might have a special diagnostic tool to test your stick or might just swap your stick for a new one.

[Cessna Skyhawk]

With just the "bad" stick in, I haven't had any lock-ups. I'm so confused. Maybe I got the two mixed up and put in the good one. I'll try the other stick tomorrow.

I was going to RMA it, but I bought the sticks as a pair, and they want me to send them both back. So, I'd be without a computer for a while. I need Craigslist for job hunting! I'll just keep testing the sticks until I'm sure that one of them is faulty.

[avwolf]

Another possibility is that it's actually the slot in the motherboard that's bad/dirty. I've had that happen to me more often than I've had bad sticks of RAM, I think.

[Cessna Skyhawk]

I've got four slots, and, before testing the RAM itself, I moved the two sticks over to the other slots and still ran into trouble. So far I've had no freezing up with the stick I thought was bad. I'm seriously suspecting, in all my stupidity, I got the two mixed up and put the "good" RAM back in.

I'm going to switch them out before I go to bed and let the computer run idly throughout the day, and see what happens. Then I'll run MEMtest on the other stick tomorrow night.

[aj]

Another possibility is that it's actually the slot in the motherboard that's bad/dirty. I've had that happen to me more often than I've had bad sticks of RAM, I think.

Huh. The only experience I've had with flaky RAM slots was on two MSI motherboards. It annoyed me to no end how slightly moving the computer would kill it, and mean that I'd have to spend half a day reseating RAM and seeing if the computer would finally start up.

Mind you, I'll admit that whenever something vaguely hardware related goes wrong, I almost always suspect the RAM first. It probably has something to do with my early experience with RAM trouble. While installing Fedora Core 6 on a repurposed desktop ages ago, I couldn't figure out why the screen was perpetually screwy. Reburned the CD, downloaded the DVD version, then decided to run memtest. The 128MB stick had 2 of the chips go bad.

[Cessna Skyhawk]

After having the sticks in separately for at least 10 hours at a time, neither one has caused the computer to freeze. I've now had both sticks in together for an hour and a half without a freeze up. I think my computer's just trolling me at this point.

[Gekkey Matthews]

The order the RAM is in can also mess it up. And it changes between motherboards. So you have to look it up.

"Always put the RAM closest to the CPU, except sometimes don't"

[Cessna Skyhawk]

Heh, well, whatever setup I have now seems to be working fine. I don't know what I did, but I guess it's fixed.

Thanks for all your help, everyone.

[Cessna Skyhawk]

It's doing it againnnn~...I might end up RMAing the RAM.

[RobbieThe1st]

Run memtest overnight. You can go ahead and grab the Linux cd in my stickied tutorial; at boot time it has an option to run memtest.

[Cessna Skyhawk]

I know it's a major necropost, but this is still a problem, and I'm hoping I can help you all to help me. Since my last post I've RMA'd the RAM and they sent me two brand new sticks that were identical to the last two (Corsair TWIN2x4096-8500C5C is the model).

Having the two sticks in together, the computer runs fine for 2-3 days, shuts down at night, and boots up the next morning with no problems. After a couple of days though, it begins freezing again. It freezes repeatedly after rebooting until I remove one of the sticks and leave it out for some time. Taking it out and putting it back in without running it on one stick for at least a day doesn't fix the problem. Then, I can repeat the process. Put the stick in for 2-3 days, remove it for a day, then put it back in.

I even went into BIOS and used the frequencies and voltage recommended by Corsair's website for use with my motherboard, and the problem is the same.

It's kind of a strange phenomenon isn't it? Any ideas?

[aj]

My old P4 had a similar issue, where no matter what I'd do, it'd periodically not boot and stick at the memory testing part of the startup (Only thing I like about MSI boards - they have a nice set of 4 LEDs to indicate where the board is in the startup process).

It was never fixed to my satisfaction, even after multiple RMAs of the RAM. (The shop eventually got so fed up with me going back that they banned me from returning that RAM again.) Only thing I can suggest is take an eraser and clean all the contacts on the RAM. Just rub the eraser back and forth, build up some friction to get stuff off.

Also, try swapping RAM slots if you haven't already. If you have 4 slots, try various combinations, like 1/4, 2/4, 1/3 and so on. My board was fairly stable using slots 1/4, up until the AGP bus burnt out. (Video card worked in other computers, no other video card worked on that mobo. )