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[Saikoyu]

So, I recently tried to upgrade my computer with more RAM, going from 2GB to 4GB (two sticks of 2GB each, used to be two sticks of 1GB).  And it seemed to work for the most part, however, after I installed the new RAM, anytime I run something like a video game (STO, and a few others) the game crashes to desktop and usually seems to corrupt some part of the game files.  In STO its usually some part of the background textures or something.  Once or twice, its crashed the computer.  Given that this only happened when I installed the RAM I'm guessing its probably that.  I am running a 32 bit copy of Vista and I did upgrade the BIOS which did something but didn't fix the crashing.  And the crashes don't happen right away, it can take a while and then its good for a while longer and then bamm. 

I've hunted around the internets for answers and there are people saying similar sounding problems are caused by memory timing and voltage levels, but honestly, I'm not a computer geek really, so I'm lost.  Does anyone here know what I should do?  When I get home I can post stats if you tell me what to look for.  Just hoping someone here can help me out a bit, thanks.

[Kyoko Sakoda]

Swap back to the original RAM if you can. If nothing bad happens, you picked up faulty DIMM modules which are common and easily returned for new ones.

You can also use a program like MemTest86 or even Prime95 to check the reliability of your memory modules.

[Lyn Farel]

It reminds me of something : if you are running under 32 bits your 4Gb are pretty much useless since the 32 bits architecture (x86) is outdated and can only physically count the addresses of 2 GB (3GB with a little windows tweak). Which means basically that with 32 bits of binaries (0s and 1s) your max number of memory addresses is 2Gb / 2048 Mb.

For example under a more recent MMO (TSW) 32 bits architectures were barely supported and often crashed out of memory.

If your CPU supports a 64 bits architecture I would seriously suggest you to reinstall your windows in a x64 version.



I would need more info if possible though :

What is your CPU ?

What is your old RAM and what is your new RAM memory ? Especially if it is DDR, DDR2, or DDR3, and also their respective clock frequencies if possible (though that should not usually be a problem...).

What is your motherboard ?

In the meantime I would also suggest to reset your BIOS settings, either in the BIOS, or either by removing the lithium battery (and putting it back!) on the motherboard. Just in case you changed some setting that is conflicting somewhere...

[Saikoyu]

I heard that the limit on 32 bit windows vista systems was 4 GB.  And my system sees 3326 MBs of memory, so it might not get all of it, but it gets something.  I'd like to update to a 64 bit, but money.

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 920
Old RAM: DDR2 1 GB PC2-5300 (333 MHz) Kingston P/N    99U5316-001.A02LF
New RAM DDR2 2 GB PC2-6400 (400 MHz) PNY P/N MD4096KD2-800

Motherboard: ASUSTek M4A78 PRO BIOS 1701 (latest)

I have CPU-Z analyzer thingy and I noticed the following also changed

OLD
Memory Type   DDR2
Memory Size   2048 MBytes
Channels   Dual, (Unganged)
Memory Frequency   334.5 MHz (3:5)
CAS# latency (CL)   5.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD)   5
RAS# Precharge (tRP)   5
Cycle Time (tRAS)   15
Bank Cycle Time (tRC)   20
Command Rate (CR)   2T
Uncore Frequency   1806.1 MHz

NEW

Memory Type   DDR2
Memory Size   4096 MBytes
Channels   Dual, (Ganged)
Memory Frequency   481597.3 MHz (1:2)
CAS# latency (CL)   6.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD)   6
RAS# Precharge (tRP)   6
Cycle Time (tRAS)   18
Bank Cycle Time (tRC)   24
Command Rate (CR)   2T
Uncore Frequency   2167187.9 MHz

I don't want to do any long tests, at least during the day, since my phone is hooked up through my computer so I can't have it off line. 

[Lyn Farel]

Since the CPU supports x64, I guess the money issue is on the Microsoft side ?

Also, it is normal that it sees 3326Mb of memory, which is roughly 3Gb. Its the hard cap for memory with 32 bit systems.

Maybe the RAM is broken, as said above, since I am not sure to see any incompatibilities.

Though the frequency results for your second new memory set are weird.


NEW

Memory Type   DDR2
Memory Size   4096 MBytes
Channels   Dual, (Ganged)
Memory Frequency   481597.3 MHz (1:2)
CAS# latency (CL)   6.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD)   6
RAS# Precharge (tRP)   6
Cycle Time (tRAS)   18
Bank Cycle Time (tRC)   24
Command Rate (CR)   2T
Uncore Frequency   2167187.9 MHz



That just doesn't make any sense...

[ArtOfLight]

The problem you described isn't a RAM problem, at least not one that I've ever encountered and I've been doing IT for ten years.

Do me a favor, the next time it happens, I want you to go Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer and let it load recent events.

You'll see a few categories near the middle of the window:
Critical
Warning
Error
Information
Audit Success

Check to see which ones have listings under the "Last hour" column, it will likely be Critical and Warning. Open them up and scroll until you find the offending event (it will be the ones with a number greater than "0" under "Last hour."

Copy all of those events into a private message here or you can just post them verbatim into this thread. This will help me analyze what's causing your crash.

You can also look under "Error" for "Application hang" or "Application crash" events and copy those as well.

Lyn is right about your frequency results as well, which is likely the result of BIOS not reading the RAM correctly which usually indicates a bus speed mismatch.

[Saikoyu]

So of course, when I try for it to crash, it doesn't.  As soon as it does, I'll try and get something.

If it is a bus mismatch error, how would I fix that?

EDIT:
Got a crash, there are no criticals, warnings, or errors.  I have 62 informations, and nothing else.  The crash itself was just the program (Star Trek Online if that matters) stopped, and I was on the desktop.  no warning messages.  The other way that one crashes is during a zone change, it crashes and corrupts a texture or other visual file. 

Of those, two are this:
The Adobe Flash Player Update Service service entered the stopped state.

And the rest all seem to be this:
0000001017: 2013-03-16 11:43:17:528    Exception <Killing CCC0 Process>: Process with an Id of 2180 is not running.
 Exception  Called by: ATI.ACE.MOM.Implementation.CCC0StateMachine::KillMe                                              processID:03528 threadID:(MOM_STM_DelegateThread) domainName:(MOM.exe                    ) assemblyName:(MOM.Implementation, Version=4.0.4654.26082, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=90ba9c70f846762e)
************************************************************************************************************************

Any ideas?

[ArtOfLight]

Well that means that it's not an issue with anything the computer would recognize. Which eliminates memory faults (the RAM isn't bad).

Based on the crazy frequencies your computer is reading back to you on your RAM, you may need to look up the technical specs of your RAM online and then boot to your BIOS settings and manually set the voltage settings for your RAM to the correct value.

[Lyn Farel]

The voltage may be in question and cause unstable stuff but voltage is not linked to the frequency. Voltage is mainly an overclocking thing that may boost the perfs of the hardware. I would advise not changing it and keeping it to default values, unless you want to risk damaging your hardware.

However regarding the frequency, in your BIOS you should normally have an auto settings for that kind of things, so if that's not set on auto and still on an old value, it might be the source of the issue (though that would be weird, generally a wrong clock frequency means that your computer can't start usually and gets stuck in a black screen).

[Saikoyu]

Right now the BIOS is all set to auto, I checked that. 

apparently this is the lease documented piece of RAM on the planet, because I can't find a complete set of timing settings for the manufacturer or something like that.

I have one source here that gives a listing of best timing at different voltages, and a product page here says the CAS latency is 5.  So, by guess and by God as they say?  Or could I kill my computer fooling around with timing?

[ArtOfLight]

Lyn's pretty accurate about most of it.

You really don't want to play around with timings and voltages unless you have something to go with because you risk permanently destroying your hardware.

I'd have to get some more information, unfortunately. Mismatched frequencies don't normally cause what you're describing but RAM faults do. RAM faults are almost always recorded in the Event Viewer however, so I'm a bit confused at this point.

It sounds like the frequency on the RAM is too fast for your motherboard, to be honest. There's an aspect of your motherboard called a bus speed and if your RAM doesn't match the bus speed, it can cause frequency mismatches like what you're describing.

Do me a favor, can you give me the exact make and model of both your motherboard and your RAM?

[Saikoyu]

Here is what I have.  I'm considering just changing the timing to be for 333 MHz since I know that is what the last one ran at, and this ran gives me timing for that (see below).

Mainboard Model   M4A78 PRO (0x00000242 - 0x02A5264C)

DIMM #   1
     SMBus address   0x50
     Memory type   DDR2
     Module format   Regular UDIMM
     Manufacturer (ID)   PNY Electronics (7FBA000000000000)
     Size   2048 MBytes
     Max bandwidth   PC2-6400 (400 MHz)
     Part number   MD4096KD2-800
     Number of banks   2
     Data width   64 bits
     Correction   None
     Nominal Voltage   1.80 Volts
     EPP   no
     XMP   no
     AMP   yes
JEDEC timings table   CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
     JEDEC #1   4.0-4-4-12-16 @ 266 MHz
     JEDEC #2   5.0-5-5-15-20 @ 333 MHz
     JEDEC #3   6.0-6-6-18-24 @ 400 MHz
AMP profile   
     Min Cycle time   1.#IO ns (0 MHz)
     Max CL   -2147483648.0
     Min tRP   1.#J ns
     Min tRCD   1.#J ns
     Min tRAS   -1.#J ns
     Min tRFC   -1.#J ns
AMP timings table   CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
     AMP #1   -2147483648.0--1073741824--1073741824--1073741824--1073741824 @ 0 MHz

[Lyn Farel]

The CAS frequency should not play a role in your issue. It is a measure unit of how fast your memory is able to respond (yep, it's electronics, but even electric impulses take time to travel). It is a way to compare 2 RAM memories of different manufacturers, even if they share the same frequency.

I find it weird that your motherboard should not be able to handle 400Mhz RAM since it's written... But well, you can always try.

[Saikoyu]

So, yeah, I should have picked up on this sooner, but I have realized that its only one program (Star Trek Online) that is crashing anymore.  I looked a bit into the issue and apparently its a problem in their game files that others have reported.  So I guess the RAM sorted itself out?  Not my favorite way to solve a problem, but I guess it works.  If you guys still want to poke around on this let me know and I can do stuff, but in any case, thanks for your help.

[ArtOfLight]

Just keep an eye out for any system stuttering, unusual hangs or system crashes. If none of these occur, your RAM is probably fine. Glad to see it was just a single program so far.