My stupid computer
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After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
Does the MB have multiple IDE controllers? If so, try changing the physical configuration and see if the problem seems associated with a particular drive or IDE channel. You'll probably have to tweak the boot sequence in the BIOS after moving cables around, of course.
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After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
Christian Graus wrote: Is my motherboard stuffed ? I am yet to see a broken mobo that's able to boot, so it does not seem to be the cause. Christian Graus wrote: I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Your brand new memory may have different timings from the older one. I've seen even different CAS memories giving trouble. :sigh: Sometime ago theses things were much simpler... I do not remember exactly how this started, so what makes you think it's a hardware problem? Do you have reboots when not using your DVD? A common cause for such reboots are the infamous BSODs. Crappy drivers can also cause this: check if you can disable bus-mastering, reduce your DMA settings if possible. If reading a DVD is making your computer reboot, remember: this is both a memory and I/O intensive operation. First, I would check all my BIOS settings, leave the memory settings on Auto if they are not already. Second, I would check for driver or OS problems: checking it by booting a Knoppix disk may help you to isolate if the fault is hw or sw. IIRC, there is a CD and DVD burning utility on Knoppix. Perl combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines the power of C with the readability of PostScript. -- Jamie Zawinski
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Christian Graus wrote: Is my motherboard stuffed ? I am yet to see a broken mobo that's able to boot, so it does not seem to be the cause. Christian Graus wrote: I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Your brand new memory may have different timings from the older one. I've seen even different CAS memories giving trouble. :sigh: Sometime ago theses things were much simpler... I do not remember exactly how this started, so what makes you think it's a hardware problem? Do you have reboots when not using your DVD? A common cause for such reboots are the infamous BSODs. Crappy drivers can also cause this: check if you can disable bus-mastering, reduce your DMA settings if possible. If reading a DVD is making your computer reboot, remember: this is both a memory and I/O intensive operation. First, I would check all my BIOS settings, leave the memory settings on Auto if they are not already. Second, I would check for driver or OS problems: checking it by booting a Knoppix disk may help you to isolate if the fault is hw or sw. IIRC, there is a CD and DVD burning utility on Knoppix. Perl combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines the power of C with the readability of PostScript. -- Jamie Zawinski
I'll bet you're right about the memory. I've had a faulty MB that would boot, though - as a matter of fact, it'd boot on it's own, like Christian's. :-D I re-built the system with a different MB and the problem went away. I suppose it could have been some subtle incompatibility with the old MB and one of the drives, but they worked with the new MB. Who knows. :confused: :-D
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Christian Graus wrote: Is my motherboard stuffed ? I am yet to see a broken mobo that's able to boot, so it does not seem to be the cause. Christian Graus wrote: I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Your brand new memory may have different timings from the older one. I've seen even different CAS memories giving trouble. :sigh: Sometime ago theses things were much simpler... I do not remember exactly how this started, so what makes you think it's a hardware problem? Do you have reboots when not using your DVD? A common cause for such reboots are the infamous BSODs. Crappy drivers can also cause this: check if you can disable bus-mastering, reduce your DMA settings if possible. If reading a DVD is making your computer reboot, remember: this is both a memory and I/O intensive operation. First, I would check all my BIOS settings, leave the memory settings on Auto if they are not already. Second, I would check for driver or OS problems: checking it by booting a Knoppix disk may help you to isolate if the fault is hw or sw. IIRC, there is a CD and DVD burning utility on Knoppix. Perl combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines the power of C with the readability of PostScript. -- Jamie Zawinski
Daniel Turini wrote: I do not remember exactly how this started, so what makes you think it's a hardware problem? Do you have reboots when not using your DVD? A common cause for such reboots are the infamous BSODs. Reboots usually when I do MPEG processing ( HDD to HDD ), I initially blamed all the codecs I've installed over the years and so completely reinstalled Windows. Daniel Turini wrote: Crappy drivers can also cause this: check if you can disable bus-mastering, reduce your DMA settings if possible. If reading a DVD is making your computer reboot, remember: this is both a memory and I/O intensive operation. All my components are brand name, and I stripped to bare bones when I did the reinstall. Reading a DVD did indeed cause two reboots last night, but I also read about 12 DVD's last night ( FWIW, I trade 80's rock bootleg videos, I'm not trading copyrighted or recent stuff :-) ) - I can't see the reason why it rebooted only when it did. Thanks for the help. Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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Not using a Sound Blaster Live! by any chance?
--- the work, which will become a new genre unto itself, will be called...*sheepish voice* um... yeah ? I am in fact using a Soundblaster Live. Can I add in my defence that 'Shot in the dark' is an excellent Ozzy song ? Or will that cost me your help ? :P Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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*sheepish voice* um... yeah ? I am in fact using a Soundblaster Live. Can I add in my defence that 'Shot in the dark' is an excellent Ozzy song ? Or will that cost me your help ? :P Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
CG admitted: I am in fact using a Soundblaster Live. Take it out. See if that helps. It may be unrelated, but your story reminded me of a motherboard i used to own, which would be unbearably flakey whenever i installed an SBLive! in it. The problem showed up first when running filters on large images in Photoshop, and so i thought it was memory... several days of hair pulling and memory purchases convinced me otherwise. :)
--- the work, which will become a new genre unto itself, will be called... -
After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
Christian Graus wrote: Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Half of the the noname sticks for sale over here won't run on a top end board without troubles (even though they meet the spec).
Flirt harder, I'm a Coder
mlog || Agile Programming | doxygen -
CG admitted: I am in fact using a Soundblaster Live. Take it out. See if that helps. It may be unrelated, but your story reminded me of a motherboard i used to own, which would be unbearably flakey whenever i installed an SBLive! in it. The problem showed up first when running filters on large images in Photoshop, and so i thought it was memory... several days of hair pulling and memory purchases convinced me otherwise. :)
--- the work, which will become a new genre unto itself, will be called...hmph. Sounds like my fancy sound card is headed for ebay. I'll try that tonight, and see what happens, thanks. Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
Christian Graus wrote: Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? That is totally possible. We had to send back 2 512MB Crucial dimms on our first DDR mobo because they simply did not work. And these were the ones that were listed on the compatibility page... Did you try inserting just the 512MB module in the closest slot to the chipset? Is this a dual channel motherboard? John
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Run this at least over night. I had a system that required a 70 hour run of memtest86 to find an error. I was trying to use 2.5GB of memory and it was completly stable on one mobo but another of the same exact type and model it did not work... John
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Christian Graus wrote: Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? That is totally possible. We had to send back 2 512MB Crucial dimms on our first DDR mobo because they simply did not work. And these were the ones that were listed on the compatibility page... Did you try inserting just the 512MB module in the closest slot to the chipset? Is this a dual channel motherboard? John
John M. Drescher wrote: Did you try inserting just the 512MB module in the closest slot to the chipset? Yeah, that was how I set it up. John M. Drescher wrote: Is this a dual channel motherboard? What does that mean ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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John M. Drescher wrote: Did you try inserting just the 512MB module in the closest slot to the chipset? Yeah, that was how I set it up. John M. Drescher wrote: Is this a dual channel motherboard? What does that mean ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
This means that the mobo uses 2 independent memory controllers and usually you use memory in pairs although it is not absolutely necissary. Most recent P4 mobos do this and also nVidia Athlon mobos. John
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After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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*sheepish voice* um... yeah ? I am in fact using a Soundblaster Live. Can I add in my defence that 'Shot in the dark' is an excellent Ozzy song ? Or will that cost me your help ? :P Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
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After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
Do you use SDRAM? AFAIK, there were two generations of SDRAM, with different components. My 3-years old motherboards works with the first generation only :sigh:
And I'm talking to myself at night because I can't forget Back and forth through my mind Behind a cigarette
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After everyone's help here, I took out half of my 512 MB RAM and my PC seemed much better. So I went and bought a new stick of 512 and put it in - instant reboot hell. I took it out and put the 256 back in and it's better, but still rebooted once or twice, while reading a DVD to copy it. Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Is my motherboard stuffed ? Christian I have drunk the cool-aid and found it wan and bitter. - Chris Maunder
Christian Graus wrote: Surely a brand new 512 MB stick would not be broken ? Another vote for hell, yeah. I recently helped my sister build a new machine - a P4 at 800MHz FSB with DDR PC3200 RAM. The 512MB stick she bought from a colleague worked fine. Adding the new 512MB stick of eBuyer no-brand RAM (I think it was Elpida when it turned up) caused the system to go horribly unstable, corrupting stuff left right and centre. Removing the new stick sorted it out. Here's the rub. While a stick of bad RAM is in your computer, your operating system is potentially using it as write-back disk cache. Anything that got written to disk while there was bad RAM could have got corrupted in memory, and is therefore may not be an accurate record of what was written to RAM. This can lead to registry and binary corruption. If you defragged your disk - and remember that Windows XP does some disk optimisation while the system is idle - start from scratch. You simply don't know what was corrupted. I usually set 'Quick POST' to Disabled in the BIOS setup screens when adding new RAM to a machine, at least for a few boots. This isn't anything like an extensive test, but it does give a basic function check that the memory works.