Bad RAM or other hardware

Hey everyone. I seem to be having a hardware issue. I suspect it's my RAM, here is what is happening.

- Every hour or so Firefox freezes for about a minute then it works fine.

- On occasion my monitor loses the signal from my graphics card sometimes I have to do a cold boot other times it gets the signal back and I get a little pop up saying the graphics driver has stopped responding but windows found it again.

- I've been trying out a little overclocking nothing too extreme core temperatures stay around 34*C. When I run OCCT I get errors. I've tried turning down the OC and still get errors. I finally turned off the OC completely reset CMOS and ran OCCT at all stock/auto settings in BIOS. Still got errors. Sometimes after like 2 minutes of testing other times 10 minutes.

- I then ran memtest86+, on the 2nd pass I got an error. On the 3rd pass no error. (Took more than 3 hours for the 3 passes.)

-Removed one DIMM and ran memtest again. 2 passes no errors. I'll try the other DIMM later tonight. (Have 2 DIMMS total)

Here are the recent hardware changes I've made: I bought a SSD about a month ago. I followed the manufacturer's instructions and updated the firmware. A couple months before that I bought a new graphics card. The one in my profile.

So I'm wondering if it's just bad ram, maybe even my CPU is worn out, or what. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Have you tried a bios update? Maybe you can raise the voltage a bit for ram. Try 1.65 volts

 

Yeah I have the most recent bios for my motherboard. I had the voltage at 1.80 which is what the specs say on the OCZ website.

 

Freezing in firefox can be caused by flash. What version of firefox are you running? And try latest drivers, also see if your gpu is seated properly.

 

If your getting an error in memtest86+ then the answer is fairly obvious. Once you get clean results in memtest86+ if your still having issues in windows then investigate further. Memory is so inexpensive these days, I would start there first. Also check different memory slots because sometimes they do go bad.

 

agree, but older drivers might work better

also u could try disable gpu acceleration for ff

 

I just finished running memtest86+ for about 7 hours. Had 3 errors in test 7 with a count of 8 on all of them combined. That was DIMM 2 in slot 2, I'm rechecking DIMM 1 in slot 1 now. If that one checks out I'll try DIMM 2 in slot 1 and see what happens.

Assuming it is bad RAM I need to decide if I should RMA it since it has a lifetime warranty from OCZ or buy new.

I'll check out my drivers and re seat the video card later today. The drivers were nVidia's latest ones as of Oct 4th.

As for buying new RAM I was looking yesterday and didn't see any for sale that is recommended for my motherboard by Asus. Is that even something I need to worry about?

 

think u get free delivery from OCZ if u rma em at states

go sign into they forums

 

Don't use OCCT .


Try LYNX 64 Pack from Intel ( its the soft used for qualification of server / Xeon chips, ideal for test stability )..

check if your PSU can be the cause. ( high temp and high load for sometimes can reduce the life of the PSU, after some hour of use, the component stability decrease . )


Edited: just see memtest send you back error, check voltage on ram in case, but well, this look to be the problem.

 

wait you said you set your memory to 1.8v? Even if ocz site says that the default volts, you've probably fried it.

try underclocking the memory and running 1.5 volts. 1.65 at most.

 

Thanks for the tips everyone. I confirmed one of my DIMMS is bad. Memtest found errors on it, I tested it in two different slots. When I get it replaced I'll see if my problems disappear or not. I'll also keep an eye on the voltage with the new RAM just to be safe.