Asus A8V Deluxe and new RAM - faulty mobo?

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 10:56 am

I started out with two 512 MB sticks of Crucial Ballistix RAM in my motherboard. It became unstable so I spent a week running diagnostics before sending it back to the vendor with the motherboard and CPU for them to test it. They too found faults but inconsistent ones. I changed the RAM to Corsair XMS4000 TwinX Pro, and while there were some infrequent BSODs, it ran well enough for a while. Then it started playing up again and it turned out to the the RAM once again. I tested each stick of Corsair independently and one worked okay and the other would cause a BSOD just before getting right into Windows XP. BUT, with both sticks in dual channel mode, Memtest86 would run for days with no issues. But the BSODs were in the dozens each day.

At all times I've been running two sticks of matched RAM in the blue sockets on the motherboard. The Corsair is back with the vendor under warranty to be replaced, and in the meantime, I bought a matched pair of Mushkin PC4000 RAM, this time 2 gigs. I can boot the system with either of the modules in on its own, but when I put both modules in the blue motherboard RAM slots, it doesn't POST. It DOES run fine with two 256 MB sticks of generic RAM that I borrowed from work in the blue slots, and it seems to be running fine with the two Mushkin modules in the BLACK RAM slots.

And also, after discovering the dodgy stick of Corsair, I ran the system for a while with just the working module whilst waiting for the chance to get the PO to ship them both back to the vendor. And the sytem seemed faster than it ever had before with two 512 meg modules in dual channel mode. I didn't run any benchmarks or anything, but it did certainly seem faster.

So, what do you all think? Could my motherboard slowly be killing off RAM modules? Perhaps Mushkin's tolerances are such that it won't allow the system to POST, whereas the Corsair and Crucial Ballistix would boot fine but then slowly kill off the RAM in one of the blue slots (the one nearest the CPU heatsink). Does that seem likely? While it seems fine with the Mushkin in the black slots, I plan on running the Corsair also in the system when the replacement arrives, so all four slots are required. And the manual says to use the blue slots first.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

Thanks for reading.

Cams

Gordoco · Post by **Gordoco** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 11:22 am

Try resetting your BIOS to default values in case some of the memory-related values got scrogged. You also might want to upgrade to the latest BIOS.

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Sat Jul 08, 2006 12:04 pm

Thanks for the suggestion. My mobo settings are pretty much at their default, at least in terms of all the memory settings (everything's at AUTO). And BIOS wise, I'm running the latest stable version (1017). There is a newer version (1018) but it's in beta at the moment.

I just checked my RAM specs for the Mushkin in the black slots, and both CPU-Z and Everest are reporting it as PC3200 when it's PC4000 RAM

http://www.mushkin.com/doc/products/mem ... asp?id=245

Could this be related at all?

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:08 pm

It seems pretty certain that it is the RAM slots on the motherboard that are faulty, or at least one of them is. I've spoken to my vendor, who once again have gone above and beyond the call of duty, offering to send me another ASUS board out before I send mine back to them under warranty, so that there is no down time.

It seems I may just end up with a stable system after all the trouble I've had. Man, will that be nice!