And now my computer is being completely haywire. I have a MSI KI mainboard K7333 chipset KT# Ultra2 AMD motherboard. When we originally built it, we put in 512 MB, in one of three slots. This motherboard should support up to 3 gigs of RAM. So I bought 1 gig of ram (2x 512 sticks) of Patriot memory. DDR Paired Module Upgrade 1 gb pc2700 333 MHz, and now my computer keeps randomly restarting, there was a game I used to play that was extremely choppy with 512, so now with 1.5 gig it ran great...for about 15 minutes and then it completely crashed to desktop, refusing to run again. When the computer restarts I have trouble getting on the internet afterwards, and usually have to manually restart the computer 2 or 3 times before it will let me back on.

I've reset the RAM, moved them around the slots, and nothing. I'm actually typing this as fast as I can before it restarts on me again. I'm thinking of taking out the RAM and either RMAing it, or possibly considering changing brands of RAM...but ugh I don't want to have to deal with all that.

Any way else I can test if it's something else, or does it sound like bad RAM?

on top of this, http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820220049, this is the RAM

and this is the motherboard
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=341&MODEL=MS-6380E

[Edited on October 2, 2005 at 8:05 PM. Reason : added links]

10/2/2005 8:02:36 PM

plug in just the 2x512 you just bought, load defaults in bios, if it locks up RMA the ram. its one thing to nigger rig drop timings and up voltage on hand me down pc parts, but not something you just bought.


good luck

10/2/2005 8:12:49 PM

could it be the fact that it doesn't like running all three memory slots at the same time? Would it be better just to return this and buy one 1 gig stick instead of 2 512s?

10/2/2005 9:13:08 PM

That would be a BAD design. (Well, MSI has been bad for that from what I have seen.)

If the board doesn't work well with 3 banks then it should have not have been shipped with 3 banks.

Did running just the 2x512 work?

10/2/2005 9:21:08 PM

Well, I took the 2x512s back out, and now it's working fine again

So should I still try running on just the 2 512s?

10/2/2005 9:24:41 PM

yes.

10/2/2005 9:27:50 PM

n00b question:

to load the defaults in bios, that's F2 during boot, right?

10/2/2005 9:30:25 PM

http://www.memtest.org/ is your friend.

http://www.memtest86.com/ is good too.

10/2/2005 9:32:21 PM

lots of those boards had problems with filled double sided dimms.

10/2/2005 9:54:50 PM

^^^ enter BIOS (usually F1, F2 or DEL)

Locate the reset defaults option and select it.

[Edited on October 2, 2005 at 9:55 PM. Reason : +1]

10/2/2005 9:54:59 PM

what's the power supply rated at? How many drives do you have in it? How hot are you running?

10/2/2005 10:10:53 PM

well, i don't know if i need to do all those other options, but I ran memtest86 with JUST the two new sticks, and had about 23 errors after running for about 15 minutes

one of my roommates said that sometimes certain brands run better with motherboards than others, so i'll probably refund these and find a brand that is more compatible

[Edited on October 2, 2005 at 10:28 PM. Reason : .]

10/2/2005 10:27:37 PM

yeah as dumb as brand interoperability issues sound, I've found that to be the case with one of my laptops. neither kingston nor whatever generic ram they sell at intrex, worked with it. I even had took it to them after I exchanged the ram the second time just to make sure I wasn't somehow asking for the wrong sepc'd ram. ram I got from crucial worked fine. it was wierd.

10/2/2005 11:01:27 PM

is there a website that would have a list of those compatibilities? I did a google but didn't really find anything useful

10/2/2005 11:26:48 PM

so I guess the real question now is, do I RMA this ram and try again, or get a refund and try and different brand all together

10/3/2005 10:53:49 AM

CAS latency is often an issue. The motherboard expects for the RAM to have the data ready during a specific clock-cycle but the RAM can't respond that quickly.

10/3/2005 11:03:45 AM