Bad Memory or Motherboard?

OCNewbie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2000
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I have a Biostar motherboard with the nforce 2 chipset. I also, untill recently, had 3 X 256MB sticks of DDR memory. 2 of them were running in dual channel, and the other was just extra memory I suppose. Well, all of a sudden I start getting random reboots, then not so random..... my computer would boot up fine, but when I'd load up a web page, and use the mouse scroll wheel, or click on a link, my computer would instantly reboot, and sometime give me a mem dump error.

So I decided to run Memtest-86, and btw, I ran it when I first installed the memory and it passed fine. Now it always locks up sometime soon into Test #6. Prior to Test #6 it has zero errors. I decided to test each individual memory stick in each of the 3 memory slots on the motherboard. By themselves, they all run fine, they make it through a full pass or 2 of Memtest without problems. But soon as I try to run any of them in dual-channel mode, I get the lock-ups and the failed Memtest.

2 of them were a 512MB DDR kit of Kingston memory, so they're matched and supposed to run dual-channel. The 3rd is a single stick of Crucial.

To add, I currently have the 3rd slot or the 2nd half of the dual-channel slot empty. And I have the First 2 slots closest to the CPU filled with the Kingston units and they together pass memtest fine with no crashes (in non dual-channel configuration).

So given the above info, does this sound like a faulty motherboard, or faulty memory or ? If anybody has any experience with a problem like this, or any ideas, please, I'd love to hear about it, thanks a lot =)
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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What memory voltage are you using, what speed is the CPU's frontside bus, what speed is the memory set to, and what brand/model/wattage of power supply is floating the boat?

edit: for that matter, what speed is the memory rated for?
 

OCNewbie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2000
7,596
25
81
Should be default mem voltage as I haven't messed with it. The CPU's FSB is 133MHz I believe, it's an old 1.33 GHz T-bird. The memory is set to 133 MHz I believe. Currently it's an Antec True 430W PS (I originally though my old 300W PS that I was using might be the problem but the problem is identical with the Antec).

Also, the Kingston memory is PC3200 or 200MHz, and only running at 133MHz. The Crucial is PC2100 or 133? MHz.

Thanks for the reply