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Does > 3 Gb ram in XP cause stability problems?

lozina

lozina

Lifer
I am dealing with some problems on my new PC where I get frequent crashes while playing the game Oblivion. I am just trying to cover all my bases and one thing that is nagging me is the fact that I have 4 gigs of ram hooked up (2x 2gb sticks) yet I noticed in the user manual for my motherboard (ASUS P5K-E) that they say if you use Windows XP dont use over 3 Gigs of RAM. Now, I had not known this previously, and I still think they only say it because Windows won recognize all the RAM available- BUT, could it possible cause these crashes I am experiencing?
 
I haven't noticed anything like that (in XP, that is) with 3+ GB. I can't really speak to your motherboard though, obviously, but in general, I don't see why it would cause problems. Do you have the latest BIOS for your board?
 
I ran with 8 gigs on win xp32 for about 2 months. I bought the ram before I had a chance to install xp64. I never had any stability issues at all. This was on a gigabyte ds3 mobo.

Window will recognize the 4GB... its just that it reserves addresses for video memory to be mapped. Thats why you only see about 3.5gigs.

Are you running winxp pro or home?
 
win xp pro

ok thanks for the assurances guys. I am just trying to rule out whatever I can in an attempt to fix whatever is causing Oblivion to crash so often.

i've run Oblivion before on my old PC without any problems so its def. not the game....

new pc is:
asus p5k-e
intel e6750
4 gigs crucial ram (6400- i think?)
evga nvidia 8800gt
sound blaster audigy 2 zs
antec p182 case
seasonic s12 650w (replaced)

i'm looking to replace the sound blaster card with the new ASUS Dx2 card because i need a pci-e device (due to how everything fits in case) i am just worried it has what looks like a fan on it and i am concerned it is loud since its so small
 
If you haven't already, burn the Ultimate Boot CD (google it) and run Memtest86+ overnight. That should tell you whether or not your memory is faulty. If it is, you may have found your culprit.

If it's not, are you sure all of your drivers are in order?
 
yeah I am 100% confidrnt in all my drivers... except one... the sound blaster one. firstly the driver name has a "2k" at the end of it like its a windows 2000 driver but I know I downloaded the windows xp one. and a lot of people say the sound blasters drivers are poor in general...

maybe i should disable the sound card and try to play the game without sound just to see if it will crash again to rule it out
 
I never had any issues whatsoever, driver-wise, with my old Audigy 2 ZS in XP (XP Home, XP Pro, XP MCE 2005 - tried them all). I always used the latest driver from the Creative site.

Now, the X-Fi, that's another story 😛. I BSODed at least twice while installing the drivers off the CD. The web beta version works just fine, on the other hand.
 
firstly the driver name has a "2k" at the end of it like its a windows 2000 driver but I know I downloaded the windows xp one
Click to expand...

Many drivers are written for both. XP is a point release.

Probably just a file naming blooper on Creative's part...they could have named it 2kxp or something like that, but didn't.
 
Originally posted by: lozina
I am dealing with some problems on my new PC where I get frequent crashes while playing the game Oblivion. I am just trying to cover all my bases and one thing that is nagging me is the fact that I have 4 gigs of ram hooked up (2x 2gb sticks) yet I noticed in the user manual for my motherboard (ASUS P5K-E) that they say if you use Windows XP dont use over 3 Gigs of RAM. Now, I had not known this previously, and I still think they only say it because Windows won recognize all the RAM available- BUT, could it possible cause these crashes I am experiencing?
Click to expand...

You know i was just about to ask the same question.

My Laptop has 4gigs which 3 gigs is seen by windows.

And i run into Win32 errors where i need to shut down every now and then. Also sometimes i run into other errors


I didnt have this problem until i dropped in the extra 2 gigs. I had a feeling i should of kept it at 3 instead. And no i cant use vista, my company software i need for illustrations arent compliance approved to be run on vista or windows64. :\
 
Originally posted by: lozina
yeah I am 100% confidrnt in all my drivers... except one... the sound blaster one. firstly the driver name has a "2k" at the end of it like its a windows 2000 driver but I know I downloaded the windows xp one. and a lot of people say the sound blasters drivers are poor in general...

maybe i should disable the sound card and try to play the game without sound just to see if it will crash again to rule it out
Click to expand...

Erm, actually, I just took a look at the drivers installers I've got stored on a backup drive. I don't see anything about "2k" in Audigy 2 ZS drivers I used to use. Mine is "SBAX_WBUP2_LB_2_09_0016.exe".

It's available here.
 
Originally posted by: AmberClad
Erm, actually, I just took a look at the drivers installers I've got stored on a backup drive. I don't see anything about "2k" in Audigy 2 ZS drivers I used to use. Mine is "SBAX_WBUP2_LB_2_09_0016.exe".

It's available here.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's exactly the one I got too.

Then when I run dxdiag, goto the Sound tab I see on the right side under "Drivers":

Name: ctaud2k.sys
Version: 5.12.0001.1196 (English)
Date: 8/11/2006 14:45:38



 
I had removed one of the 2 gigger sticks leaving only 1 inside, then started playing Oblivion. About 45 minutes later- crash. So it's not the RAM 🙂

I noticed the GPU temp was up around 65 right after it crashed- is that high?

And I ran some nVidia Stability Test that I downloaded with their nTune program (in order to read temps) and I set the test to run for 10 minutes and it starts showing the scene where some cartoony characters dance and fall and then the program crashed. Came up with the would you like to report to windows error prompt. I ran the test again though and it lasted the whole 10 minutes without a problem and never went over 53 degrees.
 
65C isn't high for a video card. Their operational temps can be in the range of 80-90 deg C, and people run them at these temps for years...
 
Ok

What's a good program for stress testing a machine? I am assuming that would be something different from a benchmarking program, wouldn't it? Something to just hammer my machine so if there are any stability problems in general then the stress test would either crash or discover a problem
 
Did you get the same crashes when you pull 1GB for 2GB total? You can absolutely run into problems though with more than 2GB of physical RAM in a 32-bit or even a 64-bit install.

One potential problem is with your board and dual channel with 4x1GB installed but only ~3GB recognized. Same deal with 2x2GB. Even 3GB can be a potential problem depending on how your board handles 2GB in dual channel and 1GB in single channel.

The other is on the OS side as physical RAM and user-space attempt to extend into the 2GB-4GB addressable range. This area is typically reserved and used for kernel-space, ie. OS, drivers and hardware memory address ranges. If a piece of hardware or its drivers maps itself to something above 2GB, but then the OS attempts to address that space with user-space apps thinking it has additional room (through /PAE or /largeaddressaware), you can have conflicts. Typically 3-4GB is reserved for MMIO/ACPI, 2-3GB kernel/OS/driver/swap.

You can read more about potential problems here in AT's Messy Transition Article. Keep in mind, similar problems can still happen in a 64-bit OS, however, 64-bit drivers and /largeaddressaware 32-bit apps will usually take that 2-4GB addressable space concern into consideration and remap resources accordingly.
 
Originally posted by: chizow
Did you get the same crashes when you pull 1GB for 2GB total? You can absolutely run into problems though with more than 2GB of physical RAM in a 32-bit or even a 64-bit install.

One potential problem is with your board and dual channel with 4x1GB installed but only ~3GB recognized. Same deal with 2x2GB. Even 3GB can be a potential problem depending on how your board handles 2GB in dual channel and 1GB in single channel.

The other is on the OS side as physical RAM and user-space attempt to extend into the 2GB-4GB addressable range. This area is typically reserved and used for kernel-space, ie. OS, drivers and hardware memory address ranges. If a piece of hardware or its drivers maps itself to something above 2GB, but then the OS attempts to address that space with user-space apps thinking it has additional room (through /PAE or /largeaddressaware), you can have conflicts. Typically 3-4GB is reserved for MMIO/ACPI, 2-3GB kernel/OS/driver/swap.

You can read more about potential problems here in AT's Messy Transition Article. Keep in mind, similar problems can still happen in a 64-bit OS, however, 64-bit drivers and /largeaddressaware 32-bit apps will usually take that 2-4GB addressable space concern into consideration and remap resources accordingly.
Click to expand...

very informative, thank you very much!

I originally had 2 sticks on my board placed in slots according to the user manual which meant I had 1 slot filled with 2 gb, 1 slot empty, 1 slot filled with 2 gb, 1 slot empty- when looking at the motherboard.

there is no configuration in the manual for 3 sticks, but there are for 1 sticks. you can leave 1 in either of the first slot in each pair. I chose to leave 2 gig stick in the first slot of the first pair.

and I still get crashes just as frequently. however im going to leave the 2nd ram stick off until i resolve my problem.

im trying everything

edit: actually what I'll do is try swapping the current lone 2 gig stick with the other one to see if that makes a difference too.
 
Hmmm, new build, still unstable with 2GB (single channel). Are you OC'ing at all? As others said I'd start by testing the RAM 1 stick at a time with Memtest, then games/apps and stripping the system down, no OC'ing at all. Make sure you have all SP and hot fixes installed. Pull non-essential components like the Audigy 2. Even try the onboard to see if that helps you isolate the problem. Even something as simple as using a different power connector (try to use one that's not powering anything else, no HDD, no opticals) to your GPU could be the fix on a new build.
 
Originally posted by: chizow
Hmmm, new build, still unstable with 2GB (single channel). Are you OC'ing at all? As others said I'd start by testing the RAM 1 stick at a time with Memtest, then games/apps and stripping the system down, no OC'ing at all. Make sure you have all SP and hot fixes installed. Pull non-essential components like the Audigy 2. Even try the onboard to see if that helps you isolate the problem. Even something as simple as using a different power connector (try to use one that's not powering anything else, no HDD, no opticals) to your GPU could be the fix on a new build.
Click to expand...

cool, thanks for those tips

no OC'ing has even been attempted.

i do have latest SP but havent even checked for hotfixes or critical updates to windows. i will check that out. actually i am expecting my new sound card shortly- asus d2x which will take a pci-e slot above my video card (yay!). in the meantime maybe i could just disable the audigy 2 from device manager and try playing without sound to see if i get a crash? would that make sense?

also, when replacing this sound card do i need to do anything special to clean up the old drivers or is that all handled well by windows?
 
Originally posted by: lozina
in the meantime maybe i could just disable the audigy 2 from device manager and try playing without sound to see if i get a crash? would that make sense?
Click to expand...
No, you'll want to physically pull the card, as simply disabling it in Windows only removes the OS/kernel level drivers at best. Any MMIO/ACPI/PCI/IRQ conflicts would still exist though as those physical memory addresses are assigned by the BIOS which is then read by the OS. I also recommend doing this for onboard devices that you're not using (onboard sound controller, RAID controller, serial/parallel/com port, firewire, e-sata, etc.) as unused/redundant/conflicting devices can also cause problems or use more system resources than necessary.

also, when replacing this sound card do i need to do anything special to clean up the old drivers or is that all handled well by windows?
Click to expand...
For XP, if you ran the install off the original CD, I think its best if you run the CD again and choose remove from there. In Vista I'm pretty sure its different, as they tell you to remove the card from Device Manager, then uninstall it from add/remove programs in CP. After you uninstall the driver, power down completely, unplug the PSU and wait for it to fully discharge, ground yourself or use a ESD wrist thingy and pull the card. You can go back and check/delete any residual programs but they shouldn't be a problem at that point.
 
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