I recently purchased a Kingston ValueRAM PC3200 1GB stick of memory for my
computer. I previously had 2x512MB of the same Kingston PC3200 memory which I sold to a friend in order to buy this new 1GB stick. Since I have a socket 754 system, there was little reason for me to keep two 512MB sticks and with only a 1GB stick, I'd be able to easily upgrade to 2GB later.
Anyhow, after installing this new stick, I began to receive occasional errors and crashes to the desktop while playing games (Age of Empires 3, NHL 2006) as well as simply using Internet Explorer. I realize bugs are 'relatively' normal, but I never experienced these issues before. I tried loosening the memory timings from 3-3-3-8 (SPD) to 3-4-4-8, but this didn't seem to help. I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic for a few hours with no errors showing up. Then, I ram Memtest86+ v1.65 over night and through 17 passes the next morning, no errors had turned up.
Today I decided to try flashing the motherboard BIOS to a new version. I obtained the newest version for my K8N Neo Platinum (v2.10) from MSI's site. I had flashed my BIOS twice before since I've had this computer, and the process went smoothly. I booted to floppy, used AWDFLASH to flash the new version, it said the flash was successful, I pressed F1 to reboot, and since then I've had no computer! Apparently the flash was unsuccessful, so I assume I'm looking at a new motherboard purchase. This leaves me with a few questions:
1) With my situation as is, can you think of anything else I should try?
2) Even after I purchase the new motherboard, is there any other ways that I can be sure
there's no problems with the recently purchased 1GB stick of RAM?
3) I'm leaning toward the s754 MSI K8N Neo-V. Anyone have any other AGP s754 motherboard recommendations?
Thanks a ton for any help!
computer. I previously had 2x512MB of the same Kingston PC3200 memory which I sold to a friend in order to buy this new 1GB stick. Since I have a socket 754 system, there was little reason for me to keep two 512MB sticks and with only a 1GB stick, I'd be able to easily upgrade to 2GB later.
Anyhow, after installing this new stick, I began to receive occasional errors and crashes to the desktop while playing games (Age of Empires 3, NHL 2006) as well as simply using Internet Explorer. I realize bugs are 'relatively' normal, but I never experienced these issues before. I tried loosening the memory timings from 3-3-3-8 (SPD) to 3-4-4-8, but this didn't seem to help. I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic for a few hours with no errors showing up. Then, I ram Memtest86+ v1.65 over night and through 17 passes the next morning, no errors had turned up.
Today I decided to try flashing the motherboard BIOS to a new version. I obtained the newest version for my K8N Neo Platinum (v2.10) from MSI's site. I had flashed my BIOS twice before since I've had this computer, and the process went smoothly. I booted to floppy, used AWDFLASH to flash the new version, it said the flash was successful, I pressed F1 to reboot, and since then I've had no computer! Apparently the flash was unsuccessful, so I assume I'm looking at a new motherboard purchase. This leaves me with a few questions:
1) With my situation as is, can you think of anything else I should try?
2) Even after I purchase the new motherboard, is there any other ways that I can be sure
there's no problems with the recently purchased 1GB stick of RAM?
3) I'm leaning toward the s754 MSI K8N Neo-V. Anyone have any other AGP s754 motherboard recommendations?
Thanks a ton for any help!
Facebook
Twitter