Problem

[thesob40]

Ok so here is the problem. Recently built a computer and everything was working great. I left the PC on and went out. When i came home there was a black screen saying there has been a hardware change in my PC so i went to restart the PC and the computer would POST but when it got to the windows load screen the computer would restart by itself and POST yet again and this would keep reoccurring until i powered the PC down.
I took out one of the sticks of RAM and it loaded windows fine, and every time i put the 2nd stick back in, it wouldn't load windows and just keep restarting. After having the PC off for about 6 hours, i tried the 2nd stick again and now it is working fine. What could be the problem here? Is it a windows problem?

Specs
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Asus m2n mobo
eVGA 6600gt
2x512mb Geil RAM
Antec SmartPower PSU
WDC 160GB HDD

 

[secretanchitman]

maybe it didnt like one of your sticks at first, then it got used to it. did you try putting the ram into different slots?

 

[thesob40]

yes i did...put ram in slots 1+2, 1+3 and all that but windows wouldnt load up until now

 

[Operandi]

Could be a Windows issue. It could also be bad RAM, try running Prime95 for a few hours to to find out.

I run Prime95 for a min of 12 hours on every machine I build.

 

[thesob40]

just started to run Prime95 and not 5-6 mins into it it says "FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4; Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file."

 

[secretanchitman]

maybe one of your sticks is bad?

how about booting with the 2nd stick alone?

 

[thesob40]

early i booted with 1st stick and it worked, booted with 2nd stick and it didnt...should i try taking out the 2nd and run the memtest?

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: thesob40
early i booted with 1st stick and it worked, booted with 2nd stick and it didnt...should i try taking out the 2nd and run the memtest?

yeah do that. now its looking like your second stick is a bad one, so you'll probably have to RMA it.

 

[thesob40]

okay started the test with only the 1st stick in...made it past the first test with no error...so i guess its the 2nd stick