Problems with self made computer

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flakmonkey24

Junior Member
Jan 5, 2005
16
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Okay, I have been having some major problems with my self made computer. Before I get into the problems here are the specs:

AMD Athlon XP 3000+
Biostar M7NCD Pro Nforce 2 pro
GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB AGP Video Card
Chaintech C-Media 6 channel surround sound card
1 Gig Corsair dual channel RAM (512x2)
120 GB Western Digital IDE HDD

Okay now that the specs are out of the way, I have had some major problems. Whenever I play games they always crash on me. Sometimes the computer will restart and then I will get a serious error report. I report it to microsoft and they said it is a device driver. Every piece of hardware has the most current drivers I can find (the Chaintech cards latest drivers are from APR 02). I used to have a Radeon 9800 pro but was told that it was not compatible with the Nforce 2 which was causing the crashes. I replaced it with the 6600 GT and the same problems occur.

Well, last night I was playing Half-Life 2 and the game started to sound like it was skipping, like what happens all of the time when it ends up crashing. Usually it will freeze up my computer but time I got an error message. It went as follows:

The instruction at "0x241f7c37" referenced memory at "0x0107f5c0." The memory could not be read.

I have absolutely no idea what this message means and need a little bit of help. I am now starting to wondering if I have bad RAM. If anyone could help me out with this I would be so very grateful.
 
Markfw

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,094
16,014
136
run memtest for a few hours and report back the results (from a bootable CD you can download and burn)
 
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flakmonkey24

Junior Member
Jan 5, 2005
16
0
0
Where's a good place to get one of those? I have checked download.com and others, but I want to make sure I get a good one.
 
G

Gurck

Banned
Mar 16, 2004
12,963
1
0
No matter, both good brands, though it's always an outside possibility. I think what you want is Memtest386 to test your memory. Latest chipset & video card drivers are installed? What kind of temps are you seeing in your system, especially (if it has a diode) the video card?
 
Regs

Regs

Lifer
Aug 9, 2002
16,665
21
81
Did you reformat your computer with windows upon completion of the system?

Did you install Nvidia's chip set drivers?
 
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flakmonkey24

Junior Member
Jan 5, 2005
16
0
0
Everything is absolutely up to date from what I can tell. I downloaded the lastest NFORCE drivers from NVIDIA's website and did the same with the video card. I just tried to run a memory test and the computer locks up when it tries to do a burst test. I was using SIMM tester memory check and that was what was locking up.
 
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flakmonkey24

Junior Member
Jan 5, 2005
16
0
0
Okay I ran the tests with memtest386 and the computer locked up again. It did find quite a few errors and I am not sure how to interperate what the results were. I can run it again and see what sort of problems that I come up with then write them down.
 
Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
19
81
I wonder if this motherboard has the same memory issues as the M7NCG Pro, which has an nForce2 IGP chipset. Check the reviews out at Newegg for both motherboards, and check Google for memory compatibility issues.
My M7NCG Pro didn't get along with my GeIL Value Golden Dragon RAM, but it worked fine with some Buffalo RAM.
Thing with the memory incompatibility issues, it seems that no amount of tweaking of timings, MHz, voltage, or anything will do it. Some RAM just plain won't work.
For the record, that M7NCG Pro that I had - it would pass memtest86+ just fine. But during the Windows XP setup, there was a little patch, maybe 10x10 pixels, of randomly colored pixels. That, and then while booting Windows, it would blue-screen on me every time. As soon as I swapped that stick out for another brand, it worked fine.
 
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flakmonkey24

Junior Member
Jan 5, 2005
16
0
0
Originally posted by: L00PY
RAM could be it. But are your temps okay?
Click to expand...

My temps are usually around 44 degrees Celcius. I have lots o fans in the case and it stays pretty cool. I am still working on the air flow but I am sure it isn't bad.

I know that I sound like an idiot with this question, but this is the first time I have worked with Dual Channel RAM. Does it have to be in the slots in a certain way, meaning is one stick A and one stick B? I can't tell the difference if there is.
Thanks to everyone for your help so far!
 
Gibsons

Gibsons

Lifer
Aug 14, 2001
12,530
35
91
I know that I sound like an idiot with this question, but this is the first time I have worked with Dual Channel RAM. Does it have to be in the slots in a certain way, meaning is one stick A and one stick B?
Click to expand...

No, you should be able to put either stick in either slot. But, you might have one bad slot, or one bad stick (or something else entirely of course).

You should be able to boot and test with just 512 RAM, try each stick in the first slot. If both work, try each in the second slot.

edit: note that using just one stick won't be 'dual channel' per se, but it should still boot/not crash/test.
 
mechBgon

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
1
0
What precise version of Corsair PC3200 modules do you have (ValueSelect, C2, XL...)? What voltage are you using on them?
 
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flakmonkey24

Junior Member
Jan 5, 2005
16
0
0
Value select and Now I think it is fixed. I switched the RAM sticks and now it works great! I played Half-Life 2 for 3 hours with no crashes or anything. I am guessing the RAM was in the wrong slots or something, but people say it doesn't matter so I am kind of confused. Thanks for all of your help!
 
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