RAM issue?

jlo82585

Member
May 20, 2015
74
7
71
hey guys new to this forum and I have a problem that really has me stumped. first things first, my rig:

AMD Phenom II X6 1075 processor
Nvidia GTX 470 gpu
ASUS m4a785td-m evo motherboard
6gb DDR3 ram ( one 4 gig stick and one 2 gig stick )

heres my problem:

about a month ago I was thinking about updating my rig but I decided to buy a new game off steam to test out and see if my GPU could still run new high end games. I bought Alien Isolation and it ran fine on max settings so i decided I did not need an upgrade at the time, about 2 weeks later I noticed the audio would randomly skip or cut out and in at different points in the game. This started happening in all my games too. this progressed to get worse and worse to the point where upon entering a room the game would freeze for 30-60 seconds while the room was rendered and then I could play that one room. this again was happening on older games like NFS hot pursuit, You could be racing just fine then out of nowhere the road you were on would disappear and the game would freeze until the road could be rendered and then the game would play just fine. I thought this was a GPU issue so I rolled back my drivers to an earlier version and that did not help, so downloaded GPU-Z and monitored the games while this was happening and the GPU acted like there was no interruptions at all, the clocks never dropped a bit and the GPU load held steady. after that I tested the HDD using barts stuff test overnight and there were no errors on that. I decided to test my memory using windows memory diagnostics and it found no issues either. Rather stumped I downloaded a dos based utilities disc and ran memtest for 4 hours and it showed bad ram. here's where my issue gets odd. after the test I rebooted and the PC posted and then gave me an error " unleashing mode failed " and told me to go into BIOS and disable unleashed mode. I went into CPU settings in BIOS and it froze. rebooted PC and it posted then froze the second it entered BIOS, rebooted again and it would not even post. I let the computer sit overnight and went to bed. the next morning it booted gave me the same error but I was able to get into CPU settings in bios and disable unleashed mode and it booted into windows just fine. I decided to run individual tests on my ram. I ran memtest for about 8 hrs on my 4bg stick and it failed with flying colors, so I installed my 2gb stick and tried running the test and the PC would not even post. I removed both stick and tried booting and the mobo just game me long beeps telling me there was no RAM. I went to bed again and the next morning it booted fine and I started the test. I went to work and came home to find the ram had passed, but the test had frozen 3 mins into it. I re installed both sticks of RAM and bought 8gb of matching DDR3 online and tried rebooting. again, it would not post. I let it sit for 3 hrs and it still would not post. after going to bed and waking up this morning, well its working again.. So im not sure if this is a motherboard issue or a RAM issue or even something else. I am typing this on the computer so its working to an extent. I used to work on computers a few years back but I went into the mechanics field and my PC diagnostic skill have gotten a bit rusty. any help with this would be appreciated. - Thanks.
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,576
126
Isn't unleashing mode for unlocking hidden cores?

Not sure why that would be enabled with that processor?
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
Run it with just the new RAM you bought online and see what happens.
 

inachu

Platinum Member
Aug 22, 2014
2,387
2
41
I ran memtest for about 8 hrs on my 4bg stick and it failed with flying colors.

So yeah bad memory.
 

jlo82585

Member
May 20, 2015
74
7
71
What brand and clock,and also the psu spec.

the RAM I bought is gskill ares series 1600 (PC12800) DDR3, its in the mail now.

the power supply in my rig is a Raidmax 730 watt PSU so power shouldn't be the issue

got my first BSOD from this today and since swapping my ram around the system has gotten much slower. BSOD code was 0x0000003b but I cant find a log of it in event viewer.. If by some chance I damaged my motherboard with static and I put in new RAM isnt there a chance it could take out the new RAM as well?
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
Power supply is your issue. Raidmax are utter garbage. Did you notice how they were so much cheaper than everything else?

That would explain why your issues are so inconsistent.
 

jlo82585

Member
May 20, 2015
74
7
71
Power supply is your issue. Raidmax are utter garbage. Did you notice how they were so much cheaper than everything else?

That would explain why your issues are so inconsistent.

if that were the case then why did my PC not crash when I was stress testing the GPU or CPU? Im not saying you are wrong, but wouldn't a PSU consistently be crashing when the CPU or GPU was under a high load? It wouldn't surprise me if it was bad as its 6 years old now but the symptoms I am having don't entirely reflect a bad PSU unless I am missing something.
 

jlo82585

Member
May 20, 2015
74
7
71
okay so first thing ill try is installing the new RAM, if I still have issues Ill test the PSU.
 

jlo82585

Member
May 20, 2015
74
7
71
just an update, still waiting on the RAM, should be in on Tuesday or weds. I am getting very frequent BSOD now almost exclusively on booting. There are three primary codes I am getting.

0x0000003b
0x00000024
0x00000050

24 and 50 seem to be related to RAM but the 3b I have no clue on. ran a quick test on the PSU, jumped the green wire and the fan does turn on. I have not had time to test out the voltages yet though. If it turns out to be a PSU, what is a good brand since the reviews on newegg are not the best indicator to go off of.