running in dual channel?

[azntiger0586]

1) i have 2 256ddr400 geil rams on my motherboard and when the computer boots up, it says during the bios boot up, "Single Channel Memory or Virtual Channel Memory" am i running in single channel or dual channel? i thought it should detect dual channel automatically.

2) me and my friend has the same computer specs, only things different is the ram and the hd. i computer freezes at a random time, can be right after bootup or 10 hours later, whenever. can this be a case of bad ram or hd? i ran an error check on my hd and found nothing. did memtest for 30 min and passed all test on ram. What is the problem?

Many Thanks!

 

[Duvie]

Does it Blue screen??? If so sounds like possible ram issue...If it just hardlocks I would think it could be power issues...how is the power supply???

 

[Evdawg]

sounds a LOT like ram.. take his ram and put it in your pc and see what happens

 

[azntiger0586]

thats what i was thinking that it must be a ram problem. i am running 450 watts antec and my friend currently has 350 antec, so i dont think its a psu problem. no blue screen what so ever, it would just freeze and everything would stay in its place and u cant move mouse cursor or anything.

any reccomendation on what type of ram, preferably ddr400, around 100$ for 2 256 sticks?

would a windows xp new format and installation fix this problem? i notice my xp does take awhile to load compare to my old 1.8 p4 1.8ghz, it stays in the windows xp logo with the bue bar passing around 8 times, my old 1.8 was around 3 bars passing and it was done.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Did you update the motherboard BIOS?

 

[azntiger0586]

using latest driver and bios for everything.

 

[Duvie]

I dont know!!! Ram problems in xp should give a BSOD which is a hardlock anyways...Straight up freezes are usually overheating of some item or a power issue....

Definitely memtest that ram and see if you get tons of errors...

 

[azntiger0586]

how long does memtest take? last time i ran it, i thought it was in a loop, doing the same thing for the last 30 min. it passed 5 test with no errors. how many tests are there in default memtest? many thanks.