Should I RMA this board?

[marlinman]

I have a DFI NF4 SLI Infinity M/B and 2x 512Mb sticks of crucial 'ballistix' RAM. One of these is practically brand new. While trying to install XP I get 'PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA' bluescreens before the first input screen even appears - with either of the two sticks installed. I have just RMA'd an identical stick for a similar reason and RMA'd yet another identical stick earlier in the year - for the same reason! I have not tried anything but Crucial Ballistix with the board but have no reason to believe the hardware is in any way incompatible. I purchased the board and RAM from different stores and hope I haven't RMA'd two RAM sticks in error. So, as the title says - should I RMA the board?

BTW a quick run of memtest doesn't produce any errors but I need to do an overnighter or something...

 

[o1die]

I would try bumping up the voltage by .2 volts over default, but no more. 2.1 seems to be the safe limit for most ddr2. You can also try setting the timings manually. I use cas 2.5 with 6-3-3 running 4 sticks of pc3200.

 

[marlinman]

thx o1die - the RAM is pc3200 ddr requiring 2.8v but I'm reluctant to exceed this... I have however tried running it at ddr200 with all the timings loosened as far as possible... still bluescreens tho'

 

[marlinman]

Solved. For reasons that escape me, disconnecting the hdd clears the problem up. And attaching a different one also works.