Hi guys, my order of RAM arrived at the post today, and ran into an odd issue.

Here are the symptons.

After putting the extra RAM in, when I boot the PC up, it doesn't load up at all. I thought I fooked the M/B, but after taking the new ram back out, PC has been working as normal.

Could the RAM be faulty?

This is the exact same RAM that I bought last year when I was building up a new computer for myself.

EDIT: RAM isn't faulty, but ran into an issue or two when having 4gb installed

After playing a game, (COD 5) I would get a blue screen, with a reason "dumping phyisical data" I'll provide a screenshot the next time it appears.

Is there a way around it? I took the ram out, so back to 2GB for now.

Yes there is a way around it: install a 64-bit operating system, it's the only real solution.

I ran into the same problem as you. I had 2GB of RAM installed in my PC, and it worked fine. When I added another 2GB I started getting blue screens in games, completely random ones too, each time I got one it was different than the previous ones. So what I did was I took out 1GB and my system now works great with 3GB, no more blue screens. Also, it still says it's in dual-channel mode, so that's good enough for me!

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Yes there is a way around it: install a 64-bit operating system, it's the only real solution.

I ran into the same problem as you. I had 2GB of RAM installed in my PC, and it worked fine. When I added another 2GB I started getting blue screens in games, completely random ones too, each time I got one it was different than the previous ones. So what I did was I took out 1GB and my system now works great with 3GB, no more blue screens. Also, it still says it's in dual-channel mode, so that's good enough for me!

Thanks, that worked, turned out the one of the RAM is faulty, but I'm going to have a thorough check tonight after work, to see which one is faulty just to double check, and send it back to Overclockers.

Thanks Cobra

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Yes there is a way around it: install a 64-bit operating system, it's the only real solution.

No it isn't.

Might need to up the RAM voltages and even alter the RAM timings. My motherboard has not detected the correct settings for any of the DDR2 RAM I've had....and I've had 3 lots 2, 4 and now 8gig. And random crashes, blue screens was how I found out it wasn't detecting the correct settings.

I'd check the settings in the BIOS first.

So how do you explain that it works fine with 3GB but not with 4GB? The RAM is fine, I tried it in another computer, and I didn't alter anything in the BIOS, it just worked the way it was supposed to work.

If 4GB of RAM isn't working just changing to a 64bit OS with the same hardware wont make it work as the problem is more likey to be hardware related. Could be as simple as tweaking things in the BIOS or it might not.

I've used 4GB of RAM with XP (32bit) and so have loads of others.

I am using 4gb with xp 32bit with no issues

Quote from garph :

If 4GB of RAM isn't working just changing to a 64bit OS with the same hardware wont make it work as the problem is more likey to be hardware related. Could be as simple as tweaking things in the BIOS or it might not.

I've used 4GB of RAM with XP (32bit) and so have loads of others.

I had a look at my BIOS, to see if i could maybe up the voltage by a pinch, to see if that would support the 4gb altogether. But the BIOS info wasn't really specfic on which voltage supports which, so I didn't bother changing anything incase it the was wrong one.

How do you up the voltage in the BIOS for RAM? Which one is it?

At the time being, I'm just going to check if the RAM isn't faulty at all (havent the time to do it sooner due to college work) by sticking in only 1 stick and boot it up, one by one.

Ok ok ok.

I'm talking from experience.

Don't trust your BIOS to adjust the voltage automatically for the RAM.

My 2GB of RAM ran fine for about 6 months, then I would get IRQL BSOD's. I took out one of the sticks on a hunch, and the BSOD's stopped.

I then tested the stick I took out with Prime 95, and yes, another BSOD.

So I kept it on my desk for 4 months.

On advice taken from a forum member, I upped the voltages manually for my RAM in bios from the 1.8 that they were on automatically to the 2.1 that my GeiL RAM was looking for.

BSOD's stopped. You can run as much RAM as you want on a 32bit OS, however only 3GB or whatever will be 'noticed'.