Can RAM just suddenly go bad? (suddenly, literately)

Z

ZXQ

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 22, 2004
Messages
160
So, there i was playing BF2, when my system auto-restarts, and when windows reloads, it complains of missing .dll's and then restarts again into an endless loop. Im doing the :wtf::mad: dance, like most people when their windows install goes ka-put.

so, i go to reformat and reinstall windows, when my system hangs on a QUICK format.

i try it again, but this time i try a full length format.

-system hang-

:wtf:

i go through my BIOS and reset everything to stock. Left my ram voltage @ 3.11 though, because my Mushkin Redline XP4000 is rated between 3.3 and 3.5v ( :LOL: @ most mobos for not even being able to volt ram that high anyway) and felt that it was a safe move. its been running like a champ sence i bought it @ that voltage, like it should.

Attempt to reinstall windows AGAIN, only this time i get BSOD's during the file copy process.

So, i take the ram from its 2-2-2-5 1T timings to 2.5-3-3-6 2T @ 200Mhz (this stuff is rated for 2-2-2-5 1T @ 250Mhz, so im incredibly pissed at this point) and try again. Only one file, during the install process, one file wasnt able to be found, so i did a switcheru with another copy i had layin around. Then after installing SP2, the system would auto restart right after the welcome screen.


Seeing as my progress got a bit further the more and more i messed with my ram timings and clock speed, i pretty much figured that its the ram. But, ive never seen ram just... go bad instantly! the ram ran at ~230 2-2-3-6 1T for so damn long, primed and burnt-in, with ZERO issues.

The rest of the system, just incase anyone asks:

Athlon64 Venice 3000+ (was @ 280 3xHTT)
ECS KN1 SLi Extreme
Mushkin Redline XP4000 (was @ ~230 2-2-3-6 1T 3.11v WELL WITHIN RATING DAMN YOU MUSHKIN)
Gigabyte 7800GT (@ 440/1100, well, was.)


Im sorry if this seemed like such a long ass rant, but im fuckin pissed here. Mushkin, so reliable, so worthy of business, sending me defective shit. Its not like i ran it out of spec, hell, it was technically underclocked/timed/volted the whole fucking time i used it.

Should i RMA? or just get new shit? ... or? im not seeing any other options.

already running memtest right now @ the reliable speed of 2.5-3-3-6 2T 200Mhz.
 
Hardware failure is inevitable, try not to get too worked up. I'd determine what exactly is wrong and try your best to get the defective parts replaced by the manufacturer if necessary.
 
tommo said:
Hardware failure is inevitable, try not to get too worked up. I'd determine what exactly is wrong and try your best to get the defective parts replaced by the manufacturer if necessary.
Click to expand...
inevitable, yes, but like i said before, i was running it UNDER, and i do mean WELL UNDER its rating.

sorry, thats just the kicker in my head right now.
 
Well if it's not working at it's rating, it's defective. I would send it back.
 
is there any possibility that i "fried" the mem controller on my CPU? memtest came back passing, let it run 14 tests while i took a nap, all passed.
 
Hey ZXQ

I feel for you. I am going through almost the same exact thing. System reboots during BF2. I have been running my system perfectly for a couple of months with no problems and all of a sudden bang. I have 2 matched pairs of OCZ ram. I ran memtest on each stick individually. One stick out of each pair is getting major errors. So now I have to RMA all four sticks to get all matched stuff again. I don't really know how important the whole "matched" thing is but hey I am paying for it so I guess I should keep it that way.

I have a feeling there is some link to my video drivers making my sytem unstable too. I was reading another thread and they were saying they were haveing these same types of problems because of the Nvidia drivers. I don't know what your video card setup is but you might want to investigate that as well.

These things have been driving me nuts too but I guess it just goes with the territory. So many variables and so little time to get back to BF2!!
 
reddhaus said:
Hey ZXQ

I feel for you. I am going through almost the same exact thing. System reboots during BF2. I have been running my system perfectly for a couple of months with no problems and all of a sudden bang. I have 2 matched pairs of OCZ ram. I ran memtest on each stick individually. One stick out of each pair is getting major errors. So now I have to RMA all four sticks to get all matched stuff again. I don't really know how important the whole "matched" thing is but hey I am paying for it so I guess I should keep it that way.

I have a feeling there is some link to my video drivers making my sytem unstable too. I was reading another thread and they were saying they were haveing these same types of problems because of the Nvidia drivers. I don't know what your video card setup is but you might want to investigate that as well.

These things have been driving me nuts too but I guess it just goes with the territory. So many variables and so little time to get back to BF2!!
Click to expand...
atleast your issue is just BF2.

It takes over 45 seconds to boot into WinXP now, and sometimes i still random restarts. Bout to start priming and do more tests on each stick of ram. As a pair, they passed, which scares me.

What the hell went wrong with my system!
 
Is the system stable in the BIOS? What are the voltages of the PSU, when measured with a DMM?

At this point I'd troubleshoot just the minimum of components, i.e. mainboard (with CPU/HSF, RAM, videocard), PSU and a single HDD.

Sudden failures like this are very often due to a bad PSU, although my suspicion lies with the mainboard as well (it still being a PCChips mainboard, despite what the reviews may say).
 
I had a stick of memory die in a server of mine. It had been running for a little over a year then started crashing. I found that when I took the stick out it was stable. Not sure how it happened.
 
I'm not too sure on how much is speculation, but after reading some threads about ESD, it's said that ESD can weaken a component and then which it will fail later in it's lifetime.
 
hard drive bad? run whatever manufacturer's diagnostic tool on it. mabey the hard drive controller is bad. if it passes memtest then that almost rules out the memory or mem controller.
 
I usually have two sticks of PC3200 value ram sitting around for occasions like that.

That would give you a for sure answer.

 
I had some memory that just went bad on me, Corsair XMS-512-2700C2 had it oced to:
166Mhz-->200Mhz
2-3-3-6,1T @ 2.8V

lasted for about a month and a half, then some of the memory addresses started to go bad... gonna RMA this stick...
 
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