Computer shutting off randomly! HELP!

Computer rebooting randomly! HELP!

Heres the deal. I just upgraded my memory to 2gb and now Im having some weird issues. The computer is randomly shutting down when rendering graphics. What ive noticed is that my memory timings are 2.5-3-3-7 and when you look in the bios it shows them at 2.5-4-4-8 on auto. So I decided to manually change the timings to the specifications listed on the modules (2.5-3-3-7). But when I do this I get the freak shut downs. So after having all these issues I went back in the bios and reset the memory timings back to auto which once again display the timings as 2.5-4-4-8. Then it seems to work!! Whats happening here?
Hope to hear from you folks soon!

Computer specifications.

CPU: Pentium 4 3.0 Prescott | Fan: TT Spark 7+
Motherboard: Abit IS7
Memory: 2GB of OCZ OCZ4001024PDC-K
Video: BFG 6800 Ultra 256MB
Power Supply: Antec Neopower 480W
Case: Antec SuperLANBOY
HDD: Seagate 160GB
Optical Drive: MSI DVD/CDRW Combo

I'm pentium ignorant, hence I have no idea why having tRAS too tight by one cycle would cause your machine to shut down.

But if you mean that the power goes off unexpectedly without shutting down your OS or rebooting, then that sounds like a PSU problem.

I some how had the 4000ELDGR Golds running at 2.5-3-3-7 for some time with 2 gig (4 sticks) not it won't do it and I'm not sure why. I did find that the 2.5-4-4-8 timing at 240-250 has little effect on performance. There is not much that can be done to run 4 sticks at tighter latancies and expect stability. SteveOCZ can give you better advice when he passes through here again.

freak shutdowns, i figure you mean reboots out of nowhere.

what voltage are you giving the memory?

yeah just rebooting....its annoying as hell. They are curently set to 2.6

Welcome to my world. I've reasearched this topic endlessly over the past 2 weeks and upping the vdimm voltage slightly has been a common fix.

Unfortunately for me, I have an Intel board and I can't touch the voltage. I did have a crappy 350W PSU, but even after upgrading it to the Antec NeoPower 480W, I still get the reboots.

Upping the voltage huh? What is a safe number to set it at without going too overboard. Remember I have minimal cooling, just the heatshields on the modules

I'm talking minimal voltage change. From what I've seen, it shouldn't be necessary to pass 2.7v.

Lets give it a whirl...Ill let you know the results!


Mobo vs. Memory This is what I feel my computer is doing at the moment.

So heres where Im at! I played musical chairs to place the 2.5-4-4-8 modules in banks 0 & 2 and place the 2.5-3-3-7 in 1 & 3. I went into the bios and configured the timings to 2.5-3-3-7 and raised the voltage to 2.7. I also set the GAT setting to Auto, Auto, Auto, Disable, Disable. Being that I disabled some features in GAT will that affect my performance or gameplay? Ran MemTest and no errors! Is this a good thing?

Guys I'd suggest you take apart your computers. Remove the video card, ram and CPU then blow out all the slots to get out the dust in there. Once you've done that put everything back in and make sure it's in the slot all the way. Once you've done that give it a go again. If you want you can also loop some memtest to check for memory errors. With the 2GB sticks I would manually set 2.5-3-3-6 timings at 2.7-2.8V

Let me know how it goes.

If you need info on running memtest check here
http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showpost.php?p=45698&postcount=6

Krypto said:

So heres where Im at! I played musical chairs to place the 2.5-4-4-8 modules in banks 0 & 2 and place the 2.5-3-3-7 in 1 & 3. I went into the bios and configured the timings to 2.5-3-3-7 and raised the voltage to 2.7. I also set the GAT setting to Auto, Auto, Auto, Disable, Disable. Being that I disabled some features in GAT will that affect my performance or gameplay? Ran MemTest and no errors! Is this a good thing?

Click to expand...

wait a minute, you have four sticks of memory? one set rated at 2.5-4-4 and another rated at 2.5-3-3?