Memory troubles...

My computer rebooted on its own Thursday and when it rebooted it came up with a whole bunch of errors and shut don several services and apps. After rebooting several times with the same problems, I shut it down and cleaned out the computer thoroughly thinking it was a heat-related problem. After doing this, I still had no luck. Another error it gave was the Could Not Write to Memory error so I made a boot disk from another computer with the Windows Memory Diagnostic. I let that run all last night on extended mode and every test failed for only the middle two out of the four memory banks. So, I tried just removing the two memory memory sticks in the middle (I know they're supposed to be paired) just to see what would happen. When I ran the test again with only the outer two sticks installed, it failed all the tests again with both of them. Is this a memory problem, a motherboard problem, or could it just be a virus?

Have you tried running memtest?

Not yet. BUT, I tried removing one more stick and only have bank 4 installed. That passes just fine even though the previous test showed it was also bad. Windows will load but I'm still getting fatal errors.

JetEngineMech said:

Not yet. BUT, I tried removing one more stick and only have bank 4 installed. That passes just fine even though the previous test showed it was also bad. Windows will load but I'm still getting fatal errors.

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Put one stick in the first slot. if its good put it in your shirt pocket. If it's bad put it on the desk next to the computer. Test all 4 sticks, putting the good ones in your pocket. Then test one from your pocket in each slot. Now you know which sticks are good and which slots are good.

billb said:

Put one stick in the first slot. if its good put it in your shirt pocket. If it's bad put it on the desk next to the computer. Test all 4 sticks, putting the good ones in your pocket. Then test one from your pocket in each slot. Now you know which sticks are good and which slots are good.

Click to expand...

I'll give it a go and see what happens. Thanks.

Thanks, that did it. I found the bad one.

JetEngineMech said:

..the bad one.

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Stick, slot or both?

Well, I tried each stick one at a time in the first slot like you said. The first three sticks came up good but the fourth failed every test. I set that fourth one aside. I then took 2 of the three good sticks and filled the first two banks, that passed. I added the third good stick into the third bank and they all passed. I've been running like that without any problems. So now I have the three good sticks in the first three banks.

JetEngineMech said:

So now I have the three good sticks in the first three banks.

Click to expand...

Glad that's sorted.

Now, run SuperPi with 2 sticks and with 3 sticks...I think you'll be surprised. Just make sure the 2 sticks are in dual chanel (i. e. in the correct slots for dual chanel).