P95 FATAL ERROR but nothing overclocked.

Hello,

My name is Andreas, I'm a casual gamer and I've been having computer problems for a good 6 months now, and I stumbled across this site and thought I'd share my problem and see if anyone can help.

About 6 months ago, I bought a new CPU (Intel Core i5-760), new motherboard (Asus P7P55 LX) and RAM (2x2GB DDR3-1333 Geil). When first installing, I accidently put the RAM in socket #1 and #2 (one being black the other being blue), but I quickly realised these were not the correct sockets for Dual Channel and turned of the computer, and put the RAM in socket #1 and #3 (both blue). I would just like to add, if I put them both in socket #2 and #4 (both black), the computer will not boot.

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64-bit (a legitimate version).
My computer specs can also be viewed here: http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1576748

Everything is running at factory settings, I have not overclocked anything at all yet. (Thought that would be important to mention!).

Anyway, ever since the installation, I've been having problems while playing games. In World of Warcraft, my graphics card drivers would crash and be restored, or I'd get a crash error #132, which points to a RAM problem. In other games, the screen would just freeze.

I at first thought this was a graphics card issue, and have recently upgraded my old nVidia Geforce 9800 GT 512MB (which was having fan issues, the fan would not run properly) with a nVidia Geforce GTX 460 1024 Super Overclocked Edition from Gigabyte. To my surprise, this didn't solve anything, I still got the same game crashes mentioned above. When buying the new graphics card, I had to buy a new PSU with 2 PCI-e cables as the graphics card needs 2. I replaced my Antec Earthwatts 650W with a XFX PRO650W Core Edition PSU.

I decided it was time to look at the RAM. I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic, but it came up clean. I checked the internet for CPU and RAM stress testing software and stumbled apon Prime 95. I started the stress test, and it starts to test on all 4 cores, but then 1 by 1 stops with the error "FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4". I decided to take out 1 of the 2 RAM and test them individually in both slot #1 and #3 (so in all 4 tests using 1 single 2GB RAM). Each time I started the stress test, I would not get an error, but my computer would "freeze". The cursor could still be moved, but everything else was frozen up. This happened on all 4 tests.

I've read another thread with someone having a similar issue, at http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=647650, but his solution was to put the RAM sticks in the other 2 slots, and as mentioned above, when I do that, my computer wont boot at all.

I'm starting to feel a little hopeless, and I don't know what to think. Is it my RAM that's the problem, or is it the Motherboard? I thought before I buy a new motherboard or RAM sticks, I'd best try and find some help from people who know computer hardware very well (and this seems to be the place! ).

Anyway, thank you for taking time to read my post, and any advice as to what I can do to find out what the actual problem is would be welcome!

Kind Regards,

Andreas (Nerph)

I suspect a cheap PSU.

(You may have fell in a trap of a PSU label claiming a wattage it can't do.)

My apologies, that is something I forgot to mention and I will edit my main post accordingly.

I had an Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU, but as the new graphic card needed 2 PCIe power supply, I bought a new PSU along with the card. I bought an XFX PRO650W Core Edition.

It would be highly coincidental if both PSU's were causing the problem, and I checked and made sure that 650 Watts would be enough to run everything.

Nerph said:

My apologies, that is something I forgot to mention and I will edit my main post accordingly.

I had an Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU, but as the new graphic card needed 2 PCIe power supply, I bought a new PSU along with the card. I bought an XFX PRO650W Core Edition.

It would be highly coincidental if both PSU's were causing the problem, and I checked and made sure that 650 Watts would be enough to run everything.

Click to expand...

EarthWatts should have zero problems.

RJARRRPCGP said:

EarthWatts should have zero problems.

Click to expand...

I only changed Power Supply as the Earthwatts only had 1 PCI-e power cable (and I wasn't clever enough to realise there are adapters from the 4 pin things to PCI-e). Either way the problem has been the same, before and after changing PSU.

I'd check the RAM with memtest first: http://www.memtest86.com/

Try each stick individually and try different slots until you can get something to work. If you get all of them to pass, its probably the mobo. (Make sure your RAM is on the list of compatible ones for your mobo). If you can't get anything to pass it might be the RAM

OK I'll give give that a go in the morning, it is past midnight here in Belgium and my head hurts from all this troubleshooting! I'll get back to you with the results of testing soon

memtest86 test wont be for a few days as I don't have a floppy drive, or any spare empty CD's...

One thing did strike me as odd however. I tried Prime95 on my laptop (nothing wrong with my laptop), just out of curiosity, and it froze up my laptop just like it froze up my desktop computer when I was testing each RAM stick seperatly.

I'm guessing this isn't normal...

Nerph said:

One thing did strike me as odd however. I tried Prime95 on my laptop (nothing wrong with my laptop), just out of curiosity, and it froze up my laptop just like it froze up my desktop computer when I was testing each RAM stick seperatly.

Click to expand...

It's likely the anti-malware software you have, especially if the mouse don't freeze.

kayson said:

I'd check the RAM with memtest first: http://www.memtest86.com/

Try each stick individually and try different slots until you can get something to work. If you get all of them to pass, its probably the mobo. (Make sure your RAM is on the list of compatible ones for your mobo). If you can't get anything to pass it might be the RAM

Click to expand...

I managed to get memtest86 running, and there are errors, below are 2 photos I've taken. Is this definitive proof that there is something wrong with 1 of the 2 ram sticks?

It's still possible that its a mobo problem. Take out the bad stick of RAM and try running prime95/memtest with just the one stick and see if you have problems still

kayson said:

It's still possible that its a mobo problem. Take out the bad stick of RAM and try running prime95/memtest with just the one stick and see if you have problems still

Click to expand...

A bit of a silly question, but how do I know which stick of RAM is the one giving errors?

Also, I've already tried running each stick individually in Prime95, it didn't give an instant error like when both sticks were in, but it pretty much froze up the computer, i could only move the cursor.

Anyway, what I'll do is is send both sticks of RAM back, ask for replacements, and if i'm still getting errors with the new sticks, then we know it's the motherboard. I still have guarantee on everything.

Nerph said:

A bit of a silly question, but how do I know which stick of RAM is the one giving errors?

Also, I've already tried running each stick individually in Prime95, it didn't give an instant error like when both sticks were in, but it pretty much froze up the computer, i could only move the cursor.

Anyway, what I'll do is is send both sticks of RAM back, ask for replacements, and if i'm still getting errors with the new sticks, then we know it's the motherboard. I still have guarantee on everything.

Click to expand...

I thought it says on memtest which its testing. Otherwise, thats why you test one stick at a time

Update. I took one stick out, ran memtest86, got errors, replaced it with the other stick (using same slot, slot #0), no errors so far (letting it run for some hours). But so far, looks like I've found the broken stick