- Joined
- Jan 10, 2010
Hello all,
I have run in to an issue with Win 7; it won't boot with 3GB of ram! First, a bit about my computer:
Athlon XP 2600+ (Stock Speed)
2GB matched Corsair Ram DDR (PC 3200)
Asus A7N8x-E Deluxe Mobo
Seagate 160GB HDD (EIDE)
2 Seagate External HDD's (3TB total)
ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 512 MB (Stock Speeds)
Now, on to the issue.
I was running 2GB of ram, not matched, just several sticks that I had accumulated over the years, and everything was running jsut fine. I saw that Fry's electronics had some ram on sale so I decided to go and pick up 2 GB so I could have a total of 3GB (I was running a 1GB stick and 2X512 already).
I run pretty loose ram timings as my normal computer usage does not require super fast ram timings and I prefer the stability that the loose timings give me.
Now, the mobo has 3 Ram slots all together, 2 of which are grouped together and the third stands a bit off by itself. I put the 2 new sticks of ram in the 2 slots that are together and the 3rd 1GB stick in the slot off by itself. I figured keeping the 2 "like" sticks together would help stability. When I booted the machine, BIOS saw all 3GB and the memory test passed with flying colors.
Then Windows started to load, the "Starting Windows" screen came up, and then the computer restarted itself. I figured that perhaps the ram timings were no good in BIOS and that they may be causing the issue so I double checked them and set them all to the most conservative ones available. Again, upon Windows loading the computer restarted.
I shut the computer off and removed the old 1GB stick I had in the "stand alone" slot and tried again to see if perhaps one of the new sticks Ihad purchased was bad, the computer booted right in to Windows with no issue. I ran a couple of memory tests and the new ram is as good as can be.
I shut the computer down, put all of the old ram back in there and fired the computer back up, again, Windows started with no issues. I ran memory tests to make sure that the 1GB stick I had was good as well; it is. Just to be thorough, I tried the new ram with every stick of "old" ram that I had and each time I booted Windows, I got the same result: a restart.
I then took out the extra ram, leaving me with 2GB so I could get in to Windows and told Windows not to restart when having an issue so I could see what the problem was. I am getting an "IRQ_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS_THAN_ZERO" error.
To make SURE that the new ram was not bad, I booted Ubuntu Linux (from the CD) to see if it was a ram issue or if it was something in Windows stopping me from booting (by the way, safe mode would not boot with 3GB either); Linux booted just fine, saw all 3GB of ram and memory tests all passed.
So, at this point I was rather at a loss with regard as to what the issue could be. I googled the issue and found that several others were having the same issue with this same Mobo, Win7 (and Vista actually), and 3GB of ram. Some people had said it was an issue with the GART driver that Win7 (and Vista) are using which is causing a a conflict. I tried their suggestion (replace the Nforce2 AGP Host to PCI Bridge with the standard PCI Standard PCI -to - PCI Bridge). All this served to do was kill my video card drivers and did not solve the ram issue at all.
Also, in searching I found out that this issue is exclusive to Win7 and Vista, those individuals running WinXP did not see this issue at all.
So, my question is this; is there anyone out there who can offer any other thoughts or insight regarding this issue? I have gone through what I think is every troubleshooting step there is to eliminate the ram itself being the issue and have narrowed it down to the OS being the problem seeing as how WinXP and Linux do not have this issue.
While the computer actually runs perfectly well with just 2GB of ram, I would really like to have the 3rd in there for good measure. (Plus I spent the money on the ram and would really like to use it!)
Thanks in advance for all of your help!
Maddog~
I have run in to an issue with Win 7; it won't boot with 3GB of ram! First, a bit about my computer:
Athlon XP 2600+ (Stock Speed)
2GB matched Corsair Ram DDR (PC 3200)
Asus A7N8x-E Deluxe Mobo
Seagate 160GB HDD (EIDE)
2 Seagate External HDD's (3TB total)
ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 512 MB (Stock Speeds)
Now, on to the issue.
I was running 2GB of ram, not matched, just several sticks that I had accumulated over the years, and everything was running jsut fine. I saw that Fry's electronics had some ram on sale so I decided to go and pick up 2 GB so I could have a total of 3GB (I was running a 1GB stick and 2X512 already).
I run pretty loose ram timings as my normal computer usage does not require super fast ram timings and I prefer the stability that the loose timings give me.
Now, the mobo has 3 Ram slots all together, 2 of which are grouped together and the third stands a bit off by itself. I put the 2 new sticks of ram in the 2 slots that are together and the 3rd 1GB stick in the slot off by itself. I figured keeping the 2 "like" sticks together would help stability. When I booted the machine, BIOS saw all 3GB and the memory test passed with flying colors.
Then Windows started to load, the "Starting Windows" screen came up, and then the computer restarted itself. I figured that perhaps the ram timings were no good in BIOS and that they may be causing the issue so I double checked them and set them all to the most conservative ones available. Again, upon Windows loading the computer restarted.
I shut the computer off and removed the old 1GB stick I had in the "stand alone" slot and tried again to see if perhaps one of the new sticks Ihad purchased was bad, the computer booted right in to Windows with no issue. I ran a couple of memory tests and the new ram is as good as can be.
I shut the computer down, put all of the old ram back in there and fired the computer back up, again, Windows started with no issues. I ran memory tests to make sure that the 1GB stick I had was good as well; it is. Just to be thorough, I tried the new ram with every stick of "old" ram that I had and each time I booted Windows, I got the same result: a restart.
I then took out the extra ram, leaving me with 2GB so I could get in to Windows and told Windows not to restart when having an issue so I could see what the problem was. I am getting an "IRQ_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS_THAN_ZERO" error.
To make SURE that the new ram was not bad, I booted Ubuntu Linux (from the CD) to see if it was a ram issue or if it was something in Windows stopping me from booting (by the way, safe mode would not boot with 3GB either); Linux booted just fine, saw all 3GB of ram and memory tests all passed.
So, at this point I was rather at a loss with regard as to what the issue could be. I googled the issue and found that several others were having the same issue with this same Mobo, Win7 (and Vista actually), and 3GB of ram. Some people had said it was an issue with the GART driver that Win7 (and Vista) are using which is causing a a conflict. I tried their suggestion (replace the Nforce2 AGP Host to PCI Bridge with the standard PCI Standard PCI -to - PCI Bridge). All this served to do was kill my video card drivers and did not solve the ram issue at all.
Also, in searching I found out that this issue is exclusive to Win7 and Vista, those individuals running WinXP did not see this issue at all.
So, my question is this; is there anyone out there who can offer any other thoughts or insight regarding this issue? I have gone through what I think is every troubleshooting step there is to eliminate the ram itself being the issue and have narrowed it down to the OS being the problem seeing as how WinXP and Linux do not have this issue.
While the computer actually runs perfectly well with just 2GB of ram, I would really like to have the 3rd in there for good measure. (Plus I spent the money on the ram and would really like to use it!)
Thanks in advance for all of your help!
Maddog~
