Motherboard or Ram? Just upgraded mobo now it isn't stable

[zizux]

I should get around to making a sig but I have a bunch of machines and I just don't care all that much.

Previously this setup was "the spare" computer that my wife or friends would use to game on and that was pretty much it.

Old Setup:

Phenom II X6 1100T Running at 4ghz with turbo off
Corsair big o'l nasty heatsink duno which model got it from a friend.
M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
2 x 4gb G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR1333 9-9-9-24
OCZ Agility 2 60GB
Saphire 6950 flashed to 6970 (never had any problems with it)
OCZ StealthXStream OCZ600SXS 600W

New Setup (now going to be my main pc)
Phenom II x6 1100T running stock
CM V8
GA-990FXA-UD5
4 x 4gb G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR1333 9-9-9-24
Kingston SSD Now V+ 128GB
Same Saphire 6950(70)+ 6950 2GB that isn't unlockable
Corsiar 850W PS

When I initially swapped the parts I thought about trying to see how far I could overclock the x6 in the new board but my friend got home and wanted to play some LoL so I figured why not.

In the game it would lock up, but the mouse would still work. Would be totaly frozen for about 10 seconds (just long enough to get killed btw) and then go on normally. Then it BSODed.

In troubleshooting I removed 2nd video card, upgraded the bios to F3, turned off turbo. Verified good contact from heatsink to cpu, ran windows memory test, installed latest drivers and then ran Prime for about 15 min. All of which passed fine.

Launched the game, started playing thought everything was fine and figured it must have been the bios or something. Then after about 15 min of playing it froze again. Then was fine for a while and then locked up again. Then after only a few min a BSOD with a dif error. Before it was STOP: 0x0000001 this time it was 0x00000116 atikmpag.sys

So I swapped out the other graphics card and then got the same issue.

Both of those cards were rock stable before. As was the CPU and half of the current memory.

I did notice that the new memory (even though its the same model) has a different heatsink.

So I'm basically thinking its either the memory, (which it could be some how that I'm now using 4 slots and the cpu doesn't like it I suppose) or the motherboard.

Thoughts? Anybody know a specific test to see if it could some how be the memory?

Tonight I'll probably remove the new ram and test and if that doesn't work I'll swap everything back over to the old motherboard and see if it is stable.

Oh I should add that it wasn't only LoL that had issues. It was also 3dmark and SCII

 

[RGone]

1. Probably the quickest thing to do is to look in manual for the memory slots that are to be used when only using two sticks and put the two originally working sticks of ram in those two slots.

2. Then clear the CmOs and Load Optimized Defaults and see if you can game with that confguration.

3. If you can then shutdown and put the two later purchased sticks in the two primary memory slots and clear the CmOs and test for okay gaming. If this configuration works.

4. Then the board will have to be 'tweaked' for the greater load of the ram on the motherboard and IMC inside the cpu.

 

[zizux]

I did this and same issue, ran a memtest off bootable usb, which with all four sticks in passed with flying colors (after trying both pairs on their own).

I've decided its got to be something video driver or video card related. I'm going to run the stock 6950 and see if it will work.

 

[RGone]

Could also be some issue with the chipset drivers since you did not do a fresh install of windows and update drivers for the 990x vs the 890 chipset.

 

[zizux]

Things I tried.

Swap cards. Swap cards into other 16x slot, swap memory, memory test. Kill drivers reinstall drivers. Even tried a GTX275 at just before install. It didn't have the exact same problem but it could never finish a run of 3dmark and usually got to the end of the first dest and would crash out.

Fresh install of win7 on the OCZ SSD then installing the latest versions of drivers and 3dmark 11. Same issue.

Swapped all parts to old motherboard. Problem solved.

Used another AM3 cpu and the 275 in another machine with the gigabyte board and a normal hdd, install fresh copy of win7, chipset and nvidia drivers and same problem.

Thus I posted this in the right section. Only thing I can come up with is that the board isn't supplying enough power to the pci express lanes or there is some other major problem.

It will be going back to newegg. I should have got the asus board but this one appealed to me for some reason.

 

[RGone]

It will be going back to newegg. I should have got the asus board but this one appealed to me for some reason.

I hear that man. At least you find out while you can still return it. Most wait too long to get the good return policy.