8gb RAM problems on vista64

[C. Gillian]

I'm having repeated system restarts since going from 4 to 8gb. The crashes
occur whenever I push the system to actually use more than 4gb, otherwise
it's rock solid and never crashes. The RAM consists of 4x2gb stalks all
purchased in one go from Crucial and is listed (by them) as compatible with
my specific motherboard. Each stalk works fine on it's own or in tandem, but
as soon as I move to all 4 the problems start. Sometimes I see the BSOD with
"stop" messages, but most often the system just reboots immeadiatly.

Some specs;
CPU: Intel quad core q6600
Motherboard: P5N32E-SLI
RAM: Crucial. Part #: CT2KIT25664AA1067 • DDR2 PC2-8500 • CL=7 • Unbuffered
• NON-ECC • DDR2-1066 • 1.8V • 256Meg x 64 •
GPU: Nvidia 8800gts (640mb version)
OS: Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP1

I've trawled the hotfixes here, and on the manufacturers website for each
component but haven't had any luck. My drivers, BIOS and Vista updates are
all up to date, i've even tried a clean format and install of vista. Can
anyone out there help?

Fingers crossed,

Cameron.

 

[Timothy Davis [MSFT]]

Crash information would be useful.

Have you run the memory diagnostic off of the Vista installation DVD?

 

[Kerry Brown]

Some motherboards have a problem when all four DIMM slots are populated.
That motherboard appears to be affected.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=P5N32E-SLI+four+sticks&meta=

I've found the best remedy is to increase the RAM voltage very slightly and
run the RAM at a slower speed.

 

[Robert McMillan]

I had a similar issue when I moved to 8gb on my system. The ram was
producing errors that crashed the system. memtest86 cannot test the full 8gb
ram (or at least couldnt back when I tried). I found a program
http://hcidesign.com/memtest/ which also happens to be called memtest but
runs inside windows rather than at bootup and you can test 8gb of ram with
it by opening up multiple instances of the program until you are using all
8gb of ram. I was running 8 copies testing 1gb each and found that I was
producing errors. The solution to fixing this problem was as another reply
suggested increasing the ram voltage in the bios (only increase it a very
small amount) and then try running the memory test again to see if it is
stable. I was able to get all 8GB running at 800mhz with only a small bump
in the voltage but you may also have to drop the speed of the ram to get it
stable.

HTH
Robert

 

[Paul Montgomery]

Then, try different brand of ram. Then,
different motherboard.

Sure. No problem. Folks usually have a few spares of each laying
around the house.

 

[Wandering]

Sure. No problem. Folks usually have a few spares of each laying
around the house.

There is a procedure for this, and as I recall it amounts to doing the Vista
setup with 4 megs installed, and then adding the additional memory. I am
pretty sure there is a KB article on this. Good luck.

 

[Paul Montgomery]

There is a procedure for this, and as I recall it amounts to doing the Vista
setup with 4 megs installed, and then adding the additional memory. I am
pretty sure there is a KB article on this. Good luck.

Umm... I'm not the one having the problem.

 

[C. Gillian]

Thanks for all the feedback folks. The problem isn't exactly solved but I
have a work around thanks to your efforts.

I've bumped the voltage from 1.8v to 1.85v and dropped the speed from 800 to
667, this has fixed the problem immeadiatly.

I can't step the voltage by anything less than 0.05v but i'll experiment
with small increments of speed till i find an optimum.

Thanks again.