RAM too fast / RAM incompatibility

[josemavicente]

hi guys,

i recently got a 256DDR (i think its a kingston) slab for my ECS K7S5A. Then some games would crash -- i heard its something about RAM to motherboard incompatibility or something like my ram is too fast for my MB to handle .. i dont understand this. can i have some enlightenment?

as you know a K7S5A has 4 DIMM slots -- 2 for SD and 2 for DDR. With SD, no problemo! DDR presents the problems. Secondly, happens only to some games like activision's spiderman and warcraft III.

what i do to remedy the problem is to set the MB/RAM freq to 100/100 instead of 133/133 ... thus, its really an MB-RAM compatibility and speed thing?

thanks once again in advance for your insights!

[Budfred]

I have run both DDR and SDRAM on that board without any trouble. I mixed different brands as well. You can't use both the DDR and the SDRAM at the same time, so if you are trying to do that, it is why it isn't working. Beyond that, it may simply need to be run at the slower speed. What type of DDR is it?

[josemavicente]

no i dont run them at the same time

i think its pc 266!

[Budfred]

I am not sure the problem might be. Two possibilities:

1. The system runs hotter with the DDR and it is having trouble with heat. Maybe try running with a small desk fan blowing into the open case to check.

2. Something is wrong with one of your RAM sticks, maybe run DocMem to check.

[josemavicente]

hmmm i dont think its heat coz i use a thermaltake volcano 7++. im wondering because my MB survived a crash but afterwards, these crashes start to occur ... in games!


i dont know what to do .. i run the pc now at 100/100 which is kinda pathetic. i only had one RAM stick btw. now i bought two and im running at two 256's DDR 2100.

could it be a board problem? lke surviving the crash -- didnt really survive at all?

[Budfred]

When you have crashes during gaming, it is often the video card that is overheating, so it is worthwhile to try the fan test to see if it makes a difference.

Did you run the memory test?

It could be the board, of course, but it is not the most likely possibility. It might be worthwhile to do a visual inspection of the board and make sure that you don't have any swollen or leaking capacitors, but I don't think that board has had that problem....

[josemavicente]

oops sorry i forgot to say im using a geforce fx 5200 which uses a really huge heatsink thus, no fan.

[Budfred]

The fan test I was referring to is to open the case and run a small desk fan blowing into the computer. I would probably direct it at the video card and then play a really intense game....

[squarenuts]

I belive this board will not let you run the FSB of the ram independent of your CPU. I have a work with these boards and if you have a Duron in there, then that is why your having to back off the CPU to 100Mhz. I think that onlt the Athlons can do the 133 / 266 FSB.

[josemavicente]

Things that I have observed:

1. Game crashes with or without fan at the side. The following games have crashed: Warcraft III Expansion (always)(Reign of Chaos didnt!), Spiderman(always), Neverwinter NIghts Expansion (sometimes)

2. Amazingly, Command and Conquer Generals doesnt crash! So does NBA Live 2k3. Why? Generals uses intense 3d!

3. Im using an Athlon XP 2000+ Thoroughbred on my K7S5A

4. I really dont know if its heat or RAM ... hmmm ... note that the games at number 1 run fine if i set the board/ram freq to 100/100

5. I dont know if this is salient but my system clock resets to June 2002 occasionally.

6. No viruses.

Complete System Specs:

Athlon 2000+ Tbred on a K7S5A
Thermaltake Volcano 7++ left at HIGH setting
Using two generic 256 DDR RAM Chips (2100) -- i dont think this is the problem because i tried removing and replacing and still same results
SB Live 5.1
Geforce FX 5200 64MB
80GB Seagate with generic HD cooling fan slapped in the bottom
I leave the case open for cooling

[josemavicente]

if the problem is with the video card, what can i do to remedy the heating? slap another heat sink? i dont overclock btw..

[Budfred]

If you have a fan blowing on the video card and it is still crashing, it is probably not heat. That said, I believe that is one of the Athlons that tend to run hot, so still can't rule out heat completely. If the video card is overheating, you could try a slot fan to see if that would cool it down. You would have to put in right next to the video card. Probably not the problem though if you tried the fan test....

I am still not clear if you have run DocMem yet to test RAM. If you haven't, that would probably be the next step.

The other thing I wonder about is if your clock is resetting itself that could indicate a bad battery on the motherboard. It might be worthwhile to replace it since they are cheap anyway. The other thing that can throw off settings like a clock would be hijackers/trojans and maybe spyware, if you are sure that there are no viruses. It might be worthwhile to do some more thorough scans, although the rest of symptoms are not typical for that kind of problem.

Hopefully others will have some more ideas too.....

[Jhorner1]

Your newest stick of RAM may be marginal. It may be overheating after running memory intensive games. Try running with just your old stick of RAM in the same slot it was in originally. If the crashing goes away, then the memory is probably bad, but not showing it until it gets stressed. It is also possible that the new stick is miss-marked (actually PC1600). This would explain why it works fine at 100 instead of 133.
This would not be the first time that has happened ( I had a stick marked PC133 that would not run over 104mhz. Found out when changed from Duron (PC100) to Athlon (PC133).
Hope this helps.

[squarenuts]

I would get the latest drivers from Nvidia. Also get the latest patches for those games. ANd replace that motherboard battery your system could be reseting itself. Also what size power supply are you runing? This may be an issuse of your power supply not being able to support all your running. does a 5200 card have a power plug that goes directly to the power supply? Try unpluging some CD drives and what ever else you can spare. You just might need a bigger / better power supply.

[josemavicente]

i am using a 475 watt power supply

i am updated in all patches

[Budfred]

Have you tested the RAM??????????????????????????

[josemavicente]

so sorry to reply only now budfred

YES I HAVE TESTED THE RAM!

agh this is a real stumper. ill try to switch to SD then see if the same thing happens. im out of town now so no PC