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Is my ram the problem?
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Posted by: joeups45
Hi guys,
Recently i bought a DELL XPS Gen 5 pc. I'm running the 660 processor (3.6) with one gig of pc 5300 667 ram. Recently i upgraded my ram 2 times. the first time i bought the corsair xms pro ram. Turned out the ram was defective so i ended up getting the crucial ballistix ram. I've tried tech support with dell and they continue to fight with me telling me i have pc 4200 ram yet the ram thats in my pc is labeled pc 5300 at 667 and when checking in the bios is detects the ram speed at 667. The problem I'm facing lately is the pc is freezing to the point where I cant hit ctrl alt dlt to get the task manager. I noticed this happening mainly while playing call of duty online. Everything worked kinda fine until i put the new ram in. I'm not sure if theres a conflict with the ram or not. Is there a way to tell. My other sys specs are i have an ati x850 pe gfx card and im running windows xp media edition.
The only other time im experiencing lock ups is when i turn my pc into suspend with the media remote and after i turn the pc back on, nothing can be done and it runs really slow..
The pc is less than 2 weeks old and it feels like its running like an outdated pc. As a matter of fact my p4 2.0 with a gig of pc2100 and a nvidia 5500 card runs faster.
The other thing I've been reading is possible overheating... By adding a gig of ram could that possibly casue the pc to over heat and lock up on me? It takes about 5 mins of playing cod b4 the freeze, but whats funny is i can run 3D Mark 05 and get a bench of 6020. Along with recently i completed half life 2 with all options maxed out and never once did the pc freeze.
Overall system specs:
DELL XPS Gen 5
Intel P 4 660
2 gigs of DDR2 PC5300 ram @ 667
ATI X850 PE
1 ATA HD @ 160 Gigs
1 IDE HD @ 200 Gigs hooked up on a controller card
Windows XP Media center, w/ dual TV Tuner
Posted by: redwench
having the ram running at a different speed than the board can cause issues. make sure everything is running the same speed, and run a ram tester according to the directions. www.memtest.org
Posted by: goranpaa
Run your PC, with the casedoor open and see if this helps? If it does. Add a couple of good case fans and maybe a Antec "Vcool" video card cooler to your case. This should take care of the overheating.
Posted by: thtadthtshldntb
I would not be worrying about heat just by upgrading ram unless you have gone all the way to 4 GB and are doing some serious OCing and tweaking of the memory timings.
My instincts suggest instability due to memory timings and possibly voltage. This is DDR2 which does not quite behave the same way that DDR does. We are used to just plugging in 3200 in place of 2700 and seeing a perfomance bump. The bios timings for DDR2 533 might be too fast for DDR2 667. See what is recommended for your RAM and adjust. Also upgrade your bios if possible.
Posted by: joeups45
The 667 ram was the original ram, that came with the pc, so i specifically called dell to ask what ram i should use, they suggested kingston ram, but after looking at the specs between the ram i have and the kingston they are the same.
Posted by: thtadthtshldntb
Your 2 GBs of ram, are all of the chips identical? I do not mean, are they all labeled as DDR2 xx00 or whatever but are their techincal specs the same, ie same timings etc.
Did you check to see if you had knocked anything loose when you installed/removed/reinstalled etc.
Posted by: joeups45
the only difference i believe is the voltage, but i used the system identifier on crucial to choose this ram. I tried the memtest that redwench suggested and all tests came out with no errors. The only difference is at the voltage where my original is at 1.8v and the new set is at 2.1.
Posted by: joeups45
hey guys. I ended up calling crucial to ask them if the timings would of made a difference. He said there could be a possibility, but first before doing anything to try updating the video driver since i upgraded the ram. He said sometimes the driver needs to be updated after new ram was installed. I never heard of this but strangely enough it worked... Has anyone ever heard of this before?
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