Blue Screen

[SkyeDarkhawk]

More interestingly, some power supplies don't even give the +5v rail power. For shits and giggles, double check the wattage on your power supply, if it's less than say, 450w; might as well get a newer one.

[Antichrist]

daredevil:

HD is ok. I have 3 that tested 100% (I was already using 2 of them in my main PC for extra space, and 20g of virtual RAM), and I tried all 3, 1 with Vista, then with XP, I then tried XP on the other 2 HDD, and I had the same problem.

 

Skye: I think you hit the key word. Memory.

After reseating the memory again today, testing it without the graphics card, I noticed when dragging windows they were warping/skipping, which has always been a memory problem in my experience... I received a Page_Fault_in_nonpaged_area error. I did a little research, and my board supports up to PC2700 DDR, and I put two 1g sticks of PC3200 DDR in there (I did this years ago, don't sue me)

 

The 512 stick seems to be working SO FAR, Although dragging windows still warps/skips a little. I definitely need more RAM than this.

 

I've read a little about UNDERCLOCKING RAM to increase stability, but could I underclock to increase compatibility also?

 

NoGood:The power supply shouldn't be an issue, I was just using this in my main PC before I upgraded the main PC PS to a 400w. It worked fine, never had ANY problems with my main PC, so right now I'm ruling it out.

This power supply is currently a 250w Bestec That I pulled from my Compaq.

 

NoGood, have fun searching your parts, I know I did. It took a few days to test everything, but now I have an almost running PC

 

And the Media PC has been running the entire time I typed my reply, so I'm DEFINITELY leaning towards memory.

 

I'm going to underclock if possible, Or just replace it, if I don't have spend an arm and a leg for 2g of DDR1.

[Antichrist]

System info with the 512MB chip said I have 1,024MB installed.

 

System info with ONE PC3200 1g stick says I have 8,192MB installed. Does this mean it's way overclocked?? I remember seeing 16GIGS of RAM installed when I did system info with both 1g sticks in there...

 

Shit... now I'm thinking its shutting down from the memory being overclocked. Going into BIOS next for current memory settings.

 

EDIT:

 

Current memory settings in BIOS:

 

Timing Mode Auto

Memclock index value (Mhz) 200Mhz

CAS# latency (Tcl) 2.5

Min RAS# active time (Tras) 8T

RAS# to CAS# delay (Trcd) 4T

Row precharge time (Trp) 2T

Row to Row delay (Trrd) 2T

1T/2T Memory Timing 2T

 

I'm going to see if I can find anything online in the meantime... I haven't had much luck with finding underclocking memory settings though.

 

EDIT: System Information shows incorrect memory. However System Properties shows a correct value of 960MB with 1 stick installed.

 

The Computer also seems stable when using one stick of 1g PC3200. Although moving windows still causes warping problems.

 

EDIT AGAIN:

I have tested both 1g PC3200 sticks.

Stick #1 seems stable. Moving windows is laggy, but no shutdowns/errors.

Stick #2 seems stable. On bootup there is a row of vertical lines along the top of the screen. these are not there when using stick #1. At the desktop, it seems stable, but still the same lag when moving windows. After the desktop is up for a few minutes, pixelated green horizontal lines appear throughout the display, spaced about 1 inch/3cm apart. The lines continue through any windows I have open at the time.

 

With Stick#1 in slot 1, and Stick#2 in slot 2, the PC did not boot. It was stuck in POST, before mem test.

 

With Stick#1 in slot 2, and Stick#2 in slot 1, POST was a little slower than normal. But booted to windows normally. Desktop shows "recovered from serious error" message. After 10 minutes or so, the PC shut down by itself.

Edited February 1, 2011 by Antichrist

[SkyeDarkhawk]

The latest version of the BIOS for your motherboard is 1.A, if this doesn't match your version, it's time to update.

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/K8MM-V.html#/?div=BIOS

Also, for some RAM support info: http://www.msi.com/file/test_report/TR10_173.pdf

DDR 400 PC-3200 is supposed to be backwards compatible with certain speeds. It may be that your motherboard, RAM, and Processor aren't friendly with each other. So... it may be time to put a few dollars into some brand name RAM, or at least RAM that is shown compatible with the board and processor you are using.

 

With msinfo32 reporting one thing, system properties reporting another, I'd double check my BIOS version, return it to stock settings, and double check Windows Updates to make sure you're up to date with that.

[Antichrist]

Thanks for the response again Skye. The CPU and mobo were purchased together as a matched bundle. The RAM is from my PREVIOUS mobo, which was thought to be bad.

The PC has been running for about an hour now with the "good" memory stick. I'm currently updating to XP SP3, after which I'll look into a BIOS update.

 

But right now it's looking like I just had a bad stick of RAM....

 

+1 me. When I replaced my old 512 stick with these 2 1g sticks, I put the old 512 in a package from the new stuff....

And I see right on the back of the package "LIFETIME WARRANTY" Now to see if I can return the bad stick without a receipt. Who the hell keeps receipts this long anyways....

[Antichrist]

Ok I have received my RMA for the RAM, that's going back to Corsair tomorrow. And I'm currently installing Vista again, since with the bad RAM removed, the PC is as stable as a drunk with 12 legs

 

Thank you x10000000000000000000000 to everyone who helped, I really appreciate everyone taking time out to help me fix this POS up into a running and functioning Media Center