Vista 64bit freezes and locks up with more then 2gigs of ram installed

Terra

Hi,

I'm having an issue with a newly installed vista 64.

Basically if the system has more then 2 gigs of ram, applications such as warcraft and flashget completely lock up the system.

If I remove a few memory dimms and just run the system on 2gigs of memory then its perfect.

I have updated too sp1 and also updating the drivers...but it seems to be down too applications no being able too handle having a lot of memory open too them.

I thought it might be down too the difference in memory timings, but I have installed 8 gigs of the same type of memory just in case.

Also tried with different dimms and same effect.

I believe this too be an issue with Vista 64bit. Has anyone come accross this? Does anyone know of a solution?

astrofool

Was the machine running fine with XP before?

A lot of older motherboards have issues with having all RAM slots populated, leading to crashing.

Vista x64 should be completely agnostic to having more or less RAM, i'd be 99% sure it's a hardware issue, what are your computers specs?

yoyo

Try running memtest on your RAM, also see if theres a bios update for your mobo which could sort it

Nick

Terrlock

I have this motherboard

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=343979

I have also a copy of xp running...can dual boot into it...It seems to have no problems.

I just got this motherboard, and have updated the bios. Maybe I don't have the memory running at right voltages or something.

I have read other forums with people having simliar issues with vista 64bit. They don't really have solutions though, apart from taking out the memory.

I have tried different memory sticks so its not faulty ram.

Maybe its a motherboard fault but can't really be sure about that.

yoyo

Do you have a nvidia card by any chance?

Nick

Capt'n Midnight

have you tried removing the original ram and then just using the extra on it's own and doing a soak test over night

then put in the original memory in the other banks and run memtest again, to see if the problem is with the memory or the mother board slots

XP doesn't fill memory as quickly as vista so higher memory won't be used as much

cba looking up boot settings for vista but you could modify the xp boot ini to ignore some ram , so you test it without having to take the case aparart

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791475.aspx
The /burnmemory parameter is supported only on Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. On Windows Vista and later versions of Windows, use the removememory option with BCDEdit.

This parameter is similar to the /maxmem parameter, which specifies the amount of memory available to Windows. However, because /maxmem actually sets an upper bound for memory addresses available to Windows, and because there might be gaps in the allocation of system memory, the /burnmemory parameter is more precise than the /maxmem parameter.

Terra

Do you have a nvidia card by any chance?

Yes I do I have an 8800gt 1gig of ram on it.

Any issues with these ?

Terra

have you tried removing the original ram and then just using the extra on it's own and doing a soak test over night

then put in the original memory in the other banks and run memtest again, to see if the problem is with the memory or the mother board slots

XP doesn't fill memory as quickly as vista so higher memory won't be used as much

cba looking up boot settings for vista but you could modify the xp boot ini to ignore some ram , so you test it without having to take the case aparart

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791475.aspx
The /burnmemory parameter is supported only on Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. On Windows Vista and later versions of Windows, use the removememory option with BCDEdit.

This parameter is similar to the /maxmem parameter, which specifies the amount of memory available to Windows. However, because /maxmem actually sets an upper bound for memory addresses available to Windows, and because there might be gaps in the allocation of system memory, the /burnmemory parameter is more precise than the /maxmem parameter.

I've completely replaced my memory with new memory, and this made no difference.

So if something hardware wise is wrong I'd say its with the motherboard slots.

However I'm not entirely sure this is simply hardware... as more of an issue with my current hardware setup....applications running such as wow and vista 64bit.

I know some applications can lock up a system if more then 2gigs of ram is available too them.

yoyo

yoyo wrote: »

Do you have a nvidia card by any chance?

Nick

Terra wrote: »

Yes I do I have an 8800gt 1gig of ram on it.

Any issues with these ?

I have a 8800GTS 320mb and due to nvidias latest drivers get full pc lockups/monitor looses signal sometimes, afaik its a nvidia problem with people who have 8 series cards and 4 gigs ram

Nick

Terrlock

I have a 8800GTS 320mb and due to nvidias latest drivers get full pc lockups/monitor looses signal sometimes, afaik its a nvidia problem with people who have 8 series cards and 4 gigs ram

Ah yes I'm familiar with this issue, I used to have it until I upgraded too SP1.

Seems too have disappeared. Although maybe it has manifested itself into another problem.

I'm having this issue with 4 or 8 gigs of memory installed.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what is the fix for it.

yoyo

Terrlock wrote: »

Ah yes I'm familiar with this issue, I used to have it until I upgraded too SP1.

Seems too have disappeared. Although maybe it has manifested itself into another problem.

I'm having this issue with 4 or 8 gigs of memory installed.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what is the fix for it.

I have SP1, disabling the Vista Dream Scene makes system crash allot less often I've found so if you have the video wallpaper enabled, choose a static one instead, I did get a lockup even using a static wallpaper but it was after a good few hours...

Nick

Capt'n Midnight

anyone know which addresses the card uses, if so you could try to get windows to ignore that part of memory by using the removememory option with BCDEdit - if no better clues then start off with 1GB so you are using 3GB RAM and ignoring 1GB which the Video card will use, then maybe up it 128 MB at a time ?

Terra

I believe I have found out what was causing my issue.

Apparently vista 64 bit is very fussy about memory timmings.

Generally I don't like messing around with voltages and memory timings too much. So I usually set everything too auto in the bios.

Haven't ventured too much into the overclocking as yet.

Anyways I was just going through my bios in detail too see if I could spot anything a miss.


And sure enough memory which was set too auto was using a 5 5 5 15 cas latency settings.

The memory I got is rated at 4 4 4 12. Now this had no issues win xp or even vista 32 bit. however in 64 bit certain applications would just freeze up the system... Probably cause they were accessing a different portion of memory.

Anyways I've changed form auto too manual in the bios and hard set it too 4 4 4 12, and so far its running without a hitch.

I have still a lot of testing to do, too be fully sure.

That nvidia problem was causing me no end of grief for a long time, but I seem too be over that one for now.

Thanks guys for your help.

PogMoThoin

Terra wrote: »

I believe I have found out what was causing my issue.

Apparently vista 64 bit is very fussy about memory timmings.

Generally I don't like messing around with voltages and memory timings too much. So I usually set everything too auto in the bios.

Haven't ventured too much into the overclocking as yet.

Anyways I was just going through my bios in detail too see if I could spot anything a miss.


And sure enough memory which was set too auto was using a 5 5 5 15 cas latency settings.

The memory I got is rated at 4 4 4 12. Now this had no issues win xp or even vista 32 bit. however in 64 bit certain applications would just freeze up the system... Probably cause they were accessing a different portion of memory.

Anyways I've changed form auto too manual in the bios and hard set it too 4 4 4 12, and so far its running without a hitch.

I have still a lot of testing to do, too be fully sure.

That nvidia problem was causing me no end of grief for a long time, but I seem too be over that one for now.

Thanks guys for your help.

Hold on, You tightened timings and it fixed it. I'm a bit sceptical here that its fixed it as tightening timings would put more pressure on the sticks of ram and the chipset. You've just overclocked your ram

You'll need to manually set the voltage for the chips and take the setting of the voltage off auto. Check with cpuz what speed your memory is running at in the memory tab and check the Spd tab for what voltage the ram should be getting at this frequency. Then set this voltage in the bios, it'll be labelled "Dram voltage" or something similar. You may have to enable manual overclocking just to allow you set this voltage manually. This is important or you'll have an unstable system.

You can test ram stability with memtest, download the Iso image and burn it to a Cd-rom. Set your bios to boot from Cd first and run a long (few hours) loop of the test. Run the test now before you go any further. You need to make sure those ram sticks are getting enough voltage as a memory fail can corrupt windows.

Terra

The system is better then it was however after a few hours of playing X3 I did get a blue screen of death.

The voltage for the memory is auto and I believe set wrong for the type of memory I'm using...its set too 1.9V

The memory says between 2.0 - 2.1V. I guess auto isn't a very good option too be going with.

I've hard set the memory too 2.0 now, going too see how it performs.

PogMoThoin

Run Memtest, it will produce memory fails quickly and won't do any damage like fails in Windows. Also loosen the timings back to 5-5-5 with the new voltage if it don't pass at 4-4-4.

Terra

Ran the memory test and the memory was fine with 4-4-4-12 at 2.0V

However got a new problem with that change on vista in that it now would give a blue screen 0x000007e

I updated my intel chipset drivers and they seem too have cured that.

So far system is stable with no freezing or blue screens.

Strange that underclocked memory would cause freezing in vista 64bit