"New" Build issues

[Lathais]

Yup, did all that. Just removed a stick of RAM though and tried again. All seems stable so far, getting ready to install LAN Drivers and then get all other drivers.

[Fascinate]

Was the other stick of ram in the correct slot? YOu can test if its bad by shutting down and putting it in the slot you know the other one works in. SOme motehrboards are picky about this. What OS are you on, did you find an ISO of vista?

[Lathais]

Yeah, one of the ones I downloaded from the kinda shady site worked. It was in the right slot. It was in the same slots the old RAM was in. It's running fine now with 1 stick of RAM, just pretty darn slow with only 2GB RAM. Once I finish getting drivers and all that installed I will shut it down and swap the sticks and see what happens.

[Fascinate]

Cool beans, keep us updated on how it goes.

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Thats some pretty decent hardware still (just looked at your CPU/GPU), id pick up a cheap ssd if everything is working fine that could be a solid gaming machine still, at least for stuff like WoW.

[Lathais]

Cool beans, keep us updated on how it goes.

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Thats some pretty decent hardware still (just looked at your CPU/GPU), id pick up a cheap ssd if everything is working fine that could be a solid gaming machine still, at least for stuff like WoW.

yeah, it is decent, but now both new rigs have i5-4690K's and GTX960's.

So far so good. I am posting from it now in fact. Only problem is apparently the version of Vista I downloaded is 32-bit, not 64. Not a huge deal though as this is basically a netflix/streaming machine now.

[Kagthul]

Yeah, the only ones I found from "those places" though were cracked copies. I don't want a cracked copy. The copy I did find seemed to work, better than the CD at least as when it was loading and copying files it went a lot faster. However, got a BSOD again during the install. I am at a loss, must be RAM or HDD.

Oh, well, at least for 8.1 i found a cut-down image (no bloatware, only 3.1 GB) that was ready to be turned into an install USB. Did the same with 7.

Glad to hear you tracked it down to RAM though. RAM is cheap right now.

[Lathais]

ok, well, decided I did not want to keep 32-bit wondows, so tried ripping my Vista CD to create bootable USB. First disc acted like it was not there, so one of the 2 discs was a problem. Second disc worked, so I guess the DVD Drive still ahs some life left in it. At least getting this 32-bit version up and running allowed me to do that. Will be installing 64-bit shortly and then will try with other stick of RAM.

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Well I am now thoroughly confused. I have never seen anything like this before. As long as I have only one stick of RAM in, it works fine. Does not matter which stick or which slot. I have tried both sticks in all four slots and it works like a charm every time, as long as there is only one stick in. As soon as I put 2, in either both blue or both black slots, in either order, it freaks out, will not load Windows and either shut down, restart or BSOD. I guess I am going to RMA the RAM.

[Fascinate]

Very odd indeed. 32bit vista should still be able to recognize 4gigs of memory so that shouldnt be the problem, im at a loss as well lol. Not sure if RMA will fix it considering the PC works fine with either stick in a slot. To me that sounds like the traces in the motherboard are bad, rather than a problem with the memory. Like, it works fine with one stick but once you go with 2 the traces arent working right for some reason or another.

The ONE thing i would try if you havent, is if you can get into the bios with both sticks installed make sure they are running at the proper timings/voltage/speed. For yours it seems they are 1.5v 1333mhz 9-9-9-24 cas 9 latency sticks.

[Lathais]

Very odd indeed. 32bit vista should still be able to recognize 4gigs of memory so that shouldnt be the problem, im at a loss as well lol. Not sure if RMA will fix it considering the PC works fine with either stick in a slot. To me that sounds like the traces in the motherboard are bad, rather than a problem with the memory. Like, it works fine with one stick but once you go with 2 the traces arent working right for some reason or another.

The ONE thing i would try if you havent, is if you can get into the bios with both sticks installed make sure they are running at the proper timings/voltage/speed. For yours it seems they are 1.5v 1333mhz 9-9-9-24 cas 9 latency sticks.

What's even weirder is that it is 64-bit Vista. I did end up installing that and it went without a hitch, with one stick of RAM in. Also, I had checked BIOS before removing 1 stick. I also downloaded Memtest+, put it on a bootable USB and let it run 4 full passes with no errors found with both sticks of RAM in. I kinda doubt it's the Motherboard too, because just earlier this week it was running just fine with the RAM that is now in my new rigs. I am at a complete loss.

[Fascinate]

And one more thing i thought of, there is a small chance you need a bios update to support that ram in dual channel. If putting ram at stock settings does nothing for you i would try a bios update.

[Lathais]

My old RAM ran in dual channel. Also, I have never updated a BIOS before. I have never had to. I will look into that though. I think it's weird though, because the RAM I used to have in there is better faster RAM than the junk i put in there now.

[Fascinate]

Asus makes it pretty easy with ez flash:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqLRUZksMgs

Here is the bios page, select the most up to date one to put on USB stick:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A...Desk_Download/

[Denpepe]

Did you try with the old ram in this machine and this ram on the other machine?