drvnbysound
Senior Member
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible describing the troubleshooting steps that I have performed so far...
I've built about 8-10 computers over the past 6-8yrs. I had a friend ask me to build one for him about 2 yrs ago. About 6 months ago it was reported that the PC was getting BSOD's pretty often and the computer was pretty much unusable. I picked the computer up and brought it home to diagnose and repair. At first I assumed it was a virus or other HDD problem; I've had similar issues in the past and usually reformatting the HDD and reinstalling Windows had resolved the problem. I ended up doing this a couple of times, but the problem still existed. Then, I assumed that the HDD may be faulty... I had another one lying around, so I installed it in the PC, along with a fresh installation of Windows... still getting random BSODs. That led me to look to the RAM - the Motherboard has (4) DIMMs, and (2) 2GB sticks of DDR3 are installed. I choose to move the RAM from slots 1 & 3, to slots 2 & 4. It seemed that the problem had been resolved. I ran the computer for approximately 2 weeks, using it on occasion and turning it on/off throughout the 2 week period as well. I was no longer able to reproduce a BSOD issue. I contacted the friend and told them that I had solved the problem and I could bring the computer back. Due to illness and various schedule conflicts I have had the computer for a few months. I was finally contacted again recently to bring the computer back... so I decided I would turn it on again just to verify one more time that there were no issues before delivering the computer... and I get a BSOD the first time I turn it back on! UGH!!!
Back to the RAM, I did a little research and decided to give the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool a try. I removed 1 stick of RAM and installed the other stick into DIMM1. I ran the Memory Diagnostic tool (WMDt) and received no errors. I proceeded to move that stick of RAM through all the DIMMs and the WMDt found no errors... I then removed that stick of RAM and inserted the second stick into DIMM 1 - 4 and ran the WMDt while the RAM was installed in each of the DIMMs - again no errors. Note that since removing the RAM and installing a single stick into any DIMM the computer seemed to run fine and did not experience any BSODs.
Then, based on recommendation of BSR I downloaded memtest. I went through the tests as mentioned above (one stick in each DIMM) and let memtest run for a minimum of 2 passes and no errors were found. I then decided to install both sticks again (DIMM slots 1 & 3) and ran memtest again - there were a bunch of errors; I don't recall how many passes it had done, but I believe there were over 2,000 errors. I then moved the RAM sticks to 2 & 4, and ran memtest again; 2-3 passes and no errors were found. I am now on the last iteration of testing both RAM sticks together in each DIMM and have not yet been able to produce any errors. That said, is it possible that memtest would fail when the RAM sticks were installed in specific DIMMs (e.g. stick 1 in DIMM1, and stick 2 in DIMM 3)??
I would have assumed that if the RAM stick was bad, it would fail in any DIMM, and if any DIMM was bad, it would produce errors regardless of what RAM stick was installed.... then again, that's just logic talking!! Any ideas???
Note: I had never documented the BSOD messages, but the most recent ones I received when I turned it on earlier this week was a "Bad Pool Header". I am not sure if that is helpful at all, but I again wanted to try and provide as much information as possible.
I've built about 8-10 computers over the past 6-8yrs. I had a friend ask me to build one for him about 2 yrs ago. About 6 months ago it was reported that the PC was getting BSOD's pretty often and the computer was pretty much unusable. I picked the computer up and brought it home to diagnose and repair. At first I assumed it was a virus or other HDD problem; I've had similar issues in the past and usually reformatting the HDD and reinstalling Windows had resolved the problem. I ended up doing this a couple of times, but the problem still existed. Then, I assumed that the HDD may be faulty... I had another one lying around, so I installed it in the PC, along with a fresh installation of Windows... still getting random BSODs. That led me to look to the RAM - the Motherboard has (4) DIMMs, and (2) 2GB sticks of DDR3 are installed. I choose to move the RAM from slots 1 & 3, to slots 2 & 4. It seemed that the problem had been resolved. I ran the computer for approximately 2 weeks, using it on occasion and turning it on/off throughout the 2 week period as well. I was no longer able to reproduce a BSOD issue. I contacted the friend and told them that I had solved the problem and I could bring the computer back. Due to illness and various schedule conflicts I have had the computer for a few months. I was finally contacted again recently to bring the computer back... so I decided I would turn it on again just to verify one more time that there were no issues before delivering the computer... and I get a BSOD the first time I turn it back on! UGH!!!
Back to the RAM, I did a little research and decided to give the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool a try. I removed 1 stick of RAM and installed the other stick into DIMM1. I ran the Memory Diagnostic tool (WMDt) and received no errors. I proceeded to move that stick of RAM through all the DIMMs and the WMDt found no errors... I then removed that stick of RAM and inserted the second stick into DIMM 1 - 4 and ran the WMDt while the RAM was installed in each of the DIMMs - again no errors. Note that since removing the RAM and installing a single stick into any DIMM the computer seemed to run fine and did not experience any BSODs.
Then, based on recommendation of BSR I downloaded memtest. I went through the tests as mentioned above (one stick in each DIMM) and let memtest run for a minimum of 2 passes and no errors were found. I then decided to install both sticks again (DIMM slots 1 & 3) and ran memtest again - there were a bunch of errors; I don't recall how many passes it had done, but I believe there were over 2,000 errors. I then moved the RAM sticks to 2 & 4, and ran memtest again; 2-3 passes and no errors were found. I am now on the last iteration of testing both RAM sticks together in each DIMM and have not yet been able to produce any errors. That said, is it possible that memtest would fail when the RAM sticks were installed in specific DIMMs (e.g. stick 1 in DIMM1, and stick 2 in DIMM 3)??
I would have assumed that if the RAM stick was bad, it would fail in any DIMM, and if any DIMM was bad, it would produce errors regardless of what RAM stick was installed.... then again, that's just logic talking!! Any ideas???
Note: I had never documented the BSOD messages, but the most recent ones I received when I turned it on earlier this week was a "Bad Pool Header". I am not sure if that is helpful at all, but I again wanted to try and provide as much information as possible.
