Asus M4A88T-M + Ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

[Moondog]

I upgraded this system last year with a new MB, Athalon II 2X 260 3.20 GHz CPU and 8 GB of G-Skill memory all purchased from Newegg. It is a HTPC computer running Windows 7 Ultimate. I've always built my own PCs and built a few for others also. I seldom run into trouble getting everything going. This time was different, I was getting a lot of hang ups and blue screens. I reloaded the operating system several times and even replaced the hard drive. What fixed my problem was removing one of the memory modules. The system has been very stable for the last 17 months running on 4 GB of memory. I would like to have the 8 GB of memory I paid for. Is this evidence that I removed a faulty memory module or am I missing something? How do I go about returning the suspected faulty piece of memory?

[GSKILL TECH]

Did you swap the modules to see if the other module can run stable by itself? If not, it may be defective. If the other module runs stable, then it may just be a problem with BIOS settings.

Here is the RMA page if necessary:

http://www.gskill.com/en/rma


Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[Moondog]

Good idea,

I will swap the modules tomorrow. If it is bios settings I'll be asking for a little help with that. I don't know much about memory timing, etc.

Thanks for the prompt reply.

[Moondog]

Blue screens did me in

This HTPC system has never been 100% in my opinion but a few weeks ago the system went down on a blue screen for the first time. Then it happened a couple more times.

I upgraded from Win 7 to Win 8.1 and the blue screens got worse.

I removed one 4 GB memory module, it got worse. I swapped in the other 4 GB memory module by itself, still worse.

I tried a brand new hard drive, no help.

I tried a new power supply, no help.

I formatted the drive and went back to Win 7, not as bad but getting BSODs daily.

The computer would crash and restart even when I wasn't using it. Sometimes a box would pop up saying the memory at a certain address could not be read. It would also hang, only the mouse curser would work forcing me to hold in the power button to shut it down.

Last week I threw in the towel. I logged onto Newegg and bought a new MB, CPU, 8 GB of Gskill memory and 2 TB hard drive. Of course that fixed it since the only original thing in the case is the DVD. Works great, but I would like to use the old parts in another case.

Looks like I've narrowed it down to memory or motherboard. I ordered a motherboard that will be here tomorrow. I should soon know with reasonable certainty if the culprit is the MB or memory.

My questions, 1. Can a failing CPU cause my issues? 2. Can you think of any bases I haven't covered? 3. If the system acts up with a new MB is that enough evidence to issue a RMA?

Thanks

[GSKILL TECH]

Test the working RAM in the older motherboard and see if that works. A failing CPU is rare, but not impossible. Since you have multiple parts, you just need to test and see what works to isolate the problem hardware.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH