ok, finally got the computer up and running and completly updated. 2 sticks of ram are in and i will begin testing today...

Ok Dave I'll wait to hear from you.

Sorry for the absense, im back and im going to get through this time

No need to apologise, just post back and let us know how the PC is performing when you have some results from the trial. If it locks up, swap the RAM sticks with another pair and start again.

Have you checked the RAM timings are set to match the manufacturer's recommended setting?
(Bit short of time, so sorry if that has already been mentioned)

One other suggestion. If you find the lockups still happen with either pair of RAM sticks, does your motherboard have onboard graphics, if so remove the graphics card and run the monitor from the motherboard, then see if the lockups continue.

Memory timings match the manufacturers recommendations. The mother board, Gigabyte EP45-UD3P, doesnt have on board graphics. So far so good, I thought it locked up this morning but its just taking a while to "wake up" from sleep mode I guess because its only operating on half the ram. Ill up date as soon as I make any progress

I woke the computer from sleep mode today and was at the log in screen. I entered my password and it just sat there for several minutes and never went into windows. Reset the computer and it loaded right up. It hasnt been getting a lot of use though, keeping this ram in untill at least tomorrow. Running through the computer now playing a game and what not to see if it locks up again.

OK.

Ok, got home from work woke the computer from sleep mode and started messing around with it. Clicking any icon on the desktop didnt do anything, nothing would open. When I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del the computerstarted thinking, the mouse turned into the blue wheel and after a few seconds the screen went black and the mouse turned back to the pointer. A minute later an error window foped up saying error: failure to log in or something like that. I had to reset the computer. For now it is unplugged because once again I have to move it because of my roommates, im hoping to have it up tonight with the other 2 sticks of ram in it.

oh, when I woke the computer it was still in windows, not at the log in screen like it should have been.

Edit... Hmm, I guess I had the ram plugged into slot 1 and 2 instead of 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. I dont know if that could cause any issues. I swapped the chips anyway and the computer is booting up now.

It should not make much difference if you have the sticks in 1 & 2 or 1 & 3 as that simply changes it from single to dual channel mode.

If you are noticing a marked improvement with the other pair of sticks then now try putting them into slots 1 & 2 and see if that causes the same issues.

Another thing you could try is running it in safe mode and see if that shows the same problems, or not.

woke the computer from sleep, entered password to log in and the system froze. I gave it about 5 minutes then rebooted. So both sets of ram have produced the freeze. What should I try next?

Ok, certainly sounds like we can cross RAM off the list of possible causes.

I would now suggest doing a full test on the hard drive, as follows:

Identify the make of your hard drive and then use the appropriate link below to get the manufacturer's diagnostics.

These are direct links to the download (apart from Western Digital) so the download will start as soon as you click on the link.

These diagnostics are only available as ISO images to burn to CD except for Excelstore who also provide a download for a USB flash drive. Please note that this USB version is only for use on Excelstore hard drives.

Excelstore ISO for CD Or USB flash drive (instructions included in Readme.txt file)
Hitachi/IBM
Seagate, Samsung, Maxtor & Quantum
Western Digital Click on the Download button next to Diag504fCD.iso

NOTE: For Toshiba/Fujitsu, or any make of drive not listed, use the diagnostics from the Seagate link.

For the downloads that are in a .zip file, right click the file and select Extract Here and burn the image to a CD. (A re-recordable CD will be fine).

In Windows 7 right click the extracted file, select Open With, then select Windows Disc Image Burning Tool then follow the prompts.
For all other versions of windows (if you do not have an ISO burner) download this free software. ImgBurn Install the program and start the application. Select the top left hand option to Write image file to disc and then on the next window click on the small yellow folder icon and browse to the file you have downloaded from the links above. Then click on the two grey discs with the arrow in between (bottom left) and leave it to complete the operation.

Boot the PC into the Bios setup and set the CD/DVD drive to 1st in the boot sequence. Insert the disk in the drive then reboot and the disc will load into dos. Always select the Extended Test where available.

NOTE: Unfortunately the hard drive is the one item in your PC that will fail, it is not a case of if but a case of when. It is an electrical/mechanical device and therefore it will wear out. Hence the need to keep regular back ups of all your important data to an external source, DVD's or Blu-ray discs are the most dependable but if you have 1000's of GB's of data then an external hard drive would be a better choice, unfortunately that drive too will eventually fail, so DVD's or Blu-ray discs are the safest option for crucial data that you would be devastated to loose.

Ok, downloading the WD file now. The hard drive in the computer is not the same one from when I started this thread. That hard drive is in the computer I built in November and is working great. Th hard drive in the computer now is an older one...4 or 5 years old.

Ran extended test, Quick test ran first and completed with no errors, waitin for other test to finish

Extended test finished...No Errors found

Ok, try this next and post the logs for me to see.

OCCT Instructions

• Download OCCT and save to the desktop.
• Extract the contents of the zip file to the desktop.
• Double click on the OCCT folder to open it and then double click on the OCCT icon to run the program.
• Click on the CPU: OCCT tab. Check the Automatic and the Error check buttons, set the duration for 1 hour and leave the rest
  set at default. Click on the green ON button and leave the test to run. Make sure all programs and your browser are closed and
  do not use the PC during the test.
• When the test ends click on the OFF button to close the software.
• The Results window should open, if not open Documents > OCCT. You should find a folder with todays date on it. Zip the folder and send it as an
  attachment with your next post.

NOTE
If the test stops before the set time this will indicate it has detected a fault. The program will still save a results folder for you to post.
If the tabs for the PSU and GPU are greyed out it means your DirectX 9 version is too old. OCCT requires DirectX 9.
You can manually check it easily : just look for the file d3dx9_37.dll in the following folder C:\Windows\System32
If it is not present, just download the latest
Direct X9 Update for your OS and everything should run fine afterwards.

I dont see an "Error Check" button... Just Automatic, Infinite and Use All Logical Cores. Going ahead with the automatic and 1 hour duration

Scan Results

Ooops, the error check button is not available in the CPU test, thanks for pointing that out, I will update my canned instructions.

So, that test all went well and the results don't show anything suspicious. Now run it again and use the GPU 3D tab, post the results as before.

GPU 3D Scan Results I had to run the scan twice so I dont know if there are duplicated logs or partial logs in there or if the first ones were overwritten.