Memory Problems?

I just built a Core 2 Duo (1.86) PC. When I am running a heavy app such as game with 3d graphics, or rendering video, my computer will suddenly reboot. the power doesn't cut, the screen just goes black and reboots. Also, when i don't use it for a period of time, the same thing happens. something i though i would leave download overnight is gone in the AM because the PC apparently robooted itself at some point. I get a RAM error message. I don't think the RAM is incompatible. One, 512mb DDR2 533 in a 965P-A ecs motherboard. Could it be that i should pick up another (or few more) sticks of RAM? Thanks for any replies.

For DDR2, you should have dual channel

Dude, WTF

My PC is a butthead. I will suddenly reboot. The power doesn't cut. I posted a question earlier because I suspected it was the memory and boosted it to 1g dual channel. Still rebooted. Then, video card was the culprit. Went in, turned off the hardware accelerator. Life was good.
Once again, while trying to render video for burning to DVD, the same thing happened. Is my video card not playing nice or is a cylinder on my PSU not firing. I just built the darn thing, so it shouldn't be because of dirt or anything like that. What's the origin with the most probability?

Specs:
400W ATX tower
ECS P965T-A (V1.0B)
Core 2 Duo (1.86)
Sapphire Raedon X550
Memory 1g (512x2)
XP Home SP 2
4 Fans (1 case back, 1 case side, CPU and PSU)
Sony DVD RW



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Hello and welcome to Techspot.

I have merged your new thread into this one as it still concerns the same problem.

Go and follow the instructions in this thread HERE.

If that doesn`t help, attach 5 or 6 of your latest minidumps here.

Regards Howard :wave: :wave:

sounds like a over heating problem do u have a way to moniter heat??

thanks.
nothing specific on heat monitoring. after it crashes i checked the temp in bios. it was around 35c range. but then again not sure what its peak was at.
when i am rendering video the cpu is going constantly at about 50% usage according to windows task manager.

if u dont have the heatsink tight it will overheat and shut down

also check error log and see what it sais

Thanks for your comments everyone. Found the problem. It was the ECS board I had. Took it back, complained to get them to let me get a refund (customer service in japan kicks-***) and got a Gigabyte DS4 and also from 400w to 650w PSU. Since then, no problems.

I'd stay away from ECS boards myself - looks like they were the culprit. I stick to Asus, ABIT, Gigabyte, etc... but have had issues with all of them over the years - just overall better odds IMOH.

Before you swap a board - it's always good to try a new BIOS if available. Sometimes they ship and you can fix issues w/ the latest...

Good luck!

sl33py