Mobo and RAM Problems

[Xalabis]

I just bought two new 512MB sticks of RAM for my Shuttle AK32E mobo with Athlon XP 2400+. The RAM is PC-3200 made by Corsair. I put them into my computer, and I took out the old ones (128MB and 256MB, both PC100 SDRAM) and it worked fine for a while (bout an hour), but then the blue screen that dumps physical memory started popping up and restarting my computer instantly. Now I can't get them to run 5 minutes without the blue screen popping up. Now I've done some investigating and I think I the problem is the RAM itself. I've read other sites and gotten other suggestions and this is what I can do solve it my RAM problem and things I have thought of:

a. Upgrading the BIOS so the RAM will be compatible with the mobo
(I have Award BIOS v 6.00)
b. Downgrading to PC2700 RAM
c. The mobo isn't compatible with the RAM (I really hope not)
d. I fried the RAM somehow

If anyone can help me out with this problem and give any new suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[TMSKILZ]

I've had similar issues. I too updated to Corsair RAM. I installed 1GB. I received numerous Blue Screens of death error messages. The error message you need to look for is the one that states "MEMORY_MANAGEMENT" That's an indicator that your memory is the cause. I simply reintalled the 1GB memory & made sure they snapped into the RAM slots correctly & firmly. haven't received that error message since. Although I have received other blue error messages. Such as IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" But from what others have told me, this has to do with possible hard/software drivers, not memory.

I know this RAM is compatible, b/c I went to my Mobo's (BIOSTAR KNHA pro) website & searched & found RAM compatible with my Mobo.

 

[Ea$Y]

Tmskills is right.

Make sure your ram is snapped down firmly and rooted.
I have had a prob like this years ago. I solved it by inventing curse words and passing a lot of gas. LOL Finally i began to play with the ram. Moving it around. Opening and closing the retaining clips which i dont think helped but calmed me down a little. My 3rd ddr bank closest to the cpu core would not accept a dimm for some reason. I have no idea- but when i moved it to the 2 banks to the far right it booted fine and i never had a prob with it after. Are you using the same brand/speed of ram- some boards are very picky and you need to make sure that the clock speed of the ram (mhz) matches as well. for obvious reasons lol. As far as irq conflicts are concerned I have never had one (knock on wood) You may need to update your bios or reset origional configuration data (default reset)

Hope this helps

 

[Xalabis]

Thanks for your help guys, but I have another question to ask:

What would happen if the RAM was incompatible with the mobo?

I dug up my mobo manual from under all my other computer manuals and it says that it can accommodate 184-pin DIMM PC1600/PC2100 compliant 2.5V single or double side 64-bit wide data path DDR SDRAM modules (taken right from the manual :dead: ) I checked these two types of RAM on Newegg and PC1600 is nonexistent and PC2100 isn't as mainstream as PC2700 and PC3200.

I would think that the RAM wouldn't work at all, but it did, which was weird.
I've put the RAM back in, securely in place, tampered with it a little, and it still gives me that blue screen, and I can't see what the error says because the second that error screen pops up my computer restarts and the OS won't load because the blue screen keeps popping up. Maybe it has something to do with the voltage?

In addition, I went to www.crucial.com, and they gave me a list of all the compatible RAM types (SD and DDR) that I could use (http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?mfr=Shuttle&cat=RAM&model=AK32 is my specs) and on it PC3200 is a type of RAM that I could use. Now I think that I fried the RAM somehow and I need to send em back and get new ones.

I'm beginning to think that I might need to upgrade the BIOS so it will be compatible with the new RAM, but I'd like to find a site that tells me what new hardware the upgraded BIOS is compatible with. If anyone knows where I can find this, it would be very helpful to me, or if anyone has anymore suggestions/advice (even if it's bad news), it would help me out a lot.

 

[Ea$Y]

I think the DDR banks and voltage outputs are board specific.
Most of the newer agp 8x boards have 3-4 ram banks which in theory can accomodate up to 4 gigs of ram. I have no idea y sombody would want that much lol. I have never seen a 1024 dimm either. Plus id would rather blow a 512 as opposed to a gig in one bang. What is the front side bus rated on your board? 266 ? I think pc 2100 has a clock speed rated at 266mhz which is as high as the board will take. I found a list of specs of your board which confirm my suspicions.

Product Type Mainboard
Form Factor ATX
Width 30.5 cm
Depth 24.5 cm
Compatible Processors Athlon, Duron, Athlon XP
Processor Socket Socket A
Chipset Type VIA Apollo KT266A
Max Bus Speed 266 MHz
BIOS Type Award
Processor
Installed Qty (Max Supported) 0 ( 1 )
Memory
Supported RAM Technology SDRAM, DDR SDRAM
RAM Installed ( Max ) 0 MB / 2 GB (max)
Supported RAM Speed PC2100, PC1600, PC100, PC133
Storage Controller
Controller Interface Type ATA-133
Storage Controller IDE
Audio
Audio Output Sound card
Signal Processor VIA VT8235
Sound Output Mode Stereo
Compliant Standards AC '97
Features
BIOS Features ACPI support, DMI support
Manual Settings CPU frequency, processor core voltage, FSB ratio (CPUCI)
Hardware Monitoring CPU core temperature, CPU fan tachometer, system voltage, CPU overheating protection, CPU core voltage


PC 1600 is fairly old as well as PC2100. PC2700 and PC3200 are pretty much the new standard in ddr. 2700 is 333 mhz i think and 3200 -is 400 mhz. If you bought that ram and stuck it in your mobo u may have damaged either the board or the ram. Possibly im not sure.

Pc 2100 -184 pin ram should work though. Its not El ram is it ( enhanced latency) I have heard of issues with those dimms on some boards.
The only other thing I can think of is your bios may need flashing. :| perish the thought. Get out your trusty floppy find a copy of a recent bios on shuttles website- put the copy on floppy. and use the boot sequence to flash it reading from the A: drive. Its a fairly painless process as long as it is not interupted by power failure. :| put your old ram in there so it dosent die in the middle of the process. I will look to see if I can find you a list of board specific instructions on how to flash safely. Maybe in a new bios revision you can take a higher memory dimm- though i doubt it cause you r restricted by the fsb on your board.

Hope this helped.