Could it be bad ram slots

[oldpot]

i am runnign a
motherboard=gigabyte ga-k8ns nforce 2
bus 200
amd sempron 2.8
socket 754

3x 256 sticks of ram
vidiogeforcefx5500
crative 64

i been runnign ok for 5 months then

about 2-3 weeks back my pc started to reboot by itself
then started getting the bsod with
page fault
pfn_list etcetc
i took my pc to bare min
checked it and still dioing it
check my minidumps and they was on about memory defect
read a few post on this forum and started checkign ram and ram slots

i got 3 ram slots
1-2-3
and 3 ram sticks
ok
when i put any of my 3 ram sticks in slot 1 it runs great all the time as soon as i put other ram in slot 2and 3 with stick in slot 1 as well it starts freezing ,bsod etcetc
i tested all ram in separate slots and eveytime i use slot 2-3 by them selfs i cannot get passed the first bit of screen at the moment i running my pc with 1 stick of ram in slot 1 put all my software hardware back on and still runnign ok
i wondering it cannot be my ran sticks?????
can i have bad ramslots????
i know little bit about pc but not the bios stuff and changing timming and knocking down memeory etc or could it be somethig esle whats making it do that???
any thoughts i would apprechate

 

[Mr Papschmere]

you could try running Memtest http://www.memtest86.com/

or the Microsoft Memory tester http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

on each stick of RAM and seeing if any fail.

These both run from a bootable floppy

If they all pass, then the Board is to blame.

 

[iss]

double check your motherboard\case setup to make sure there is nothing causing a short in the board. I had a Gigabyte board that acted weird whenever I used the third memory slot and tried everything to solve the problem. turned out that it was a PCI card that was slightly bent and the metal was touching the board and casuing a short. soon as I straightened that out I could use the third ram slot with no problem.

 

[oldpot]

tested with memtest
and microsoft mem test
checked me board as iss said everything ok
updated bois to lastest one check pc with full diagnoistic software
passed ok
check all slots agion and as soon as i put just 1 stick of ram into 2 or 3 slot i have probs
tryed 1 and 2
1and 3
but it boots up but freezes bosd after 1-10 mins
but as soon as i put just one stick in slot 1 i can run ok ???
just want to find out whats up so i can sort it without spending money i cannot afford and its the wrong thing??
ty for the replays

 

[iss]

What brand ram? are all three the same brand and speed?

 

[oldpot]

SAME SPEED PC3200 256MB DDR400
got 2 sticks super talent and one stick kingstone
but if i putting then in one atatime in slot 2-3 and it still dont work and was working for 5 months until last 3 weeks might not be the ram at fault this is bafferling me what up with it ???

 

[Mr Papschmere]

Sounds like the board at this stage.

Does it have a fan cooled Northbridge, or passive?
(A heatsink on the Board itself about an inch square in most cases)
You could try the foolproof method of testing it's temp with your finger...

If it's uncomfortable to the touch, it's overheating.

Is it still under warranty? Gigabyte have 3 years I believe, though be prepared to wait a few weeks whilst it's checked & fixed or replaced.

 

[iss]

It may very well be a problem with the board. have you done anything in the bios before this started happening? or have you checked the bios settings? the few gigabyte boards i have used had settings in the bios for normal settings on memory and for more aggressive timings which could lead to less compaitability.

come to think of it may you should try setting the bios to fail safe defaults for the greatest chance of minimizing compaitability issues and see if that helps.