FAULTY RAM

[crepitis]

In a reply to a recent plea for help over my pc locking up whenever i play CMBO,someone suggested my ram could be at fault.Is there any way,a utility or whatever,to check the state of health of my ram.I know i could always take each dimm out in turn,try CMBO,see if it locks up then swap the dimms around,but id rather not mess about with it.

[Schrullenhaft]

The "swapping" method may be the most accurate way of telling. A lot of memory diagnostics really can't be counted on to give you the absolute answer to your memory's reliability.

If there is a well-equipped computer repair shop in your area you could possibly take your RAM in and have them check it out on a DIMM/SIMM analyzer. Few shops would have this equipment though since it usually costs several thousand dollars (for the cheap ones) and they have to upgraded every-so-often to work with the current standards/technology.

One person here said that they got some reliable feedback from Norton Utilities (IIRC) under Windows. It said he had bad memory and he swapped it out - end of problem. However it may not be that simple in your case (unfortunately).

Another thing you can do is to adjust your memory timing in your CMOS/BIOS setup (if yours has the capability to adjust this, many name-brands don't allow for it). The problem here is that you may lose some of your performance with this "de-tuning" of your memory.

[crepitis]

Another thing you can do is to adjust your memory timing in your CMOS/BIOS setup (if yours has the capability to adjust this, many name-brands don't allow for it). The problem here is that you may lose some of your performance with this "de-tuning" of your memory.

[Schrullenhaft]

Higher numbers generally equate to slower performance. You may see things like "CAS", "RAS" "Wait State" or a row of numbers like "2-2-2-2" and a good number of other settings. Some of them apply to memory and others apply to cache. If you're running a Celeron, Pentium 2/3 or Athlon, then you shouldn't have to mess with any of the cache-oriented settings (the level 2 cache is mounted near or in the CPU on these particular chips).

If you have a setting called "SDRAM Configuration (by SPD)" ENABLE it. This will look at your memory to determine what speed it should run at (if the memory is designed with a special EEPROM, which many are).

You may also want to experiment with your "AGP Apeture" (also called "Graphics Aperture Size") and see what settings your CMOS/BIOS support that is less than 64Mb (64Mb is the default). This won't affect your memory speed, but it may affect the way your AGP card works with the main memory for accessing textures.

[This message has been edited by Schrullenhaft (edited 09-11-2000).]

[BeWary]

These are all good suggestions, and worth trying. I too searched the web for a memory analyzer tool (as I happen to be that "someone" ) but could not find one (that was free, that is ). I ended up just forking over the dough for another DIMM and it worked!

However, I read a post somewhere recently where someone said they found a memory tester tool online, but I don't remember the name of it. (like that really helped you!)

Anyway, my whole point here was to say that it does kinda sound like over-heating. I recently over-clocked my wife's AMD and it was acting like your computer is with CM. CM can be a pretty taxing task for your cpu. You may want to take the case off and make sure the cpu fan is running while the power is on. If you can, try to see if the heatsink/fan is seated right next to (completely touching) your cpu. Also check the case fan to make sure it's working well.

Also, there might be too much dust on your fans, which tends to severely cut air flow.

Good luck. I understand how frustrated you must be.

BeWary

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