looks like two of my memory sticks might be bad. I've tried each one singularly in the first memory slot, and only two of them boot without blue-screening

You should *definitely* Memtest your other sticks to see if they might have one or two bad areas. With larger sticks, sometimes you won't notice until the worst possible time (after you've backed up GBs of data and notice that about 0.5% of it is now corrupt due to slightly bad RAM).

As soon as I saw the title of this post I thought to come in here and post to run memtest86 overnight.. but it looks like you may already be doing that.

The last system I built I had bad RAM the first time, and even the replaced ones were bad... third time was a charm :)

Just make sure to run it overnight so that it goes over a lot of cycles.

Well, I'm posting from the new rig. I have about 65 windows updates to install, and then I will be jumping right into the games.

I know two of the memory sticks are definitely bad, to the point where the computer will not start up if they are in any of the slots. The other two seem like they are okay. So far, no issues.

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight
Well, I'm posting from the new rig. I have about 65 windows updates to install, and then I will be jumping right into the games.

I know two of the memory sticks are definitely bad, to the point where the computer will not start up if they are in any of the slots. The other two seem like they are okay. So far, no issues.

Like said, run a memtest!!
You may think the other 2 are OK until 3 months later, when you realize that the last byte of your 2GB stick is bad!
WinXP usually uses the 10-20% of your RAM, and gaming makes at most 50% use. You rarely use the 100%
It will be very bad to find out the 100% isn't OK when you achieve it...

Good luck
Dark Sylinc

Memtest

Well, I haven't tried it yet because I don't have any writable CDs right now. Guess I'm going to have to stop at the store and get some. At any rate, I'm starting to think that my motherboard is just bad. I was able to get two sticks "working", but late last night I started getting BSODs again, both from the HDD and from the install CD, so I doubt it is a corrupt file. After removing the second stick it started working again. I think the mobo is frying my memory sticks.

maybe it's just that your memory timing is not correct. Check the numbers on the sticks and in the bios. And after that, do a memtest ;)

Quote: Original post by cylab
maybe it's just that your memory timing is not correct. Check the numbers on the sticks and in the bios. And after that, do a memtest ;)

I've got the Memtest going now (great way to spend a sick day, testing your computer instead of using it, yeah). What do you mean by the memory timing? My BIOS settings for memory timing are all set to "Auto", and there doesn't seem to be any info on the stick itself (at least, not that I'm recognizing).

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by cylab
maybe it's just that your memory timing is not correct. Check the numbers on the sticks and in the bios. And after that, do a memtest ;)

I've got the Memtest going now (great way to spend a sick day, testing your computer instead of using it, yeah). What do you mean by the memory timing? My BIOS settings for memory timing are all set to "Auto", and there doesn't seem to be any info on the stick itself (at least, not that I'm recognizing).

As far as I know, memory timings must be the same for each slot. When using auto, often the timings are read from the SPD of the stick in the first slot. If the ram module in the second slot can't keep up then problems can occur.