# [SOLVED] New RAM is causing games to crash



## Jonesing (Aug 30, 2006)

Hi, I just upgraded my RAM from a single 512MB stick to two of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-1GB...8?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1225682910&sr=1-8

as per the advice in this thread: http://www.techsupportforum.com/f210/solved-please-recommend-ram-for-my-old-system-308908.html

Not that I think I got bad advice, hopefully it's a fixable problem with something I've done wrong. Same motherboard involved as in that thread, ie Shuttle FN41.

Anyway, I got them in the post today and installed them without problems. My motherboard manual says it should all work automatically, no need to fiddle with jumpers and things so I just stuck them in. The memory check at startup counts up to 2GB fine, windows boots fine and I can tell I've got extra RAM under the hood, so far I've had no problems at all until I try to run a game.

Nothing spectacular, the games just crash to desktop with no error message coming up, doesn't seem to be any specific event that triggers it. Also it's happening with multiple games running in different engines and I've never had any stability problems before today so it's 99.99% likely to be a problem with the new memory.

There was actually one crash to desktop that _did_ have an error message associated with it, I was connecting to a server in Call of Duty Source, hadn't got into game yet when it crashed. The error message was:

The instruction at "0x14417F72" referenced memory at "0x0de22c34" The memory could not be "read"

That's the situation at the moment. Please help me, the games are running so much more smoothly now, until they crash that is...

edit: just to add to that, the crashes have all happened within 20 minutes of running the game, as I say nothing specific seems to be causing it, just randomly within 20 minutes or so.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

*Re: New RAM is causing games to crash*

what are you running
video card
cpu
m/board
ram
power supply
brand
wattage

check the listings in the bios for voltages and tempretures and post them


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## Jonesing (Aug 30, 2006)

*Re: New RAM is causing games to crash*

Hi, thanks for the reply Dai, I'm not too technically proficient but I'm going to do my best to keep up with you 


My system specs as copied and pasted from everest:

3D Accelerator:	ATI Radeon 9600 XT (RV360)

CPU Type:	AMD Athlon XP, 1833 MHz (11 x 167) 2500+

Motherboard Name:	Shuttle FN41 v1/v2 (1 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN, IEEE-1394)

RAM: DIMM1: 128X64K-33B 1GB (PC2700 DDR SDRAM)
DIMM2: 128X64K-33B 1GB (PC2700 DDR SDRAM)

Power supply: it says 'total output wattage: 200W' on the sticker on the psu.

Brand: Shuttle XPC (I guess that's what you meant?)

Wattage: wattage of what? Sorry I don't know what to put here.


As for the voltages and temperatures I'm not sure what's relevant and what isn't so I copied down everything I could see that looked like either a voltage or a temperature:

CPU voltage 1.64V
AGP voltage 1.52V
3.3V VIN 3.32V
+5V VIN 5.13V
+12V VIN 11.71V
-12V VIN (-)13.34V
Chipset voltage 1.68V
5V 5BVIN 5.16V
Voltage Battery 3.2V

System temp 37C
CPU temp 46C
PWM temp 40C


Hope that helps.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

*Re: New RAM is causing games to crash*

this is low
+12V VIN 11.71V
is there any scope for lifting the ram voltage check the voltage range on the makers site


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## Jonesing (Aug 30, 2006)

*Re: New RAM is causing games to crash*

I said I'd try to keep up but I'm afraid you lost me with that reply. Could you possibly rephrase or give more details? 

The makers of the barebones system I bought (Shuttle XPC) don't even list this model anymore, it's _that_ old!

I don't really want to just start changing stuff I don't understand in BIOS but I _thiiink_ I recall you can set it to expert mode or something similar and then change more or less anything that's changeable. Could you suggest what I might want to specifically do if that's an option?


Additionally I posted this question on another forum to get all the help I could, they suggested I run memtest86+ (which I'm sure you know about). If it's ok I'll post here what I posted there so you can see the results:

Any configuration including either or both of the new RAM sticks in either DIMM socket will boot up and into windows without difficulty but will still cause games to crash (although in varying ways: crash to desktop, game freezes up or total blue screen lock up). It is possible to get a clean result in memtest86 by putting either of the new RAM sticks into DIMM1 however this still produces game crashes, and any other combination of new RAM also gives multiple reproducable errors in test 5 of memtest. The only completely stable configuration (giving no memtest errors or game crashes) is the old RAM alone in either DIMM socket.

Hope that makes sense, if not here's the exact results I got:

*Test 1 DIMM1:* New RAM 1 * DIMM2: *New RAM 2 * Results:* Errors in test 5, games crashing

*Test 2 DIMM1:* New RAM 1 * DIMM2:* Empty *Results: *No errors in memtest, games crashing

*Test 3* * DIMM1: *New RAM 2 * DIMM2:* Empty * Results:* No errors in memtest, games crashing

*Test 4 * *DIMM1: *Empty * DIMM2: *New RAM 1 *Results: *Errors in test 5, games crashing

*Test 5 * *DIMM1:* Empty * DIMM2:* New RAM 2 *Results:* Errors in test 5, games crashing

*Test 6 DIMM1:* Old RAM * DIMM2:* Empty * Results:* No errors in memtest, games stable

*Test 7 DIMM1:* Empty *DIMM2: *Old RAM *Results:* No errors in memtest, games stable

*Test 8 DIMM1:* Old RAM *DIMM2: *New RAM 1 * Results:* errors in test 5, games crashing

*Test 9 DIMM1: *New RAM 1 * DIMM2:* Old RAM *Results:* errors in test 5, games crashing


The only combination I didn't try is the last two again with the 2nd new RAM stick, but I thought there was just a little bit of a pattern emerging by that point so I didn't bother.

For what my uneducated eye is worth I did think the last test was interesting, either of the sticks in those positions on their own doesn't produce errors but together they produce the same set of test 5 errors.


Please don't give up on me, I'm more or less certain the company I bought this RAM from won't give me my money back


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

*Re: New RAM is causing games to crash*

some ram runs at a set voltage
other ram has a range of voltages it runs in
i.e.
1.7-2.2v
some m/boards default at
i.e.
1.8v
which means you can set the bios to a manual setting and lift the voltage from
i.e.
1.8 to 2.2v
you need to go to the makers site and check the specs of the ram you have to see if you can lift the voltage and stay within the specifications
just suggested trying the ram first as it costs nothing money wise only time

my thoughts are you are underpowered which will cost money


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## Jonesing (Aug 30, 2006)

*Re: New RAM is causing games to crash*

I fixed it (kind of) by myself 

I checked up on the FAQ for memtest86, although they were pretty unwilling to say _anything_ for certain they did mention that recurring problems in test 5 _could_ be a result of incorrect timing settings.

The trick to helping me is to start with the most obvious, stupid mistake then work upwards, I'd never even heard of CAS latency before and I'm still not too sure what it means. The default 'optimal' settings in BIOS were screwing the pooch so I found the correct settings using Everest home edition, made the changes in BIOS and hey presto I have 2 fully functioning gigabytes of RAM 

Thanks a lot for the help anyway dai, I'm relieved it _wasn't_ the power supply, no way I could have afforded a new one.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

glad you have it sorted and posting the fix


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