Um, it was a whole lot of locations. A WHOLE lot...

I still have to test the individual sticks, though. Unfortunately they say this:
* 1 year free replacement warranty

but they do say this:
* Special design for overclockers and 100% guaranty work

So if I can get the memory returned, I think I might go for reliability and speed over sheer size. I've been recommended this stuff, what do you think?

As I've said before, I strongly recommend buying brand on brand RAM, from known brands like infineon, samsung or apacer.

Make mine a fifth...Of Black label please.

Yea, it sounds like the RAM to me too, test each stick by themselves.

You didn't mention whether you'd read the forums at amdmb.com

One of the sticky threads there is "How to set up your Soyo Dragon", (paraphrased...). Amongst a lot of very good information that you definately should read is this gem...(again paraphrased)... "The Dragon is very picky about memory seating. Even if it appears as though the memory is seated correctly, it may not be. If you are having memory problems, then try reseating it."

Do you suppose that would go for the Pentium version as well? I'm planning to upgrade in a few months and I think I like that mobo very, very much.

Yes, I've been posting in that forum I saw that, and I really should try to reseat it. But I can't tell if it's seated properly. They sure don't look perfectly even as it is. I'm not sure why. I'll try it though.

Oh, and despite these problems, I'd definitely suggest the Dragon Ultra. It's a great motherboard even if the documentation is pretty bad.

By the way, I still have problems that I doubt are RAM related. For one, my CF reader.

The reader is in a add-on bay that came with the mobo. It has it's own connector that takes up one of the USB ports on the mobo. When I first got into windows and put a CF card in it, it saw the device and a new drive was detected. I was able to transfer files and all that. Then every time after that I couldn't get the thing to register. I put the card in and ejected it several times and still nothing was seen in my computer. Then I replaced my fancy cables with the ones that came with the mobo, and the first time I booted up, the reader was seen again, then the next time: same thing. This is puzzling to me. Any ideas?

Also, the cables did seem to be messing the system up. I replaced them and everything is running smoother, bootup was faster, and it seems like that alone let me play for much longer in GTA3! It lasted about 25 minutes before I got a program error, but at least it was an error, and didn't completely freeze the system.

One last thing. Microsoft Digital signature or whatever. How do I turn it off? I'm sick and tired of getting that annoying box every time I install new software.

I don't know. If you're talking about the Fire Dragon, and the connectors on it are from the same manufacturer, then it is a possiblity that you should be aware of. I'm sure that Tony could point you in the direction of an Intel-centric forum board that'd be able to answer this.

One last thing. Microsoft Digital signature or whatever. How do I turn it off?

Install Windows 2000 instead of XP?

Hmm. The first sentence of this thread is:

So yeah, I'm having trouble with my computer already. As stable as Win2K was on my old machine, for some reason it's a buggy mess on my new one.


I don't know whether you can turn this off in Win2k or not.. It doesn't bother me that much, but then again I'm paranoid

I thought he was referring to the XP license registration feature. Sorry.

No problem. Yeah, it's that digital signature thing. It's just a bit annoying that it pops up every time even a little piece of software wants to load. Oh well, I guess if it doesn't hurt the installations it's not too bad.

A quick update:

I ran memtest86 with each stick of RAM in the first slot individually. The first stick I tried got 3 errors. The second one got none! That one might be good, no?

The 4625 errors that I got before were because the test repeats, and I left it on for 7 hours.

I'm going to try with the sticks in the reversed slots of where they were before, make sure they're fully seated, and see what I get. But do you think that the one stick is okay then?? Is only 3 errors acceptable? The good news is that repeat testing brough up the same 3 errors, so as someone said earlier, it's not the motherboard, right?

Is only 3 errors acceptable?

Is only 3 crashes an hour acceptable?

It is not acceptable to have any errors.

If you're running Linux, however, there's a kernel patch available to mark certain address ranges as bad so that you can still use that memory. It's the badram patch, IIRC.

In fact, recent versions of memtest have a display option to show you the exact parameters you should supply to the kernel for that badram option.

I still believe that you should write down the addresses at which your memory has errors and then repeat the test to see if the addresses are the same. If they are, then it's almost definitely the memory's fault. BTW, I find that it's easier to record the badram-style report than the default report, so you might want to change the output to that mode.

I realize that you're making a point, but, since he asked the question in the first place, we can only assume that he is not as familiar with the concepts involved as we are. So, there is no direct correlation between number of memory errors and how often your computer will crash. Even one error could have dire results, if, for example, it were used when writing some registry data out and it ended up corrupting the registry. Your computer might not even crash, but the next time it did, for whatever reason (we are talking Windows, here, right ), it might be corrupted beyond bootability.

To sum up, memory errors are bad, very bad.

Errors are bad, mmmkay?

Okay, I'm glad I've got that straight. So in all likelyhood, the one that tested fine with no errors is a keeper, right? If so, that changes my plans. I'll send the bad one back with the intention of replacing it instead of returning it, just so that I can have matching sticks in there.

Thanks for all your help, you guys!

If you leave the bad one out, and the good one in (i.e., run with less overall RAM in the system), do all your crashes go away?

Well, with the good one in and the bad one out, everything seemed to run fine, but I did get one reboot. I then turned off that setting that was discussed earlier in the thread (auto reboot without error message), so if it happens again I may see if there's something else wrong. However, I played GTA3 last night for about 30 minutes at 1152x864 with absolutely no slowdown and a solid framerate. Again, the only thing that stopped it is a program error of some sort (couldn't tell), and not a lockup. I was able to exit it and get back to windows.

Oh, and I found the temperature readings in the BIOS. They were well below what was said here (I think the CPU was at 43).

One problem though. Last night I put in both sticks again, and when I woke up, there were ALOT more errors. By themselves, one stick had 3 errors and the other had none, but together there were about 30 that I could see. What does this mean?

It could be that the bad one is throwing the timing off on the good one, or it might mean that the good one is marginal. I'd try just getting a replacement for the bad one first and see what happens.

Also, assuming you installed Windows with that bad one in, I'd reinstall Windows, too. No telling what kind of odd errors it might have introduced.

crap. you're right though who knows, that might solve the problem. plus, if I just try to get one of them replace for now, it means my computer won't be out of commision at all.

Well, under the advice of someone on that SOYO board, I'm running Prime95's "torture test." I've also been surfing a lot and opening applications like Outlook Express and have been doing this all for about 4 hours. So far there hasn't been a single glitch, and all the tests in Prime95 have passed. Not one restart (except for the one that the thunderstorm caused, but we can't blame that on the RAM), and not one hiccup. Rock solid is how I'd describe it.

But I don't think I'm too stable now

Hi Dignan17.

Seems like noone else noticed this, but you made the 100,000th post to the BBS. I would really like to give you some sort of award, but I can't think of one that would be nice to have (for you) and affordable (for me). Maybe Rob will find something to give to you.

cu,
sven