Hey everyone,

Really need some advice on a problem that bugging me!

I have had my home-built pc with the below set up for approximately 8 months.

The problem I'm having, is that approximately every 2 months, a stick of RAM blows and I have to replace it.

I'm running everything at stock speeds, and replaced the motherboard to try to fix the problem, but no luck.

I'm running the F4 bios as when I tried the new one, the computer wouldn't boot into windows.

I've two sticks of Crucial Ballistix 1Gb RAM running at 1066 MHz. When I've got one stick in, the bios says max RAM speed = 1066, however, as soon as I put 2 stick in, it says max speed = 800. This has been the same for the old and new motherboard (both of the same type).

I've tried running the RAM at +0.3 volts (because it's 2.1V RAM), and normal voltage (1.8V?) but both times the RAM still blows up.

Any ideas guys??!

Thanks in advance.
Matteo2000


Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (Revision 2.0)
2 x 1 Gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC2-8500 (BL12864AA1065)
Q6600 (+ arctic cooler)
2 x Seagate Barracuda ES 500 Gb
XFX Geforce 8800 GTX
620W Crucial HX PSU

This sounds like a mobo problem. I'd RMA the board. Could be a PSU issue or too few or too many standoffs causing a short.

Thanks for your reply.

But what's a standoff?

I've already RMAd the board, the same thing happens on the new one.

And I've only heard good things about my PSU.

Could it be just an incompatibility between my RAM and mobo at 1066 mhz?

I've been reading about the GA-P35C-DS3R, and I think my problem is related to the famous boot-cycle problems, where people have reported one stick of RAM keep going "bad"

http://forums.tweaktown.com/showth [...] 051&page=3

Does anyone know anything about this, or how I could fix it?

Thanks!

The standoffs are the metal studs that the mobo sits on and you screw the board to. If you have too many or too few, it can cause a short