Not sure if I'm posting this in the correct place, but I need all the help I can get!
Hi all, I've got a bit of a problem on my hands. A few months ago I upgraded my PC (new cpu, mobo, ram, psu), and since then my PC has been freezing. It happens randomly, whether I'm gaming or just idling on the desktop. It also happens while booting sometimes. I thought it might be an issue with the Motherboard, so I exchanged it for a new one. That did not fix the problem, so I bought a new GPU, I needed one anyways, but the freezing continued. I thought it may be a problem with the power supply, so I bought a new one a few days ago. It kept freezing, so in a desperate attempt to get anything to work, I took out one of the memory sticks. Low and behold, the problem stopped! I ran the computer with 1 4GB stick for around a half hour without any problems, so I switched to the other memory stick. The other one ran fine for just as long, so I don't believe that either of the sticks are bad. I put both of them back in, and it started freezing once again. The ram is rated to run at 1.5V, and that is what it is set at in the BIOS. I have a SSD and a HDD that both have Windows installed on them, and it freezes on both drives, so I do not believe that it is a drive error. Any help is greatly appreciated!
PC Specs:
CPU: Amd FX 8320
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-UD3P
Memory: 8GB (2x4) 1600Mhz Crucial Ballistix Sport
GPU: MSI OC GTX 960
PSU: Corsair CX750M 750Watt
Fixed the issue by bumping the voltage of the ram up to 1.6V
When testing memory sticks it is preferred to use software like memtest86 which will help you better diagnose the issue if it was indeed the ram. Have you looked in your Event Viewer and seen any critical or fatal errors?
Are they in the correct slots? Bc if you only have two sticks on RAM, the first go in the 'second' seat, and the second stick goes in the 'fourth' seat.
Good suggestions so far so try them first.
I had an issue that had the same symptoms (freeze at random intervals). Can you download Prime95 and run a blend stress test on each individual stick? It should saturate and stress your memory and might reveal that one stick is actually bad after all. This is how I did it.
I have run memtest on the memory multiple times before, and it came back with no errors. The only error in event viewer is "the system has shutdown unexpectedly"
I ran them like Configuration A for awhile, in the recommended dual channel configuration. I just switched them over to the other channel. (Both sticks are in now, but they were both moved over a slot.)
Great idea, I will download and run this test. thank you for the suggestion!