Looking at building a new PC...

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 14 May 2007, 21:32

Woah, how come these are so cheap?!

Corsair 2x 2GB DDR2 Kit

I was looking at other Corsair RAM with lower latency ratings at £140 for 2x 1GB DDR2, but does a lower latency really matter when you can have two times the amount of RAM for another £35?

Am I mad and not seeing something here, or have I just found a really good bargain?

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 14 May 2007, 23:38

IronMonkey wrote:I was looking at other Corsair RAM with lower latency ratings at £140 for 2x 1GB DDR2, but does a lower latency really matter when you can have two times the amount of RAM for another £35?

It only matters if you want to overclock.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 15 May 2007, 08:39

I don't want to overclock at all. I'm more concerned with having a stable system for a good few years than the possibility of burning components out more quickly. I've had my current system for about 4 years I think & I've never overclocked anything on that, nor have I felt the need to.

Looks like I'll be going for the 2x 2GB DDR2 for £175 offer.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 15 May 2007, 12:27

Good for you. RAM is ridiculously cheap now. I recently bought another 2GB of DDR2-667 for my box for only $115NZD, the very same RAM sticks were like $380NZD in February (when I built this PC).

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 02 Jun 2007, 19:45

OK, hi everyone.

I have just about finished building my new PC (with the exception of the 500GB hard drive, and my final specs are:

- Corsair 620w Modular PSU
- ASUS Crosshair Motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (2.8GHz) CPU
- Corsair 4GB (2x 2GB) 800MHz DDR2
- ASUS nVidia GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
- Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium x64 OEM

Now, the only problem I'm having is with the RAM sticks. Before my Vista DVD arrived, I installed my old OEM copy of Windows XP (32-bit) onto this new PC, and it registered 3.5GB of RAM. I ran the Vista Upgrade tool which tells you if your PC components are compatible with Vista & it found no problems at all.

I then received my Windows Vista OEM DVD so I formatted the HDD & started to install that. The install program would lock up every time I tried to run it and give a BSOD with some information on what was causing the problem.

I traced this to the RAM sticks - I am using 4GB (2x2GB) "Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800MHz), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18, EPP" RAM modules. These 2 modules were placed in dual channel mode on my motherboard & the BIOS registered them both perfectly & at the right timings, so I know both sticks work fine.

I removed one of the sticks & then tried installing Windows Vista again & it worked perfectly. Now that I have the Vista install completed, I have since tried to reinstall the 2nd RAM module but I get the BSOD again. I can't understand why though? These RAM sticks are specifically designed for 64-Bit operating systems and are configured to be used in SLI applications.

Whats puzzling me most is that the OS which is supposed to not work with 4GB of RAM (Windows XP) addressed 3.5GB (so could obviously see & work with the 2 sticks, no problem) yet Windows Vista crashes every time it sees the 2nd stick.

Its not like I can apply a BIOS update because it already recognises both sticks fine... I am certain it must be a problem with Windows Vista itself.

Has anybody else had this problem with Corsair RAM modules? Or just with 2x 2GB sticks with use in Vista in general?

Thanks!

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 02 Jun 2007, 21:17

Any reason why an X-Pro card reader would not work with an ASUS Crosshair motherboard?

I bought one of these card readers from Aria but I can only get the USB port on it to work with my ASUS Crosshair motherboard.

If I plug the card drives cables the right way onto the motherboard header, the top light on the reader flashes constantly (about every half second) while in windows.

If I plug it in the wrong way round (i.e. red & green wires reversed) then the top light stays on all the time (even when the PC is turned off).

There is obviously something not right here. I had the same problem with my last motherboard (ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe rev.2) & a similar card reader - the USB port worked fine but the card readers did not.

On the ASUS Crosshair with the X-Pro 17 in 1, I am running Windows Vista x64 & it doesn't even recognise the card drives, let alone allow reading / writing of cards. I installed Windows XP (32-bit) and the same thing happens. In both versions of Windows there is absolutely no evidence that the card reader is even plugged in.

I'm stumped & more than a little annoyed that this is the second card reader I've bought which won't work with an ASUS motherboard. Why should there be any compatibility issues? I thought USB was supposed to be UNIVERSAL Serial Bus.

Anybody got any thoughts on how I can fix this?

Thanks!

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 03 Jun 2007, 04:15

Some USB devices still need drivers so have a look, but flash memory should use the general ones built into the OS. Does the reader work on a friend's non-Asus motherboard? You could always buy a cheap IDE or SATA internal card reader (RESEARCH AVAILABILITY OF NECESSARY DRIVERS BEFORE ANY PURCHASE).

Are your memory cards formatted for FAT or FAT32? They should be as FAT/FAT32 wields the greatest compatibility for non-optical portable storage across all platforms.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 03 Jun 2007, 12:03

The only available drivers on the X-Pro Website are for Windows '98. I've a feeling its the chipset of the card reader that doesn't work with ASUS boards but I can't check at the moment, as I don't have any friends who have non-ASUS motherboards...

I didn't even know there were SATA internal card readers available! Any idea where I could get one? I'm just disappointed that this is the 2nd "plug & play" card reader I've bought that doesn't do what it says on the tin. The last one I bought was about 3 years ago... I can't believe they haven't fixed the problem since then!

My SD cards are all FAT32 formatted, but that doesn't matter yet as I can't even see the actual drives in either version of Windows, let alone try to read or write to them!

Any ideas on the RAM thing? I got the PC to boot into Windows Vista once last night but not since. Right now, I'm running Memtest86 on it to see if the RAM is giving any errors, but so far there are none. I'm sure this is a Vista related problem...

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 03 Jun 2007, 19:31

Well, if the place I bought the RAM from can't answer why Vista won't boot with 4GB but will with 2GB then they can have it back. I'm sick of it.