Biostar Tforce 6100-939 ram issues

[bvlaar]

Hey guys, so today I got 4 x 1024 sticks of Corsair XMS DDR (black) ram. I made sure my mobo works with that ram, and yep everything should work. I put all 4gb in and it came up to the first screen with the logo, and nothing happened. So Then I put 3gb in, nothin.. 2gb in, then that worked fine! Then as I was loading xp, I thought I'd put another stick in, boom... computer shut down and something smelt like burning. I took everything out, unplugged everything and let it sit. I booted it up with my original 2x512 ram, everything worked perfect!
So I'm wondering why all 4gb's wont work? but 2gb's will? my mobo maximum says "4gb's" so Is there something I need to configure in the bios?

Thanks guys!

[doug91]

Well I would say that XP might not support anything more than 4 gigs of ram. Do you have SP2 and all the latest updates?

Did you mean to say DDR2 ram?? Your motherboard or PSU might not support the voltages those sticks of memory require.

[bvlaar]

Well I would say that XP might not support anything more than 4 gigs of ram. Do you have SP2 and all the latest updates?

Did you mean to say DDR2 ram?? Your motherboard or PSU might not support the voltages those sticks of memory require.

Windows xp only registers 3.5gb's of ram I believe. My friend has 4gb and x shows he has 3.5gb's. I will see if I need any updates, but I have SP2.

DDR1 ram. The PSU should support it because my 2x512's were the same voltage and the PSU is 430W's.

Any other thoughts?
Thanks man

[HackSore]

Then as I was loading xp, I thought I'd put another stick in, boom... computer shut down and something smelt like burning.

You didnt put the RAM in whilst the computer was running did you?

[bvlaar]

Yeah I did?
I didn't think I'd be that bad!

But I guess...

What could be the problem?

[Luke122]

1. Did the BIOS do a memory count when you had the 4gb in?

2. If not, have you tried the ram one stick at a time to make sure it's not a bad stick?

3. Did you try reseating the ram (remove all, replace all)?

4. XP *can* (but not always) have issues installing if more than 2gb of ram is installed. Try with 2gb, finish the XP install, then plug in the rest... this has happened to me a few times.

[HackSore]

Yeah I did?
I didn't think I'd be that bad!

But I guess...

What could be the problem?

Well, my guess would be the burning you smelled was one or more of the ram sticks frying when you tried to put them in whilst the machine was on.

And you are damn lucky that you didnt seriously hurt yourself! you could have given yourself a massive electric shock!
Always make sure the computer is off and the power supply is unplugged before working on the internals of a machine.

[bvlaar]

Well, my guess would be the burning you smelled was one or more of the ram sticks frying when you tried to put them in whilst the machine was on.

And you are damn lucky that you didnt seriously hurt yourself! you could have given yourself a massive electric shock!
Always make sure the computer is off and the power supply is unplugged before working on the internals of a machine.

Yeah I just realized that. And the ram stick works? but when I leave the burnt stick in the slot all by itself without any other sticks it boots up xp, but crashing almost instantly of loading up the desktop.
Damn!

Anyways!
I'm taking my time and trying all the sticks in the slots.

Bvlaar

[doug91]

can you post the rest of your system specs? It will help rule out any other types of problems...

When you say XP crashes almost instantly when loading the desktop how does it crash?
Do you get a Blue Screen of Death?
or does everything just freeze up?

[bvlaar]

Okay,
So I found out a stick of ram was bad (i must have shorted it out)
When I shorted out the ram I must've shorted out or broken b1 socket.

I have 5 pieces of ram, 2x512's and 3x1024's and 3 working slots.
I am running a AMD 64 3200, on a biostar tforce 6100-939, and a Radeon x800 gfx card.

So I put 2x1024's in, boots up.. everything is perfect.. xp says 2gb's in and everything is a ok!
Then I try and add a third stick, either one of the 512's or 1024's but it wont load past my screen (delete to bios, tab for post screen) My keyboard doesn't work at that moment so I can't navigate anything.

So I know something is going wrong whenever I insert the 3rd piece of ram?
What could that be?
Thanks guys!

[Drum Thumper]

I've got a similar Biostar 939 board, and had somewhat similar issues when running it with one stick of RAM (odd crashes, not wanting to boot, crash on boot, etc)--I personally believe the problem lies in the fact that the board is a dual channel board and gets cranky if you try to run it with on one stick. And since you've pretty much borked one of the four RAM slots, you're going to be stuck with a 2 gig cap.

Best bet? Upgrade. I know you don't want to, but this board will not live up to its full potential now.

[bvlaar]

I've got a similar Biostar 939 board, and had somewhat similar issues when running it with one stick of RAM (odd crashes, not wanting to boot, crash on boot, etc)--I personally believe the problem lies in the fact that the board is a dual channel board and gets cranky if you try to run it with on one stick. And since you've pretty much borked one of the four RAM slots, you're going to be stuck with a 2 gig cap.

Best bet? Upgrade. I know you don't want to, but this board will not live up to its full potential now.

Yeah that's exactly my problem!
So should I go out and get a board that supports DDR or DDR2? Becasue DDR2 is alot cheaper? Or should I get a board that my ram supports?

What mobo would you recommend?
I'll probably want a mobo CPU combo because my processor is a little outdated.

Thanks!

[Drum Thumper]

Socket 939 has been discontinued--if I was to build a new system, I'd opt for an AM2+ board so I could upgrade to a phenom down the road. CPU wise, AM2 dual-cores are dirt cheap at the moment. Throw in some DDR2 RAM and you're golden.

Best advice for the 939 board? Home file server. 2 SATA and four IDE drives will give you all sorts of hard drive space. And you've got built in video so you can run the system headless (no mouse/keyboard/monitor attached).