Strange symptoms; I'm guessing RAM, what say you?

[bemaitea]

Hello all,

Haven't been on the boards in a while! So long that I think my old name has been removed from the boards! Oh well, it's fun starting over! haha

Anyway guys, I'll try to keep this short...

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Relevant PC Specs:

CPU: Q9550
RAM: 4G G.Skill (F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ)
Mobo: GA-EP45-UD3R (Rev. 1.0)
OS: Windows 7 Pro (32-bit) from XP Pro (32-bit)
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Not so long ago, when my PC was running XP Pro, whenever I'd run skype and use my webcam, the computer would get stuck in an endless loop cycle after various use times. No BSOD, just a complete system loop (identified by looping sounds).

First thought was RAM. So off to the standard battery of tests. Memtest, after several hours, showed no signs of errors...

Second thought was Driver conflicts, though these usually result in BSODs. I was using a janky cam I picked up at PC World (one of their PCline cams). I suspected this wasn't playing nicely with something. Bought a cheap Logitech to test the theory. Uninstalled previous drivers and anything related to. Alas, same issue with the endless loop upon using Skype.

Third thought was Skype-centric issue....though I didn't tease this notion out further. By this time in the process I was fed up enough that I decided to open that Windows 7 Box I have and do that upgrade I had been delaying.

Installation took no more than 25-30 minutes (pretty impressed actually). Everything up and running. Very smooth, nice and FAST. Webcam is hooked up alright and no problems.

HOWEVER, I ran into a strange issue when installing Office 2007 Pro Plus...an error popped up saying "Cannot find PPLus.ww". Did a google search and saw others report similar issues which are related to the media. My CD is a bit scratchy, but I've used it on enough comps at work to know that its fine. Then I ran into a couple of posts saying that this is a RAM ISSUE... Upon changing RAM their symptoms went away.

Oh God, back to the RAM?? In addition to this, I've noticed Winamp starts skipping in songs randomly if there is some sort of activity going on. Not sure if this is Windows 7 related, but my feeling is its the RAM...

So what do you guys think? Memtest didn't reveal RAM issues...yet the symptoms scream RAM....please don't say Mobo....

Thanks for any input!!

-Brian

[SuperSparks]

Run this one as well, sometimes one test picks up what the other doesn't:

Windows Memory Diagnostic

BTW, users are never deleted, if you can remember the old username our Admin can give you a new password

[bemaitea]

Ahh thanks for that program SS! I'll give it a go. I really hope it's not a major component....RAM I can deal with, but anything else...

Also, my previous name on here should have been bemaitea2 with my last login...probably a good 3 years ago!! Then again I could be entirely wrong. Either way, nice to be posting again!

[SuperSparks]

Nothing with that name at all, I'm afraid. I searched users by your IP address too, and didn't find anything. You must have used a completely different name, and forgotten. It happens a lot

[bistro]

Not finding that file would not necessarily be a RAM issue. If the CD is scratchy, one player might read the CD OK while another player may have trouble reading ...a common occurence.I've had CDs that wouldn't read and then on the 10th or 12th try would suddenly work again. Try polishing the CD and see if that improves things.

[Shinma]

May as well check the CD/DVD player/writer ...

[bemaitea]

So here's something else to add to the bag of tricks...

Whenever I play music through winamp, I get horrid skipping in the songs randomly...Same goes for AVI's playing in VLC player, random skipping.

I have yet to run the MS mem test you gave me, SS. But I will do that ASAP and report back. Also thanks for checking up the records for me, IP has most def. changed since that time!! haha

Bistro, I totally agree, I'm not going to place the blame soley on the RAM due to a CD not reading, but a few reports indicate that upon changing RAM, that particular issue had gone away. So I'm not sure what to think right now...

As Shinma has suggested, I'm going to check out the CD drive as well to see if it's giving me any other problems...

[bistro]

Bistro, I totally agree, I'm not going to place the blame soley on the RAM due to a CD not reading, but a few reports indicate that upon changing RAM, that particular issue had gone away. So I'm not sure what to think right now...

That probably worked only because they bumped the CD drive while putting in the RAM.

[bemaitea]

That probably worked only because they bumped the CD drive while putting in the RAM.

Haha perhaps so!

I've run WMD on standard with no errors, I'm going to run it tonight on Extended and see what I get...

Next suspects on the list are dodgy Win 7 drivers...

[usil]

The skipping issue sounds like the hard drive is stopping for short periods. You should run a speed test to make sure it's running at full speed. I use DiskSpeed32.

[bemaitea]

Thanks Usil, I'll give it a go.

I was hoping it wasn't anything hardware related...but we will see I suppose.

Here's an interesting thing I've noticed, skipping is only occuring when using IE8. Skipping does not seem to occur when playing music through WMP. I'll tease out some other particulars in a bit and post back.

Also somethings that got me when installing Windows 7 regarding the HDD,

1) I did not have ot load any RAID drivers...not sure if that is normal or not, but my RAID is perfectly set up, RAID 1 and Intel Matrix is detecting things properly.

2) I couldn't make more than 4 partitions in the Windows installer in the DOS environment. I know that there is the 4 partition limit, but I never ran into that during XP installation. I usually could set up as many partitions as I want. So I simply used disk managment to make 3 primary partitoins and one 1 extended with some logical partitions. Not sure if that is the correct way of going about it...

[bemaitea]

Hey guys,

Quick update. DPC Latency Checker shows alot of red bars during activity, but none when the computer is idling.

Is this an indication of any major problems? I've never used this prog. before to diagnose and issue so I'm not sure how to interpret the results...

[SuperSparks]

1) I did not have ot load any RAID drivers...not sure if that is normal or not, but my RAID is perfectly set up, RAID 1 and Intel Matrix is detecting things properly.

Windows 7 is extremely good when it comes to hardware drivers. I installed it on a friend's laptop the other day and didn't have to install a single driver for any of the hardware

2) I couldn't make more than 4 partitions in the Windows installer in the DOS environment. I know that there is the 4 partition limit, but I never ran into that during XP installation. I usually could set up as many partitions as I want. So I simply used disk managment to make 3 primary partitoins and one 1 extended with some logical partitions. Not sure if that is the correct way of going about it...

I'm not sure quite what you mean here, there is no DOS environment in any of the NT-based versions of Windows. Do you mean the partitioning options of Win7 Setup, or are you booting to DOS and using Fdisk?

[bemaitea]

Sorry for the late reply, SS. Work has been consuming my life...

Yeah, 7 seems to finally get rid of that pesky need for a floppy drive during fresh installs haha

And yes, I meant within the actual Windows 7 installer, not actually DOS.

So right now I am sitting on 3 primary partitions, with 1 extended...

I've run the windows mem tests again and again to no avail. There doesn't seem to be ANY indication of RAM problems, but I still feel like the RAM is flubbing up here...some gut feeling. Perhaps the actual modules themselves are fine and it is, in fact, my motherboard.

Also, I updated my BIOS to the latest, the DPC latency checker bars did go down, so thats a step in the right direction. I'll need to mess around some more.

[bemaitea]

Here is something interesting....

Windows Experience index is about 7.5 for everything EXCEPT hard disk performance, which is rated at 5.5...

5.5!? Thats a killer. What do you guys think can be causing this? Is it the RAID 1 configuration which is slowing it down?

I ran the program Usil suggested, but didn't see any problems. I'll run it again.

Plot thickens....