faulty memory, or something else?

[sub]

I've just bought a ASUS K8N-VM motherboard for a new test machine. Its am nforce4 motherboard, with PCI-Express, and onboard nvidia 6150 video. I've put it in an Antec Sonata case with a few spares I had laying around - a Seagate 80GB HDD, AMD 3000+ 64bit CPU, cheap 512MB A-Data DDR400 RAM, ATI 650 Pro PCI-E capture device and a Ricoh DVD+R/RW drive.

Unfortunately I'm having real problems with it. It seem to be only able to get a short way into the XP install before it locks up. Sometimes it dies while copying the file during the install. Sometimes it doesnt even get that far.

The motherboard is new, but all the other components were working fine last time they were used.

I'm wondering if maybe the motherboard and memory dont like each other?

[sub]

I just tried again, and it blue screened immediately (fault in non paged area) after pressing F8 to install.

[ShiningDragon]

First:
You don't have a 6150 GPU, your Chipset has only the nForce 410 and GeForce 6100 (bad choose for HD-Material, but else: wonderful)

I don't have much experience with this Socket 754 System, but i think it "could" be the RAM.
Have you tried to manual lower the Speed for the RAM? Limit it to 100 MHz and have a look if its freeze again.

Ah, and if it's not helping: Remove the ATI Card. On an old A8N-VM CSM Revision with an old BIOS the X1300 from ATI stopped the PC from starting, perhaps this could help too.

[Chris.Day]

Try manually setting the command rate to 2T (for memory timings).

[ShiningDragon]

To Test RAM and MoBo Combo:

http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip
Download this, and unzip it. Burn the ISO to a CD (bootable it is). Start the PC with this CD and test the Memory. You'll see, if the Memory fails.



http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?SLa...1&count=27

http://support.asus.com/download/downloa...uage=en-us

[sub]

Thanks guys. I'll try these suggestions soon.

your Chipset has only the nForce 410 and GeForce 6100 (bad choose for HD-Material, but else: wonderful)

Thats ok, I'm not concered about HD on this box. Its just a test machine so I can use PCI-E capture devices like the ATI 650 Pro I just received.

[sub]

To Test RAM and MoBo Combo:

http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip
Download this, and unzip it. Burn the ISO to a CD (bootable it is). Start the PC with this CD and test the Memory. You'll see, if the Memory fails.

I've just tried this now. It ran for a while, but eventually spat out "]nexpected Interzupt - Halted"... no typos there...

Bugger

[ShiningDragon]

I've just tried this now. It ran for a while, but eventually spat out "]nexpected Interzupt - Halted"... no typos there...

Bugger

Replace the RAM ^^; On my A8N-VM CSM the Corsair XMS is running fine, but the more cheapier Corsair VMS should be ok too, because i had this inside before this. Other well known memory ist MDT.

[sub]

I'm just about to try the RAM from one of my other machines.

[sub]

Yeah, it must be the RAM, it seems to be ok with the RAM from the other machine.

Now to secretly buy more hardware without the wife catching me...