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Win7 Pro SP1 64bit PC Developing Problem?


WalksInSilence

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There's actually long existed a PC customising craft industry with supporting retailers; building your own desktop its not always just about fitting the highest performance components you can afford. When building a PC making the inside of it look as professionally finished as possible really is not that odd.

I'm certainly not into the extremes of such builds: the windowed and custom laser cut cases, multiple internal LEDs, full internal re-cabling colour themes including PSU re-braiding, luminescent water cooling systems etc. But I will admit I have done a bit of colour coordinated cable braiding with both my desktops - the easier stuff like SATA and fan leads.

MBs are not all standard PCB green and haven't been for years. There are many colour themes available, some hideous IMHO, which I'm sure affects buyers choices or the manufacturers would not do it. You do wonder why RAM module, PC card and even GPU makers apparently haven't really thought about that much themselves. Teaming up with the MB manufacturers to provide a range of matched component designs seems like a rather obvious route to go for both parties.  

Edited by WalksInSilence
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Whether odd or not, it depends on the point of view :unsure:
 (beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder)

While I can well understand how a "special/custom" case (which is in open view) may be sometimes *needed* and while I can well understand the "modders" (yeah, those that have windowed cases that actually show the inside) I find more difficult to understand :dubbio: how the colours that you can see only when opening the case (which for cleaning/maintenance may happen when? once every six months or so) can actually affect your  aesthetic taste to the point to prefer a brand of Ram over another only because of a matching or contrasting colour.

But of course to each his own  :).

jaclaz

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Just found this - not to my taste at all, the red LEDs would drive me crazy, but you can't deny what a clean, neat professional job it is.

Compared to what both my desktops look like inside it puts them to shame.

Edited by WalksInSilence
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And I am considering this mobo.

Love the design and it has my favourite PCI , not the wobbly PCIe.  Two of them ! https://static.bhphoto.com/images/images500x500/1590428746_1560318.jpg

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All the glass on computers is not a good thing. It blocks perfectly usable airflow space and makes the PC brighter than the sun during the night. Windows 10 seems to like to wake itself up at night to start trying to do updates, causing me to wake up because its blasting white LEDs into my face. Windows 7 however doesn't do this, I told 7 to only do updates on Saturdays at 5AM. 

As far as the problem you had, I really doubt it was the PSU or anything electric. RAM just over time goes bad and I wouldn't be surprised if it was from 2011-2012, I too don't have any working sticks from back then. My first W7 desktop built in 2011 had its ram start going bad in 2014, until it finally went fully bad in 2016. I bought a whole new 8GB kit from Micron and that pair has been working well since. Of course, my Dad has this desktop now and its been running Ubuntu since he got it. He hates Ubuntu 20.04, wishes he could go back to 18.04. Seems like every OS nowadays except the least-supported ones are terrible. Ubuntu is not as good as it used to be, Windows 10 is a disaster, modern versions of Android are bloated with telemetry and iOS is becoming more and more jailbreak-resistant. 

2006-2014 was the absolute peak of technology. Nothing can get better than what we had during then, unless you are talking how many features it has, then obviously 10 and newer versions are better. As far as user experience, 06-14 best time period.

That isn't the point of this thread though. Your problem was probably just ram goes bad over time, just like how SSDs have limited write cycles and HDDs can only write for so long until they start losing sectors. It just happens.

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As said the two RAM modules I fitted later was one of which went bad after only 2+ years use. It was installed in late 2019 but how old it was and whether it had been stored correctly or previously used by the seller - who knows? It was sold "as new" which suggests possible light use but again - who knows?

But what I do know is that I have 4 x 2GB otherwise identical Corsair XMS3 1600MHz modules, bought new, fitted in my primary desktop which has had thousands more hours up time than the other desktop and is getting on for 6 years old now. No problems so far.

Going back to the replacement RAM options - does anyone have experience with HyperX and Patriot? I've found some good deals on 2 x 8GB 1600MHz for both (HyperX Fury and Patriot Viper to be precise). I tried to find out who makes the actual chips used but came up blank for both.

https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX316C10FK2_16.pdf

Edited by WalksInSilence
typo
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For anyone that might be interested in the possibility to continue using partially defective RAM, I have one such module in my laptop. I figured from Memtest86 results (addresses) that the faulty parts are somewhere near the end, somewhere in its last 40 megabytes. There's just one 2 GB stick. So one can tell the OS to not use the last 40 MB by running this in the Command Prompt:

bcdedit /set {current} removememory 40

If there's 2x 1 GB sticks for instance and those 40 MB would be in the one in the first slot, it would be a good idea to swap their places as cutting whole 1064 MB isn't desirable.

Those addresses in hexadecimal notation address the bytes, so one has to convert to decimal and do some math or use some (online) conversion tool to get the megabytes and calculate the difference from that point to the end of the module. If I remember correctly, I actually put the result in the {globalsettings}, not {current}, so that way, it works for the recovery environment and other Windows versions booted through that Windows Boot Manager instance, not just the running OS from which bcdedit was run.

There's also truncatememory that can be used instead of removememory, which accepts address, but I've never used that option (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/boot-parameters-to-manipulate-memory).

In case someone has very minimal faulty bits, they can be more precisely mapped out using:

bcdedit /set {badmemory} badmemorylist PFN1 PFN2 PFN3 ...

Individual 4 KB blocks (pages) can be mapped out of action this way, so whatever addresses Memtest86 gives, they have to be rounded down to the nearest page (so one gets the multiple of 0x1000) and then the last 3 zeros have to be cut from the result to get the Page Frame Number that Windows accepts in hexadecimal notation with a 0x prefix. RAMMap can be used to verify that bad pages are no longer on the list.

Got this from Super User.

Also, badmemoryaccess doesn't have to be explicitly set anywhere, it already defaults to no if not present; with default configuration, it's only explicitly added and set to yes on the entry for launching Windows Memory Diagnostic, so parts marked as bad are accessible and can be tested.

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I've gone with the Kingston HyperX Fury - good reviews over the years since it was introduced and although a little more than I wanted to pay I have 2 x 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 modules (in MB matching blue :) ) winging their way to me as I write this.

Found this later so it didn't influence my decision but quite amusing if you're in the right frame of mind.

 

 

Edited by WalksInSilence
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I thought it a bit strange about the Corsair 'hate' here as my experience with my primary desktop (4 x 2GB XMS3 DR3 1600MHz) has been very good, as I mentioned earlier working without problems since 2016. But prompted by those comments I did some online research on RAM and I did find a significant number of negative reviews from users on both other forums and retailers web sites.

That does have to be tempered with the knowledge that Corsair RAM is a top seller, probably the top seller, which necessarily means there are going to be more people complaining if they have a problem. However there does seem to me to be a concerning disproportionate trend over recent years reporting modules failing after comparatively little use than for any other branded RAM.

Going back to the main topic of the thread; now I have the alternative new 2 x 8GB modules I also have to decide what to do with, now 3 X 4GB good Corsair XMS 4GB 1600MHz DDR they've replaced.

Is it worth replacing the matched 4 x 2GB XMS3 set in the other PC with them ie. will 8GB of RAM dual channel 2GB be usefully out performed by 12GB made up of 2 x 4GB XMS dual channel plus a single as near as is possible matched 4GB one?

I suspect I know the answer to the idea of mixing in one 2GB module (14GB) or omitting the single 4GB and using 2 x 2GB matched ones (12GB) instead but its an option so I thought I might as well ask.  

 

Edited by WalksInSilence
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From my experience , the results may vary with different hardware . You can just place your three modules into that PC and test how fast (or slow) it performs. There are plenty of benchmarking tools. And then you can try placing them in another slots , yes , it can perform quite different . Then try to add 2GB to the rest of them (3x4GB + 2GB). Try NOT to leave corsair in the first slot though , since Corsair tends to develop faulty sectors right at the start of a given module , which will prevent you from booting at all.

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I wasn't going to mix brands ie. the Kingston HyperX with the Corsair - I thought that was a no-no. I hadn't even considered doing that even though it would give me 24GB RAM on that PC.

What I meant was mixing the so far so good Corsair XMS3 3 x 4GB 1600MHz (from the PC that had the problem with the 4th stick) with the Corsair XMS3 8GB (matched 4 x 2GB) 1600MHz I have fitted in my most used PC. So all are Corsair XMS3 1600MHz of the same type but mixed values 2GB and 4GB.

The options are:-

1). 12GB RAM ie. just fitting those 3 x 4GB ones.

2). 12GB RAM - 2 x 4GB + 2 x 2GB.

3). 14GB RAM - 3 x 4GB + 1 x 2GB.

I want system stability but if I can get that with any combo that gives a useful performance boost it would seem foolish not to do it.

My understanding is that beyond the minimum amount of RAM you should use 2GB (for Windows) you get a significant ie. noticeable boost doubling it to 4GB, the recommended amount. Doubling that to 8GB the benefit will not be as obvious except for high demand purposes like gaming and video editing.

Above that you're into even smaller general performance returns £ for £/$ for $ which means, at present, 16GB is overkill for most purposes but may be justified for high end gaming. Anything more is an almost pointlessly expensive indulgence unless you're into ultimate performance for that same sort of reason.    

     

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Well, you have 3 (three) options (I mean, NOT 3,333,333 ones).

It takes what? Ten to fifteen minutes (I mean NOT 4 weeks) to try each of them.

In less than one hour you can test all three and see what happens.

But how will options #2 and #3 affect your aesthetic sense? :ph34r: (even if they are the same colour, most probably the 4GB do look somewhat different from the 2 GB ones, particularly if seen from the top)

Personally I would go for option #1 and call it a day, though I would have to suppress :w00t: my symmetry sense, the thought of a slot of a pair empty is damning. :whistle: 

Graphical explanation (if needed):

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/102107/symmetrical.gif

jaclaz

 

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You're not going to let that aesthetic element consideration go are you? :)

That asymmetry is actually what concerns me with the 3 x 4GB option but (mainly :) ) for performance reasons. Is 12GB (2 x 4GB Dual Channel + a single matched 4GB module) a better solution than 12GB (2 x 4GB Dual Channel + 2 x 2GB Dual Channel)?

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