Memory Issues, probably?

[Steevo10]

Hi All -

First off, thanks for reading this and for any help you can provide.  the TL;DR version is my memory has failed memtest86 in a couple different ways, but has also passed it.  Not sure what to do next.

I have had a pretty unstable system for the majority of the time I have had this computer (about 5 years now), but it never really impacted what I was doing with the computer.  I would get the BSOD about once a week, but it wasn't that big of a deal.

Recently, though, I have started to play some games (lightweight games, mainly).  I was playing Orcs Must Die, on the lowest settings, and any time more than 3 orcs were on the screen, it made gameplay super choppy.  After searching around the internet, different forums, etc, and everywhere I looked they said that OMD should play on almost any system without trouble.  I went to the systemrequirementslab Can You Run it, and it said I was above the maximum settings.

I updated my video card driver, and that didn't help.  I made sure Vista had SP2, but that didn't help. I then ran the Vista Memory Diagnostics tool, which told me I have a memory issue.  I found the Gskill tech support folks recommending making sure my memory speed was correct in bios, so updated the timing settings.  No help.  I downloaded and ran the memtest86 utility, and of the 4 times I have run it, here are the results:

First time: Error Conf. Value 181, Test 9 had 65000+ errors

I removed one stick of memory, ran the utility, no errors.  I swapped the sticks, ran the utility, no errors.

I put both sticks back in, ran the utility, no errors.

I thought good, problem solved.  I fired up the game, it got choppy, it crashed and BSOD my computer.  I ran the memtest, and now I have errors.

Error Conf. Value 172, Total error bits 9

Then I ran it again, and got an Error Conf Value of 200, with 14 error bits.


G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor BX80562Q6600

GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

EVGA 384-P3-N851-AR GeForce 8800 GS 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Any advice or help is appreciated.  Thanks again!

[Geek-9pm]

Never ignore memory errors.  You either have to replace the memory or verify your BIOS settings for  type of memory you have.
If you want to continue to use you PC, that is, of course, your decision. You should understand that memory errors can led to unpredictable problems.

[Calum]

This is a tricky one, because it could be the memory, the settings, or the memory controller.  Have you tried downclocking the memory, say to 800 or 667MHz, to see if this changes anything?  Leave the voltage and timings as instructed by G.Skill.  It's also worth upping the IMC voltage in the BIOS a couple of notches, see if that helps.