I can't afford a new PC, want to fix this one

[Sundog]

You guys helped me out with my BSOD's in FSX and it appears to be bad memory. But I may upgrade the GPU and CPU as well. I was going to get a new system but recent financial issues have put an end to that idea.

First, when I run Belarc Advisor, this is what it shows for memory;
__________________________________________________ _________
4094 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' has 2048 MB
Slot 'A1' is Empty
Slot 'A2' has 2048 MB
Slot 'A3' is Empty
Slot 'A4' has 2048 MB
Slot 'A5' is Empty
__________________________________________________ __________________

Is that telling me one of the memory sticks isn't working since it states 4094 useable, when it has 6040 installed? I will replace all of them, however, can I fill all of the slots and will it help FSX?

Second, this is my MB, GPU, and CPU;
__________________________________________________ __________________
Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EX58-UD5
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. F6 03/31/2009

nVidia GeForce GTX275

2.70 gigahertz Intel Core i7 920
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
8192 kilobyte tertiary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (4 total)
Hyper-threaded (8 total)
__________________________________________________ _________________

Is there a GPU I can update to with that MB and will it help performance? What about the CPU?

Thanks,

Ken

[Browncoat]

Howdy Ken,

Replacing the faulty RAM module should make the BSOD issues stop. Doubling the memory from 6GB to 12GB certainly won't hurt, and upgrading to a nVidia GTX 970 isn't a bad move either. With FSX though it is hard to say since it is a very CPU bound program. As far as a CPU upgrade, there may be other socket 1366 CPUs out there, but honestly, the best thing you could do is buy a good CPU cooler (I recommend Noctua for a brand) and overclock your 920.

I run a 930 overclocked to 3.63GHZ (stock is 2.8 GHZ) with 12GB of RAM and a GTX 970. I am tempted to upgrade with in the next 6 to 12 months to a more current i7 based rig, but my current rig is running my simulators, including P3D, very well.

[Jafo]

Step one....remove and reset the memory sticks. Heat causes something called 'fretting' which means over time they 'can' work loose and ultimately not register [it's why the board has 'locks' for them].
Step 2 ...is your OS 64 bit? If not, a 32 bit OS won't register the ram above 4.

I had essentially the same system [i7 920 with 6gig ram in 3 sticks with 3 empty] and went from a GTX285 to a GTX590 and got quite an improvement.

I'd also later upped the ram to 6x2 sticks by buying another 3.

Since then I retired the machine and went i7 5960x with 32gb of DDR4 [in 4 slots of 8] and a GTX980 .... but it ain't cheap...

[Hdguy]

First off. I would find out by moving memory around, as to is a stick really dead or have you lost a DIMM.

Second.. That board has (1) PCI X 16 slot. It will run any Vid card you choose to populate it with, given your PSU can handle it.

The board will run any 1366 CPU that you want to run. Again, Can your PSU handle more power.

[Sundog]

Thanks everyone, and I am running Win7 64 bit.

[Jafo]

Thanks everyone, and I am running Win7 64 bit.

OK, so it's not an addressing issue...so first trick is to swap out each stick and see if one in particular has failed. Needless to say the potential is there for one of the sockets/mobo to have an issue which would mean a board replacement was imminent...

[stansdds]

Sounds like bad memory, either the stick or the slot. Swap the sticks around to identify a bad stick. If one particular slot always comes up as bad, then that slot is bad.

[Sundog]

How do you know which slot is the bad slot? Is there an address on the board itself I should be looking for in a specific test?

[wombat666]

You should be able to check the status of your sticks through the bios.
Or I guess you could just go through the one stick in the board at a time, a time consuming process.
Do you know exactly how old the board is?
Jafo might have point!

[vortex]

Sundog, apart from the MB, I had an identical system until I recently upgraded the GPU (to a GTX 970). I have my 920 comfortably overclocked to 4GHz with a Corsair liquid cooler - highly recommended and doesn't take up as much room (or add as much weight to your MB) as an air cooler. I think 4.2GHz would not be a problem but I haven't tried. The CPU temperature never rises above 60 degrees, even under max load (42 at idle). I had surprisingly good performance from my GTX 275 using DX10, a lot of which was almost certainly down to the CPU overclock. For the memory, I would re-seat the RAM modules and run MemTest86 - it's free and very comprehensive. If you decide to upgrade your GPU, don't worry about using a new PCIe Gen 3.0 card in your PCIe Gen 2.0 slots. They work fine and there's very little performance difference (2-3% - see http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,17.html for more details). Plus, it means you have a modern card ready for if (when!) you decide to build a new system in the future. However, if you do go for a modern graphics card, I would definitely overclock your CPU to prevent it bottlenecking the GPU.