Problem with ripjaws

[Darknlight_8]

Hello everyone,

I'm pretty sure luck is against me having a smooth upgrade of any type related to Computers.

Recently, I decided to upgrade my rig to 24 gigs (6 x 4g) of RAM from the 12 gigs (6 x 2g) I had before. The ram I chose for this being the G.Skill Ripjaws Hexa-channel 24g kit-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-359-_-Product


Upon firing the comp up, the first thing I noticed was the incredibly long boot time. (only during the "starting windows" boot screen, mobo went to post just fine)

The boot took a good 2 or 3 minutes instead of the usual 8 - 10 seconds. Finally the desktop came up and Icons / startup processes that are normally ready to go were still barely starting. Clicking the start menu took a good 10 seconds to pop up. The computer *was* however recognizing all 24gigs. I then took a look at system usage and the CPU was spiking like crazy (jumping all over the place between 40 and 80% usage, sometimes 100%) yet there was no single process taking up much of the usage. ie if I were to open a folder, explorer.exe would suddenly jump up to 20% cpu usage then back down to 0.

Next was process of elimination, so I ran Memtest86 as a first things first which came back with no errors. Then I found an article online that explained issues like this can be caused by a start up program / process, so I did a clean start (stopped all services / startup processes other than MS services). No luck after doing that.

Then I tried booting into safe mode to see if the problem was there. This time upon booting, I could see the system get hung up on classpnp.sys, for again, 3 minutes or so. Once I was in safe mode however, everything seemed fine. No lag or ridiculous cpu usage.

Next I started booting the comp 1 stick of ram at a time, to make sure I didn't have a faulty stick. Everything boots and performs perfectly until I put in the last stick of RAM to bring it to 24gigs. The last stick isn't faulty however, as I tested each stick individually.

Finally I noticed that the computer isn't recognizing 20gigs (when I put in 5 sticks in instead of 6), it simply stays at 16gigs. So I'm a bit lost on that one, why it would show 24 gigs, but not 20.

Finally I'll post the specs of everything, as it's quite crucial to problem solving;

CPU: i7-950
Mobo: Asus Rampage III Extreme
OS: Win7 Ultimate x64
==

I did of course make sure to set the timing / voltage, and even underclocked the RAM to 1066mhz to make sure it wasn't the issue. I also reset the cpu settings to the default so no overclocking could possibly interfere.

What stumps me is all the videos / posts I've found online with people who have similar / same setups and have no issues with this what so ever.

Any and all help is appreciated with this one.

Thank you

[GSKILL TECH]

Do you have the latest BIOS? Post some BIOS pictures and we can see if anything is set incorrectly.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[Darknlight_8]

Thanks for the response G.Skill Tech, i'll take the BIOS pictures shortly.

In the meantime, just so I can hopefully put some theories to rest, from what I wrote above, would you say that it's not an issue of compatibility with the type of Processor / motherboard?

an IT reference had said the following and I want to know if it's true or not -

"This is almost certainly due to an excessive load on the address and data buses that is causing a major degradation of the signaling ... resulting in very degraded operation of your memory subsystem. I'm surprised you didn't also have problems with 6 2GB modules, but they may have been right "on the edge" of reliable performance.

Bottom line: With unbuffered modules, you'll have FAR better reliability if you don't install more than three double-sided modules in your triple-channel board.

You can confirm this by installing just 3 of your 4GB modules (just to confirm it's a loading issue and not a basic memory compatibility issue). If the system works well with that configuration, I'd leave it like that -- 3 4GB modules will be much more reliable than 6 2GB modules, due to the much lower bus loading. That won't, of course, let you get to 24GB ... but if you really want (or need) that level of RAM capacity, you should consider upgrading to a board that supports buffered RAM.

There's a good reason server boards virtually all use buffered RAM modules -- that essentially eliminates loading as an issue, since your modules than present 1 load/module instead of 16 loads/module (or even more for quad-density modules)."

Now obviously, I really want to believe this isn't true, as I wouldn't think G.Skill would sell a product that couldn't be used by a top of the line motherboard like the Asus Rampage III Extreme. But I'd like to know if it is true so that I can return the RAM if need be.

I'll get to taking the BIOS screenshots now.

Thank you.