Computer/tech hardware lifecycles

I think I'd rather just max out anyway to squeeze what I can out of the RAM option.

I ran some tests just now. I'm pretty certain I have RAM issues and that adding an extra 1 GB to 2 GB will certainly help. I'm not sure how it works, but I've read on several sites that the system will show up to 3.5 GB and that the remaining will be reserved for hardware or something. Anyway, 3 GB to 3.5 GB will help, and here's why.

When I boot my system up and haven't opened any programs, my system uses up 25% of my RAM (or about 512 MB). Even simply running Chrome and nothing else amounts to 60% of RAM being used.

I attempted to launch Age of Conan to see what it would do. (Some of you may know my love/hate relationship with the game and its performance on my machine.) The game's launcher/updater caused between 40 and 60% of my RAM to be used, depending on the function: downloading, installing, etc. At this point, the game hasn't even been loaded. When I did load the game, my RAM maxed out (full tilt) when the loading screen came up as the game was launching the map/area where my character was saved. So clearly the game is using more memory than I have. Considering it only has ~1.5 GB available, I think adding another 1 GB or more will help performance a bit.

However, playing the game itself was a bit surprising. Between clearing out a bunch of crap on my PC, switching back to letting Windows defrag my drive instead of Defraggler, and installing the most recent patch for the game, I got some pretty good performance. I was actually able to switch the graphic setting to high and play reasonably well even in the city. Though admittedly, there were several obvious hiccups in busy areas, it wasn't coming to a grinding halt like before. I'll likely have to scale back some of the intensive settings such as shadow quality, etc., but this is pretty exciting. Now the game is highly playable. Adding more RAM will make it more so. The game ran with the RAM load between 90% and 95%. I'm assuming this means it was virtually maxed out and was switching to the swap file.

Also: my processor was laughing the whole time with any of this stuff, including Conan. It barely broke 25 to 50% use during any of these functions. Mind you, the quad core was firing on all cores, but still. (Thankfully, Conan uses multi-core processing.) So right now, it looks like my RAM is the weakest link (if we leave the HD out of the equation), considering I seem to have nothing to worry about when it comes to my processor and my video card (ATI Radeon HD 6850).

 

Another possible avenue of investigation is to see if you can find a BIOS update for your motherboard. Those RAM limitations are firmware settings and not an actual hardware limitation, so if you can update the BIOS you may be able to go above 4 GB. Of course, as discussed this would necessitate moving to Windows 7 64 bit. I have heard that OEM systems like Dells can have driver issues, so it could potentially be an issue. It's a bit of a stretch to spend $150 (probably closer to $200 after shipping and taxes) when you don't know if it will even work.

 

I don't like the idea of messing with that stuff. I think I will be perfectly happy with the 4 GB max when I get there (for the time being). I think at this point, dropping $200 (instead of, say, $50, which would be my final upgrade investment) should instead be towards a new machine. I'll bide my time and just go with the 2 GB RAM upgrade as my last hurrah for this machine.

I think it comes down to bang for the buck. This hardware is starting to get rather old.

This is the thing. I know Vista caches pretty much all your RAM, but Conan was clearly gobbling all that up. After seeing the performance in game, I think part of it was perhaps a swap file issue.

As I ran non-stop through the wilderness and then through the town, I was all like:

"Wow, this is looking really goooood!"

"Oh shit....lag..."

"Oh wait... hey, niiiiice!"

"Oh...stuttery, but not bad..."

"Oh, hey, this is running great!"

"Oh wait...."

I think if I scale back the high-end graphics settings (like I said), the performance will be pretty good and steady. Adding 2 GB of RAM will hopefully ensure that.

 

so did it work?

 

Is this directed at me?

Update: I now have 4 GB loaded into my machine.

Everything ran peachy when I launched Age of Conan. I was actually able to max out the graphics. It didn't run at awesome frame rates the whole time, but it ran well, even in the city! It ran well especially compared to only having 2 GB.

There was an issue though.

I played for maybe half an hour before I exited the game. (It was awesome because it didn't take 2 minutes to return to the desktop.) I then launched Civ V to see how it ran. Before the RAM upgrade, it was running a bit sluggish on max graphics later on in the game when there were many units on screen. I wanted to see if the 4 GB smoothed it out.

However, I took a bathroom break while it was loading, and when I came back, I noticed my machine had crashed and was rebooting. I thought that was odd. It then started beeping. It was that error beep that my system has. It beeped out four or five times before I shut 'er down.

I have two suspicions: 1) the system overheated, or 2) there was some kind of hardware error/conflict.

1) I did a quick cleaning of my interior when I dropped the new RAM modules in, but I ran out of compressed air and wasn't as thorough as I would have liked to be. I'm wondering if the new zippiness of the machine and running AoC on max taxed my system more than usual and it got too hot. I'm going to do a better cleaning soon. I now also have a system temp program running that tells me the temperature of each processor core in the system tray. I haven't played a game since rebooting normally, but I noticed that the temps run at around 40 C when running things like Chrome.

2) I haven't looked into any conflicts or other hardware issues (I'm ignorant when it comes to these things); however, I've been able to reboot since, and I've had no problems using Chrome and watching HD videos on YouTube, that sort of thing. Maybe this weekend I will try AoC and/or Civ V and keep an eye on temperatures and see if I have any other crashes, related to temperatures or not.

What do you think? Can RAM cause any hardware conflicts? I loaded in the four similar chips, and my system recognizes all the RAM.

Do you think it was a temperature issue?

Just a hiccup?

 

Do you know how many beeps it was? The beep count gives an indication as to what the error actually is on the mobo.

I'd check the BIOS and make sure that the RAM settings are set correctly. I forgot exactly what I had to set mine to with those 4 sticks, but you just want to make sure there isn't a BIOS setting that needs to be adjusted. Normally it's plug and play and not sweat it.

These are the sticks I gave you.
Newegg.com - OCZ SLI-Ready 2GB 2 x 1GB; 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800; PC2 6400; Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2N800SR2GK

 

I didn't let it finish beeping. I thought it was a bad thing, so I just shut it down.

You might as well have said "I'd check the carburator." You know, to the thirty-six-year-old beta male who just got his license a just couple of years ago and hasn't driven since.

I have no idea what the BIOS is let alone what it does or how to do anything to it. Should I start at Wikipedia?

 

Yeah, I've been in the BIOS menu before for random things. I've never really fully understood what to do with it.

I went in there now and I see that the system recognizes the RAM. It says it's 4096MB installed, 4095MB available, 800MHz speed, Dual channel mode, and DDR2 SDRAM tech. That's just the system info screen. Is there perhaps an issue with the BIOS version? As in, should I update the BIOS? The BIOS Info reads: 1.0.3 06/20/2008.

Other than that, I don't see anything about RAM settings. I see settings to do with the HD, the video card, and boot and power settings, and the like, but I don't see anything to do with memory settings. Am I missing something? What should it look like? What should it be called?

Also, previously, the system had frozen up on me when I left it running. The screensaver was all locked up and looked messed up. When I tried to reboot, the system wouldn't activate. The fan would race non-stop and I wouldn't get the beep indicating the system was booting. I let it sit for a day or two (I've been busy with other things), and now it seems to be booting. (And I could get into the BIOS menu.)

 

If the BIOS didn't like your RAM the system wouldn't boot. Your current wonkiness is most likely caused by either heat issues, or one of the new RAM sticks being bad. If the system hasn't had issues with heat previously, I'd call the second one more likely. If you're feeling brave you can run it through memtest86, which will run a thorough set of tests on the RAM looking for errors. It's not too difficult; download the program here and follow the instructions.

The lowbrow testing method is to remove the sticks one at a time and see if that fixes the problem.

 

Don't worry about the bios then.

Next time it POST (power on self test) and it beeps, open it up and reseat the RAM sticks and your video card. It probably was a just enough not connected, but connected now. As things expand and contract it may do it again.

 

Yeah, I now suspect it might be either a seating issue or, failing that, the RAM might not be working right.

I don't think it's a heat issue. The most recent freeze happened when the system was idle. Unless, of course, it's possible for the RAM to overheat if it isn't working right.

I will try reseating the RAM. I did find the modules a little tight going in because of how they're encased. I will fiddle around with them to see if the problem will go away. I should probably pick up more compressed air too, and give the guts a thorough cleaning while I'm at it.