Lion Freezing Issues (Memory Testing Advice) - GA-Z68XP-UD4

[dcl]

Hey everyone,

To start, I apologize for the length of this post, I got on a roll...

I've been spending the past several days troubleshooting a freezing issue I was having while running a Prime95 "blend" test.

But first, my hardware:
2003 G5 Mac Case (gotta love these!)
GA-Z68XP-UD4
i7-2700k
32 GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
EVGA GTX 580 - 3GB
120 GB OZC Vertex 3 SSD

... and lots of other goodies that I'm hoping to post in the user builds section sometime in the next couple of weeks... now back to the topic...

I had installed Lion on my system using the the recommended 4GB of RAM and had performed a number of benchmarks/testing (LuxMark, Geekbench, Cinebench, Prime95, etc). I wanted to make sure my main hardware was performing as expected so that I wouldn't get more than 30 days down the line and miss out on my opportunity to RMA or return faulty gear.

I then updated the 4GB of RAM to 32GB and ran a few low-level tests. After running Prime95 for 15 minutes, I realized that the computer screen had frozen, while the mouse and keyboard weren't responding. I had to perform a hard restart.

I immediately suspected the RAM and started troubleshooting any potential issues that would have cause the freezing. Fast-forward 3 days and I was still scratching my head. I had removed modules, isolated them, tried disabling the LAN (something which another GA-Z68XP-UD4 user had reported alleviating his freezing issues), upped voltages, quadruple checked BIOS settings, under clocked the RAM, tested temperatures, and drank a few beers to get the creative trouble-shooting juices flowing. Nothing worked.

At the advice of a few members in the chat area here at TonyMacx86, I ran memtest86+ for 20 hours. It didn't turn up any issues with my system (3 passes and 0 errors). So I was stumped.

So I bit the bullet and purchased 32GB of brand new RAM, pulled out all the old sticks, and BAM... it worked. Nothing (temperature, voltages, isolated tests, memtest86+) had indicated that I had a bad stick(s) of RAM... but I did.

So... bottom line: even when you're running every test out there and nothing directly flags your RAM as an issue for freezing (I'm wary of memtest86+ now)... you should still try replacing the RAM and attempting to replicate the freezing.

Hope that helps some frustrated soul before you spend a week troubleshooting a similar issue! Thanks to everyone who gave me advice!

Edit: Fixed typo.

 

[t_fuzz]

hmm... thanks for the advice man, i'm running a somewhat similar build i suppose,

i7-2700k
ga-zs8x-ud3h-b3
16gb 1600 ddr3
gtx 570

and i have always suspected that my ram was faulty. it even gives me issues in my separate windows 7 partition. i'm about to try memtest86+ and let it run for a few passes, but i'll keep your experience in mind.

 

[netsullivc]

I have had two recent gb boards and found they were rather fussy on ram, if they weren't out of the exact same paired pack or bought together they were rejected or caused endless inoppurtune panics. Asus boards have a mem-ok button that runs a magic fine-tune on your modules that seems to be more tolerant of "mix and matching". (It has to be used after a hard bios reset via battery removal).
Out of interest - why the love of ram 32 is a hell of a lot outside a server?

 

[dcl]

I have had two recent gb boards and found they were rather fussy on ram, if they weren't out of the exact same paired pack or bought together they were rejected or caused endless inoppurtune panics. Asus boards have a mem-ok button that runs a magic fine-tune on your modules that seems to be more tolerant of "mix and matching". (It has to be used after a hard bios reset via battery removal).
Out of interest - why the love of ram 32 is a hell of a lot outside a server?

haha, fair question, there are several reasons. Firstly, I use quite a few Adobe products for my amateur photography habits and don't want to ever experience a slowdown of my system. Secondly, I'm working on doing some experimental probability graphical modeling (don't want any choke-points in the RAM). Lastly, I like to purchase/build systems that will last me YEARS (point and case being my last computer, which served me faithfully for 6 years).

I love using OS X over Windows or Linux and wanted my hardware to be a little more customizable, so building my own system was the best option... including the 32GB of (overkill) RAM I'm really glad that tonymacx86 is here and makes it all possible! :headband:

 

[bobdownard]

Just wanted to add my $.02 to this.

I was having similar issues. I would run the Prime95 test and the computer would either freeze or spontaneously reboot, in both Windows 7 and Mac OSX. I was actually okay with it, because Prime95 was the only program that was causing this behavior. That is until it happened in the middle of a Starcraft 2 game. Then I was like, "Ah, hell no!" So I dove into chasing this problem down, and let me just say:



To make a long, painful, frustrating story a lot shorter I will just list what I checked.

-First I "checked" the RAM with memtest86+, which came back error free after 12 hours.
-Second I swapped out power supply, didn't help.
-Third I swapped out mother board, didn't help.
-Fourth I swapped out CPU (this step I did on the day that this post is being written), didn't help.

I was pissed. Then I stumbled upon this post. After the original poster expressed skepticism for memtest86+ I decided to do my own test of RAM. I pulled two sticks, trying to isolate a bad stick, and low and behold the culprit was one of those first two sticks: My computer has been running prime95 for over 2 hours without issue, where it wouldn't make 20 minutes before.

My purpose of posting is to 1-Thank the original poster, so thank you kind sir, and 2- to add my testimony to his: CHECK RAM FIRST MANUALLY before doing all the other more labor intensive, expensive stuff. Don't trust memtest86+.

 

[SG-]

prime95 will stress your CPU more than your RAM. are you sure the cooler and thermal paste are on alright? have you checked temperatures? try and get istat menus or istat nano to see what your temperatures are.