BSOD when 16GB RAM installed (but not 8GB), what can I do?

[a5cent]

Your stress tests are likely passing because the drained capacitor I propose is fully charged by the time the tests are stared and/or the power supply is in its efficiency window under the higher load. Either way, your RAM at that point is getting the power it needs.

I'm thinking the problem likely starts within the first second powering on from cold boot after the caps have drained and not a specific logon screen capacitor.

I have degrees in both electronics and software engineering, and all I can say is that this makes no sense whatsoever. There is also no such thing as a "logon screen capacitor". Please stop the FUD.

It's the voltage regulator on the motherboard that powers the DRAM modules, and the DRAM modules themselves handle the memory refresh. If the OP's issue was in any way related to memory refresh cycles (which it isn't), the issue would be the result of a defective DRAM module, and we'd witness the problematic behavior whenever that faulty DRAM module was inserted, not only when both of them are inserted.

Perhaps it is the same address space(s) in RAM that are losing their refresh each time and the reason why you are seeing the identical blue screen logs.

In an earlier post I already mentioned that this can't possibly be the cause. Read up on Windows ASLR if you want to learn why.

 

[Aaargh Zombies]

Re: BSOD when 16GB RAM installed (but not 8GB)

Sorry, GhostBuster:
https://ghostbuster.codeplex.com/
Use it after deactivating drivers in Device Manager as we once discussed.

I've removed the sound card, and an HD that I was using as a data volume, and I've uninstalled about 85 entries from Ghost which is also several years older than the PC.

I did a standard shutdown and powered the PC back up and there were no error messages, so the Ghost process didn't do anything nasty.

The PC doesn't BSOD if shut down for a short period of time, so I won't know until tomorrow morning if this has made any difference. The fact that BSOD doesn't happen for reboots, short shut downs, or dirty shut downs suggest to me that it's definitely a software issue rather than a hardware issue.

 

[Jason Rosenthal]

Adding the second stick of RAM along with turning off the power for extended periods are the only 2 triggers for the BSOD found so far. I'm 100% sure that these are hardware changes. In other words, not a single instruction of code was executed in the creation of the root conditions. I would not ignore these clues in favor of clues that occur much later in the boot process. Both conditions happen to be related to power as the extra RAM will add some load. Having your power supply checked is not a wild guess, but rather an important precaution.

I was thinking about your dirty shut down condition avoiding the BSOD and a possible workaround. Is the BIOS portion of the boot quicker if a proper shutdown is performed? I know my same vintage ASUS laptop (i7-4700HQ, 770M, 16GB) will boot quicker only if the shutdown was proper. If your BIOS allows, try setting it to always perform a slow boot or full test to emulate part of this condition. Windows 10 will also skip many checks on boot if the last shutdown was clean, perhaps there is a registry setting to force these checks every time as well.

Should this or any software change turn out to resolve the issue, are you going to be satisfied with such a workaround knowing that other people with the same hardware can boot with no software modifications?

 

[Aaargh Zombies]

It's not the sound card (Which is 1 of two Pre-Windows 7 components in my PC, the other being a WD disc).

I physically removed the card and the old disc which I was using as a data volume, and ghosted the software, and I got a BSOD at the usual time.

When I put the card back in I got a Resource Not Owned BSOD on boot.

I also ghosted the software for my NVidia 960, but left the card in so that I could let Windows take control. Same BSOD.

 

[a5cent]

Re: BSOD when 16GB RAM installed (but not 8GB)

Don't reinstall the soundcard for now. If you put it back in remove it again and rerun GhostBuster.
Then upload the next crash dump file.

 

[kg4icg]

Re: BSOD when 16GB RAM installed (but not 8GB)

You have a power problem on your motherboard, it is hardware related, and it's involving the dimm slots. If you have 4 dimm slots, move or to the other 2. If the blue screen still happens. Then you might need a new motherboard. Also check in your bios that power settings aren't over volting, you don't need more then 1.5volts .

 

[Aaargh Zombies]

Re: BSOD when 16GB RAM installed (but not 8GB)

You have a power problem on your motherboard, it is hardware related, and it's involving the dimm slots. If you have 4 dimm slots, move or to the other 2. If the blue screen still happens. Then you might need a new motherboard. Also check in your bios that power settings aren't over volting, you don't need more then 1.5volts .

This cannot be a PSU problem for the simple reason that it only effects Windows 10. Windows 7 runs smoothly. A power problem would also be evident during times of heavy load, like gaming.

I pulled my sound card, and a second HD that I was using for data, and ran it with minimal load. The fans were right down, and it was nice and cool, and I still got the exact same BSOD in the exact same place. If it were a PSU problem reducing the load should have resolved it, but nothing.

The motherboard is set to automatically manage the voltage. If there wasn't sufficient power it would simply under-volt them. My PSU is 750watt, which should easily handle gaming with twin graphics cards. I only have 1. If a 750watt PSU was malfunctioning so badly that it couldn't supply enough power to a PC that is probably only using 250Watt, then I'm pretty certain that I'd see random BSOD all the time.

If the MB was over volting the RAM I would see random instability rather than instability at such a specific time (Particularly during gaming), and my motherboard is designed with overclocking in mind so it should remain stable even if the RAM was over volted.

I've tried the other slots. Same problem.

If I mess around with the programs and service in the startup (either adding more or removing some) then the error comes earlier or later. Telling me that it's something that's loading on startup that's causing this.

 

[PaulMP]

Hello!

I have the same problem.

It all started with a new pair of corsair 2x8gb 1866mhz DDR3 RAM Kit,
2x4gb 1866mhz DDR3(G.Skill) works fine (Asrock-Z97 Extreme 4 Mobo).

Single channel works fine.
On UEFI defaults: BOSD on win loading screen with "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" or if I can get into windows then it crashes with ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY (ntoskrnl.exe).

No BSOD or error after a restart.
I'm going to test it with other RAM kits, and a brand new PSU.

 

[Aaargh Zombies]

Hello!

I have the same problem.

It all started with a new pair of corsair 2x8gb 1866mhz DDR3 RAM Kit,
2x4gb 1866mhz DDR3(G.Skill) works fine (Asrock-Z97 Extreme 4 Mobo).

Single channel works fine.
On UEFI defaults: BOSD on win loading screen with "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" or if I can get into windows then it crashes with ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY (ntoskrnl.exe).

No BSOD or error after a restart.
I'm going to test it with other RAM kits, and a brand new PSU.

Pleeeeease post again once you try some more RAM and a PSU. I'd really like to know if this resolves the problem for you. I can't really justify spending another $100 on new hardware on the off chance that it fixes the problem, and most of my friends have laptops or older PCs so I can't swap any parts over.

I'm running with the one memory chip right now as only having 8GB of RAM isn't a big deal at the moment.

 

[PaulMP]

Replacing the memory did the trick, no more bsod.