Updating drivers....

[Kirk Gittings]

I've doubled the memory on my W7 machine and getting some problems-crashes in many programs and my video card going wacky.

So I am updating drivers and I have some questions.

Oftentimes I cannot tell whether a new driver has been installed.

If you unzip it does it automatically install?

I use a program Driver Agent to tell me which drivers need an update, but after "installing" new drivers it gives the same info about which drivers need upgrade. YET if I go through Windows Device Manager on each device it says in all cases that I have the most recent driver. What do I believe?

I feel like I am in never never land.

[BarryS]

The first thing I'd suspect is a defective memory card. Opening a zip file with drivers won't automatically install them. I'd be very surprised if this has anything to do with your drivers--they can't be that old on a W7 machine.

[Peter De Smidt]

I'd call Crucial and ask what's up.

[Kirk Gittings]

I did. After allot of diagnosis they said to update all the drivers! All the memory tests out fine individually. The machine runs perfectly with three 4GB cards installed, but put in the 4th (anyone of them) and everything goes wacky.

[Peter De Smidt]

Sh!t! Ok. I would believe what the Device Manager is telling you.
With the video card, you should simply download the file and run the executable file, but I doubt very much that the video card driver is the problem.

With the motherboard drivers, go to the mother board maker's site, and check on the downloads for your board. Compare the versions listed to what you have listed in your device manager. If the one's are newer on the website, download them and follow the instructions. You may also need to see if there is a bios update for your motherboard, which should be listed in the same area. The bios, in my non-computer-expert view, is the most likely issue, if the memory is good.

If you do all of that and things are still fubar, turn off your machine. Take out all but two of the memory sticks. (I expect that you have a dual channel memory system and need to add/remove sticks in pairs. Check your manual.) Boot and check for problems. Turn off. Replace with another pair. Boot and repeat. If all of the sticks work with two of them, then add another pair. Boot ....until you get up to the maximum. This should tell you if one of the pair of memory is bad, or if your board really can't support that much memory, despite there being physical space for them.

[Brian C. Miller]

+1 on the non-relationship between crashes and drivers.
+1 on the relationship between new memory chips and crashes.

It sounds like "Driver Agent" is giving you bogus information. I always use common sense and the OS utilities to give me correct information about the drivers. (But then again, I started programming 6502 machine language before high school, and that before Commodore was a household name.)

It is possible that you've installed memory that is incompatible with your motherboard.
Take out your new memory, and see if your crashes go away. (ah - three is OK, fourth goes blooey)

When you add memory to a machine, even though you may have purchased the same type of memory you bought before, it may not be the appropriate type for the total memory size. For instance, my motherboard at home specifies different types for 1Gb, 4Gb, and 8Gb of RAM, and it was very picky about the brand for 8Gb.

(Yeah, it's a RAM type incompatibility. The sticks are fine individually, but you need slower RAM for full memory usage.)

[Kirk Gittings]

All the ram checks out individually and in various pairs, runs fine with 12, 16 the problem. Gigabyte site says my MB will take 16gb but maybe not the speed of the RAM which is 12800? i can't find that on the MB site.

[Brian C. Miller]

The tested RAM types will be listed in the motherboard manual. Also, there should be updates on the MB site about tested RAM compatibility. You probably need the next speed down from what you have.

Can give information about the MB brand and number?

Added: OK, Gigabyte. Click on their site to get to your MB model, and then click on the "Memory Support List" button for the tested memory types.

[Kirk Gittings]

Yes it is a Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3LR (rev. 1.3)
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/prod...px?pid=3487#sp

[Peter De Smidt]

The latest bios for the motherboard says that it improves memory compatibility.