Sharp

Why did your brother go for a triple channel kit when the motherboard he has chosen, socket 775 only requires a dual channel kit. Stay with 2 sticks in that board, hence the reason you have 4 slots. i7 (your board) has the triple channel memory feature. Running memtest on each stick is a good idea plus when trying 2 (don't bother with 3 sticks) see what happens. If memtest fails increase the voltage slightly. Also why not try your G.Skill memory (2 sticks) in his Gigabyte board? (And the Kingston in your i7) Is this your brother's board? GA EP45T UD3LR

Hello, Go to the BIOS and look at the CPU temperature, leave it there for ~10mins. Are you using a wired network connection or wireless?

I have already mentioned the reasons why and have nothing further to add on this matter.

(Greetings Doc. ) Yes I do dispute your entire view this matter.

I had a feeling that you would reply with a post claiming to have done so. So you can't think of a good reason NOT to use thermal paste but yet you do not use thermal paste? Very strange. Consider this, your own statement. As an overclocker or general PC user why would you choose to run your CPU/PC warmer when you have thermal paste at hand to help reduce the temps and improve thermal efficiency? By doing so your components will last longer, that seems like a very good reason to me. There are many examples where one can say "that doesn't mean you HAVE to". But is it good practice? Efficiency is performance, don't compromise.

Hello, Have you changed any SATA settings in the BIOS (like RAID mode). If not then do a full write 0 on the hard drive and try again.

I strongly disagree with this statement. Under no circumstances should thermal paste be left out. Your words will be seen by thousands of eyes and misinterpretation is inevitable.

Are you sure about this bit?

Hello, Was the sleeve sealed with a red sticker? If not then someone may have returned it to Zipzoom/swapped the disc. Plus if the above is true they should not have taken it back/re-sell as these are the OEM ones, once opened it is yours.

Virtually the whole forum got merged with this one.

Hello, The memory timimgs will not cause damage to the PC, however if they are too low it can cause file corruption/BSODs or prevent the PC from booting. Change the timings to 4-4-4-12 and set the voltage to 2.1v and run memtest for a few hours. If all is fine then leave it as this will improve system performance.

The CAS latency is dependant on your memory, as you listed 3-3-3-8 in your sig you can only set it to 3. (2.5 might work) As to why is says 3T, I can only assume that DFI programmed the BIOS like this. If it was the command rate is would say Command Rate and options would only be 1T or 2T. Your aggressive/expert settings might be what determines the command rate. The AGP latency setting is something that you need to play around with and use something like 3Dmark to find out which setting gives the best results. To low might not be enough time and to high can cause a decrease in performance, but this setting will not cause instability.

tCL = CAS Latency. (3-3-3-8) No point going for PC4000 as it will just downclock it to PC3200 unless you overclock your FSB to 250Mhz. However if you wish to try some low latency DDR memory go for something with timings of 2-2-2-X @400Mhz DDR. The AGP latency is not linked to the card's video memory. The only things that look out of place are the Expert & Aggressive settings.

Hello, Sometimes the newer versions do not work on older motherboards. Try version 1.7. http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70/memtest86+-1.70.iso.zip Also can you expand on your specifications? :: CPU = P4, 3Ghz, HT, socket 478 or 775? :: Power supply, 250W or 450W

Hello, I take it the PC has been working fine with the current settings in the past? With old age comes instability so that might be why however lets not consider that yet. What have you done so far in order to try and resolve the issue? EG, Load optimised defaults. If you look at the motherboard, are any of the capacitors starting to bulge/pop? http://www.capacitorlab.com/visible-failures/ Have you tried running memtest for a few hours? http://www.memtest.org/download/2.11/memtest86+-2.11.iso.zip :: Download, extract files to a folder. :: Burn ISO to CD. :: Boot from CD and let the program run for ~3hours. Any errors will be in the form of a red line (lots of red lines)