Running 3 Gig RAM freaks my soundcard!

[s1rrah]

this is a wierd one.

i just ordered a new 2 gig kit of mushkin ram to replace my previous 1 gig kit of the exact same ram.

it's mushkin eXtreme pc2-6400 with the black heat spreader and D9 IC's.

anyway, until i can sell my 1 gig kit (2x512) i decided to try running it alongside my new 2 gig kit (2x1gig) in a 3gig system configuration; i installed the chips and the system booted fine with my typical 24/7 overclock of 3.6ghz on an E6400; RAM volts were up'd from the stock of 2.1 to around 2.25 or so an timings were at my usual of 4.4.3.9.

i ran orthos for about three hours on the blend setting and was satisfied.

then i ran a game using surround sound. and that's where things went wierd.

my old soundblaster 5.1 card, which i use with a 5.1 surround speaker set, totally started freaking in any sort of surround sound application be it a movie or a game. all sorts of random feedback and buzzings ... really nasty sounds. switch the same movie or game from surround to regular sound and everything worked fine. totally wierd.

i changed to default speeds (no overclock) for my CPU and ram and rebooted; same problem: any surround sound application would begin emitting the most horrible buzzings and nasty nasty sounds from my speakers ... while also, occasionally playing the appropriate sounds for the movie or game.

powered down, yanked the 1 gig kit and left the 2 gig kit in ... rebooted and surround sounds worked just fine. then yanked the 2 gig and put the 1 gig kit in by itself, same thing ... surround works perfectly. just the 3 gig system config whacks out my surround card.

my sound card is an original soundblaster live! 5.1 card ... so i'm hoping it's just a problem associated with the old sound card ... maybe some sort of system memory mapping/sharing problem.

the only reason i want to work this out is so that i can use all 3 gigs on the chance i'm not able to sell the extra 1 gig kit. both kits have been run through hours of diagnostics using both memtest and microsoft's diagnostic tools so i'm sure the RAM is fine.

any thoughts from the jedi ranks?

[XSAlliN]

What PSU do you have? :)

[s1rrah]

What PSU do you have? :)

500 watt thermaltake pure power ...

[Drag]

500 watt thermaltake pure power ...
Thermaltake pure power? rofl....

[XSAlliN]

Try a different PSU an see if that helps, normally it shouldn't be no problem with you current PSU but you can't know for sure unless you try. ;)

[uOpt]

Welcome to the world of Creative's drivers.

[s1rrah]

Thermaltake pure power? rofl....

what on earth is wrong with that power supply?

(and, why are your rolling on the floor?) :)

i figure it's plenty of juice for a non-sli system; otherwise, are Thermaltake power supplies notoriously bunk?

[uOpt]

i figure it's plenty of juice for a non-sli system; otherwise, are Thermaltake power supplies notoriously bunk?

No, but TT has sold literally random OEMs with a, errr.... "wide variety" of quality in the past.

The power rating means nothing without a good OEM behind it.

[s1rrah]

No, but TT has sold literally random OEMs with a, errr.... "wide variety" of quality in the past.

The power rating means nothing without a good OEM behind it.

hmph. didn't know that.

what's the word on the new mushkin power supplies? not running SLI, so might check this out: http://www.mushkin.com/doc/products/power_supply/hp-550.asp

thanks for the reply ...

[couppi]

Turn on the "Memory Remap" or something like that in the BIOS on the memory settings page. Your motherboard might not be allotting enough memory to your soundcard to work properly.

Don't know why the PSU would matter :confused:

[s1rrah]

Turn on the "Memory Remap" or something like that in the BIOS on the memory settings page. Your motherboard might not be allotting enough memory to your soundcard to work properly.

Don't know why the PSU would matter :confused:

i'll test that ... thanks.