So Im having a few problems with my 14 month old machine and Im a bit confused as to what the problem might be. I will start with the problem and then move onto some screen shots of the error and then onto what I have done so far to try and find the issue.
So, the pc was bought in parts and put together by myself 14 months ago. I have never done anything else like this before but I felt everything went well considering, it was all up and running and everything was going sweetly. Until I noticed that my BIOS/windows was only showing 8GB. Because I had spent £1500+ on the pc I choose to get cheap copy of windows (Windows Vista Home Basic) when I noticed it was only displaying 8GB of RAM and not 12gb which I have in the system I started to do some research as to why. I was then told that this copy of windows only does 8GB of ram so thought nothing more about it until I could afford a new copy of win 7. (which turned out to be incorrect it does support 12gb)
So.. new copy of win7 upgrade installed.. wonderful but no, still only 8GB of ram. The problem only got worse... a few weeks later every time I went onto something like BBCiplayer/Youtube the screen appeared to be green. But only on the part where the player was located so as a temp fix I just stopped using Google Chrome and used Firefox instead, which works weirdly enough but only for a few weeks. I then started looking at why I was getting these awful graphical problems.
Over the time I have had the machine every few days/weeks Id not really noticed I was getting the following error but thought nothing of it.
"Display Drivers has stopped responding and has recovered" "Display Drivers Nvidia windows kernal mode drivers, Version 296.10 stopped responding and has successfully recovered" Just before recieveing this message the screen would go black. I ignored it for a few months until everything started happening.
The green Iplayer problem was soon fixed by graphics card upgrade but it then led me onto getting another really bad issue which looks a little like this.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/654/pcerror.jpgSo anyway... I was almost certain it was a graphics card error and had it sent back to scan the company I purchased it off only for them to send it back and tell me it was fine and they was nothing wrong with it. I then started looking into my ram and was that the cause of this issue. I then found that the 3 sticks of ram only showed 12GB of ram in my BIOS when all 3 sticks were in a certain slot each. Otherwise it would only show 8GB of ram at any one time. I then sent my RAM off to scan and told them it was defo the problem due to only certain sticks of ram working in certain slots on the mobo this was also tested with a friends ram to test to make sure it wasnt the mobo at fault. Scan then sent me back 12GB of new ram and confirmed it was the RAM at fault.
So that leads me onto my real problem. Today I received my RAM sticks back after using my mates 8GB of ram for a week with no issues and this crash never occurring once. Put the 12GB of ram into the Mobo and BAM 8gb of ram once more, doesnt matter what slots they are in this time, always 8gb of ram it now looks like I cannot but any ram in the 6th slot of the mobo as it will not show up in bios.. =/
Ive tried and failed to update my bios using @BIOS tool provided by Gigabyte and failed. Does anyone here have any idea what my problem is? Im really running out of ideas.
Full system spec will be posted tomorrow.
I7 Processor
12GB of Corsair Vengeance ram (compatible with mobo)
Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 LGA 1366