This is every system I've ever owned - I've replaced just about everything except the motherboard and CPU on all of my computers at one point or another.

Zydor,



I'm obsessive about blasting dust out of my computer. I found some matted dust about the size of a thumbnail on my CPU after the crash.

I tried reseating everything when the rebooting started - the RAM, the video card, the sound card, the ATA cables, the power supply cables, and the end result was really no change. So I tried pulling RAM and the system stabilized.



It takes forever to load a map now, and it takes a few seconds longer than I like to save ship templates. I write this off to my constricted RAM.

And I knew it couldn't be GalCiv causing the rebooting just because it would happen when I was in safe mode, in normal mode, in the BIOS screen, watching the boot screen.

Aloriel,



I've been hearing good things about Sins of a Solar Empire.

I did play MoO (which I had fun with until MoO2) and MoO3 (which almost immediately prompted me to pick up GalCiv - that and Brad coming around to talk about his game).

I'll see if TA can load my saved immense game, although I had common stars and abundant planets.

Wow, good deal.

I can immediately get another gb for $59 from Tiger Direct, but I haven't done much shopping around.

PC2700 DDR 333, 184 pin, 1 gigabyte.

Newegg already has cheaper RAM, by about $5-10, which isn't bad.

What I really truly need is a new motherboard and processor (preferably dual), but that probably won't happen for a few months.

Okay, so my RAM is 333 mhz, but cpu-z says it's running at half that. What's up with that? And how do I make it not do that?

I mean, the RAM I described above is exactly what's slotted in my motherboard, and is in fact the same kind that came stock with the machine (although I purchased that stick separately).

Ah, okay. All is right with the world again. Thank you.

I don't know PC Pitstop (I'll need to check it out) - another useful tool is SiSoft Sandra.

In CPU-z you need to also look at two tabs:

"Memory" - The "Timings" section gives the specific BIOS timings currently being used by your system.

"SPD" - The "Timings Table" section gives the BIOS timings that your RAM reports as supporting. NOTE: There is a separate set of timings given for each bank of RAM - and they can be different and each bank may support more than one set of timings.

A BIOS setting of "Auto/SPD" (or words to that effect) is meant to use the best set of timings supported by all the banks. Mine was actually using far worse timings than the memory could support (probably erring on the side of caution).

The first three numbers in the "Timings Table" after Frequency are the ones often quoted for RAM chips (4-4-3 for me) - buying RAM with lower values than your current RAM will probably be a waste of money (unless you change the lot).

Before you go messing with your BIOS settings, some words of warning:

- if your not sure of what you are doing then "Auto/SPD" should be safe.

- some BIOS's wont allow you to change these values and are stuck on Auto.

- if your not sure of what you are doing then "Auto/SPD" should be safe.

- the names given for all the timing values may not match those shown in your BIOS, a web search to match up the terminology should sort it out.

- if your not sure of what you are doing then "Auto/SPD" should be safe.

No game can damage your hardware, clearly you had poor cooling, where overclocking or just got unlucky and had defective RAM, it happens but is not GC2 or stardocs fault.

Ah has....9 years...there is your problem RAM does not last forever any more than you CPU or GPU will, eventually you will need to replace some parts if you don't upgrade.

wow 9 years? not only is your pc ancient(in pc years, uh kinda like dog years), but if you got nine years out of a system you should be pretty happy, but its time to upgrade. base systems that will probably run circles around your current pc, go for as little as $300, or build your own at newegg for a fraction of the retail price.

Ha, people still catching up.

No, I'd had that CD-ROM in three different systems (not in my current), and I know for certain it died of old age, not because it had Freedom Force in the drive when it died (although it took Freedom Force with it). I'd had the RAM that died for two years. Base systems for $300 will not run circles around my machine, but will run about the same. I won't upgrade unless it's to a dual- or quad-core at any rate.

i've got a Pentium D 820 (2.8 GHz) that i'm not using at the moment...

Phaedyme: a lot of RAM manufactures (like Kingston and Micron) have a lifetime warranty. If you do in fact have faulty RAM for whatever reason, you may very well be able to get a new stick out of them. I got a couple of new sticks from Kingston when my dying mobo took the RAM with it. Long story, it was bad. ^^

Granted, this assumes that the RAM was handled and installed properly. From your comments, you seem plenty competent, so I'm sure this isn't an issue for you.

So you might want to give it a shot.

Cheers!

I'll keep you in mind when I have free cash in a couple months, then.

Ishantil,

It is Kingston, but I don't have the packaging for it. I'll look into that, though.

Skelton,

I'm going to give immense another try. Gigantic is running pretty smoothly for me, although I picked too few opponents accidentally, and I hate the Yor tech trees atm. I tried reloading the game that crashed originally, and it just kept crashing - I just sent the savegame and another smartexception to Stardock so they can look at it, but I think that particular game is dead.

I have experience making games run on lower-end systems - I had Morrowind running at a playable level with good graphics on a Celeron 300a (overclocked), a half-gb of RAM, and an outdated video card once. When I did have problems, people on the Morrowind forum would say "I wish I could help, but I can't even figure out how you're running the game in the first place."