i am running a motherboard=gigabyte ga-k8ns nforce 2 bus 200 amd sempron 2.8 socket 754 3x 256 sticks of ram vidiogeforcefx5500 crative 64 i been runnign ok for 5 months then about 2-3 weeks back my pc started to reboot by itself then started getting the bsod with page fault pfn_list etcetc i took my pc to bare min checked it and still dioing it check my minidumps and they was on about memory defect read a few post on this forum and started checkign ram and ram slots i got 3 ram slots 1-2-3 and 3 ram sticks ok when i put any of my 3 ram sticks in slot 1 it runs great all the time as soon as i put other ram in slot 2and 3 with stick in slot 1 as well it starts freezing ,bsod etcetc i tested all ram in separate slots and eveytime i use slot 2-3 by them selfs i cannot get passed the first bit of screen at the moment i running my pc with 1 stick of ram in slot 1 put all my software hardware back on and still runnign ok i wondering it cannot be my ran sticks????? can i have bad ramslots???? i know little bit about pc but not the bios stuff and changing timming and knocking down memeory etc or could it be somethig esle whats making it do that??? any thoughts i would apprechate

It really helps when you list things properly. Your description is a mess. Your board uses the nForce3 250 chipset, not the nForce2...& your 2800+ Sempron does not run at 2.8GHz, it runs at 1.6GHz. And why is AthlonXP listed? http://us.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_Spec_GA-K8NS.htm Your problem could be caused by a number of things. Did you mess with the BIOS settings at all? If you don't know what you're doing, do NOT play with memory timings. Did you check for overheating? Are you sure your power supply isn't failing?

It is extremely unlikely anything is wrong with your ram slots. Your ram is also extremely unlikely to be bad, unless it has been damaged by a bad power surge or spike and the computer is not protected from that. It sounds like you have a failing power supply, and it has just enough capacity left when you have one stick of ram, but not enough with more sticks. Bad power supplies are common. Other than the cpu, the ram requires the most power of all your components. Check the current voltages in the bios Setup - +12, +5, +3.3 should be within 10% of nominal values - your VCC voltage(s) should be within 5% of nominal. The readings will probably be worse when you have more than one module installed. The PS fan should be spinning at the speed it is supposed to be - some spin according to how warm the PS is, slower when cooler, but it may not have that feature and in that case would spin quite fast. If it spins too slow or has stopped, the PS will overheat and fry itself, malfunction for a while, and eventually die. Sniff the PS fan outlet area with the power off - a strong burnt wiring / burnt plasticy smell indicates the PS has been overheating or has been malfunctioning, regardless of whether the PS fan is spinning properly.

sorry for the bad description as first time i posted about 6 months back i had to change the psu due to it burnt out now a 500w 2 fan one but after i change it it ran ok since until 3 weeks back only thing i done to bios it upgrated the bios from the website not played with memory timming as i dont knwow how do cpu been running a 25-28 for last 2 weeks psu seem ok cannot smell nothing but i try and swop it and cheak the psu as that and the cpu i ot checked but with it running at 25-28 degreess how do check the voltage as when i got to it in bioos it just says runnign ok vcore ok ddr25v ok +3.3v ok +12v ok cpu 29oc cpu fan 3375 tested all my ram sticks agaion today and as soom as i put them in the 2 and 3rd slot the pc did not get passed the xp screen sometimes just bsod but them back in 1 slot and been running ok since i aslo ram memtest and other program eurosoft disk 2-3 times over last 2 weeks i got and it said the ram and cpu etc was finei just dont want to buy things and it not that whats wrong just been bugginh me to what it could be so i can sort it out ty for the repleys

You have a decent board & you got one of the "good" Semprons w/256k L2 cache. And if you're into overclocking, you have a great combo for it. All nForce3 boards have a problem when 3 sticks of RAM are used...basically it will automatically downclock DDR400 RAM to DDR333. Also, if two sticks of double sided DDR400 are used, the same thing will sometimes happen. A BIOS update will usually fix the 2nd problem, but the 1st is inherent to all nForce3 chipsets. Sometimes it can be overcome by manually setting the RAM to run at DDR400, but when set to AUTO, the downclocking will definitely happen. This really doesn't have anything to do with your current problem, but it's something you should be aware of. If you haven't updated your BIOS, that would be the 1st thing to do. Version F18 is the latest version available & GigaByte provides 3 different ways to perform the update: http://us.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/BIOS/BIOS_GA-K8NS.htm http://us.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Support/BIOS/HowToReflash/HowToReflash_1.htm Other than that, I still suspect a weak power supply. Just saying that's a 500W unit doesn't mean much. Is it a name brand unit (Antec, Enermax, FSP/Forton, Thermaltake, etc) or an elCheapo no-name brand? Check the label on the side of the unit...how many amps are listed for the +12v line(s)? Would you consider the 500W unit to be heavy or lightweight? Generally, the heavier the PSU is, the better it is...it indicates that it was built with better/heay duty components rather than cheap, lightweight junk.