Help! I have spent the last year building this PC and am still having issues. It runs terribly slow intermittantly (and seemingly for no reason) and locks up under stress so I checked the event log and noticed several hard drive errors before lock up. Check disk came up with nothing. In reading posts about the motherboard people were saying that the error would be corrected with a PCI controller card. This did nothing to solve the problem however and am still having problems. Here is a list of hardware: Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 ATX AMD Motherboard PCU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor RAM: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel HDD: WDC WD50 00AACS-00ZUB0 SCSI Disk Device PSU: Thermaltake W0106RU 700W Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version SLI Certified 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply Video: MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card (Overclocked edition at 700MHz) Any suggestions?

It is extremely unlikely that you have (a) defective drive controller(s), unless the mboard, or a PCI or PCI-E X1 controller card in a slot, has been damaged. e.g. by an external event, such as a power spike or surge, or by a nearby lightning strike or one on the power grid nearby, or by a static electricity discharge, or by something you did, such as NOT removing the cord to, or NOT switching off, the AC power to the PS whenever you made any changes to connections or plugged in or unplugged components inside the case (ATX mboards are always powered in some places by ATX PSs as long as live AC is being supplied to the PS and the PS is on and is connected to the mboard, even when the system is not running.) I have NEVER encountered a defective drive controller myself. "PSU: Thermaltake W0106RU 700W Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version SLI Certified 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply Video: MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card (Overclocked edition at 700MHz)" That PS is decent and has a lot more than enough capacity to handle a system with that or any currently available PCI-E X16 video card, providing there is not more than one video chipset on the card (a X 2 card), or providing you don't install more than one PCI-E X 16 card on the mboard in multiple slots, if applicable. However, any PS can become defective. Check to make sure the current voltage readings are okay in the bios. +3.3, +5, and +12 volt readings should be within 10% of the nominal values. "GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 RAM: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel" That's not specific enough ram info - the part number of the modules you are using must be in this list: http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa... If the modules you are using are NOT in that list, they may not be 100% compatible with the memory controller built into your cpu (processor). ..... If the modules you are using ARE in that list....... Take a look in your bios and make sure the bios is set to the correct ram timings and ram voltage, the same as on the label on the ram, and/or in the specs for the ram. If either of those are incorrect, correct them manually in your bios settings. If you are overclocking anything in your bios settings, or are using a higher or lower ram voltage than that specified for the ram, set the settings to standard settings until you have made sure the system works fine with standard settings, then if you still want to overclock, look at overclocking web sites to find what settings work fine with your mboard model and your ram, or very similar ram. .... If the ram timing and ram voltage settings are correct... A common thing that can happen with ram, even ram that worked fine previously, is the ram has, or has developed, a poor connection in it's slot(s). This usually happens a long time after the ram was installed, but it can happen with new ram, or after moving the computer case from one place to another, and I've had even new modules that needed to have their contacts cleaned. See response 2 in this - try cleaning the contacts on the ram modules, and making sure the modules are properly seated: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... ..... Look in Device Manager. If there are any yellow ? marks (question marks) beside any drive's model number, you may need to remove some lines from the registry. .... Check your SATA data cables. The connector on each end should "latch" into the socket on the drive and on the mboard, or on the drive controller card - it should not move when you merely brush your hand against it near the socket - if it does, use another SATA data cable that does "latch", or tape the connector in place. (There is a slight projection or bump on one side of the outside of the connector that "latches" it into the socket - it's easily broken off or damaged) ..... If you have IDE drives... Make sure the IDE hard drive(s) and IDE optical drive(s) are NOT running in PIO mode. See this: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devic... If the connection your drive is on is in PIO mode, try setting it to DMA if available, save settings, go back in, see if it has changed to a higher mode. IDE Hard drives should be in Ultra DMA mode 4, 5, or 6 IDE DVD combo burner optical drives (can burn and read CDs and DVDs) should be in Ultra DMA mode 4, if they are capable of 16X or greater DVD + or DVD - (they must be connected to an 80 wire data cable). If the drive won't go out of PIO mode, you need to remove some lines from the Registry, but if you haven't cured what caused the data errors, Windows will immediately or in a short time insert the lines again and it will be in PIO mode again. It is common to un-intentionally damage IDE data cables, especially while removing them - the 80 wire ones are more likely to be damaged. What usually happens is the cable is ripped at either edge and the wires there are either damaged or severed, often right at a connector or under it's cable clamp there, where it's hard to see - if a wire is severed but it's ends are touching, the connection is intermittant, rather than being reliable. Another common thing is for the data cable to be separated from the connector contacts a bit after you have removed a cable - there should be no gap between the data cable and the connector - if there is press the cable against the connector to eliminate the gap. 80 wire data cables are also easily damaged at either edge if the cable is sharply creased at a fold in the cable. Try another data cable if in doubt. ..... Check your hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostics. See the latter part of response 1 in this: http://www.computing.net/windows95/... (thanks to Dan Penny for this link:) Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm... If you don't have a floppy drive, you can get a CD image diagnostic utility from most hard drive manufacturer's web sites, but obviously you would need to make a burned CD, preferably a CD-R for best compatibilty, on another computer if you need to. If the hard drive itself tests okay, any data problems found can be fixed, one way or another. ...... Check the cpu fan and heatsink - if there is a buildup of mung (lint, dust, etc.) on them, the cpu can overheat and cause problems - clean them off, but DO NOT use a vaccum cleaner to do that - they produce a tremendous amount of static electricity while running (if you can rig up the vacuum cleaner to blow air and you don't touch anything connected to the vacuum to the mboard or the case, that's okay). If you are using the stock cpu fan and heatsink that came in an AMD boxed set with the 6000+ cpu, that combo is very efficient, and you probably do NOT need to use (a) case fan(s). It (they) won't make much difference regarding the cpu temp, and it (they) will make the mung that accumulates on the cpu fan and heatsink accumulate faster. If your computer is on or near the floor in a room with wall to wall carpeting, the mung will accumlate faster than when it is in a location higher up. ..... If you don't have enough free space left on the partition Windows was installed on, which is usually C, Windows will slow down considerably. What size is that partition, and how much free space is on it?

What he said...and are you confident there isn't a spyware or viral infection of some kind?

Ok, I have checked all this out and you are right, the RAM I have is NOT on the list. Is this really an issue? I have upped the voltage to the specified 2.2v but am unsure how to make sure the 4-4-4-12 timing is set in the mobo. Any suggestions? I have also cleaned all contacts on all parts. I have updated the bios. I even installed the mobo utility from Gigabyte website. The problem still persists. No, according to my zone alarm security suite, there is NOTHING on my computer in the way of virus/malware.

"Ok, I have checked all this out and you are right, the RAM I have is NOT on the list." Did you look at all 28 listings? " Is this really an issue?" Yes, it frequently is. If the part number is not in a list of Crucial modules, it MIGHT work fine but there is no confirmation from them that it will, OR it WAS tested in your mboard model and it was found it DOES NOT work properly when installed in your mboard model. When the ram you are using is NOT found in a list of compatible modules, it is a very good idea to run a memory test. If you do a ram test, do that AFTER having tried cleaning the contacts and making sure the ram is seated properly - otherwise any errors found may be FALSE. If the ram is incompatible with the chipset, it will likely FAIL a ram test - that is NOT a true indication of the ram being faulty - there is probably nothing wrong with it, and it will pass the test if installed in a mboard it is compatible with. If a ram test DOES find errors, if you have more than one module installed, try the test with one module at a time - sometimes they won't work properly when more than one is installed, but it will pass when by itself. If you want to try a memory diagnostic utility that takes a lot less time to run a full pass than memtest86 does, this one is pretty good - Microsoft's Windows Memory Diagnostic: http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag... It can be toggled to do a standard or a more comprehensive set of tests - use the default 6 test one first - if it passes one pass of that, use the latter one. A few of the tests in the latter set are intentionally slower. ..... "I have upped the voltage to the specified 2.2v but am unsure how to make sure the 4-4-4-12 timing is set in the mobo." Gigabyte mboard manuals often have detailed info about the bios settings in the manual for the model. I could download that and look at it to possibly help you regarding that if your looking at that doesn't help, but I haven't had to do that myself yet. In any case, if the ram timing numbers are set to slower settings (higher numbers) the ram should work fine with those settings too, if it's 100% compatible. It's when the timing numbers are set to faster (lower numbers) than the modules are rated for that you will experience problems. If you have a mix of modules installed, the bios will often use the specs of the slowest module installed (lowest mhz, highest timing numbers) for all the ram by default - if you set the timings yourself manually, you will have problems if you set those to faster (lower numbers) than the slowest module installed. "I have updated the bios." Updating the bios is NOT a cure-all!! You are taking a big risk when you flash your bios - if the flash fails, and/or the flash chip physically fails while flashing (this is COMMON - these cheap flash chips can only be flashed an unpredictable small number of times), you will have a mboard that will not boot. You should NEVER take the risk of updating the bios, unless you find specific stated info that flashing the bios will cure a problem you are having - the best place is in release notes for or notes about a bios update in the downloads for the mboard model, or those for bios updates that are older than the one you were thinking of using but are newer than the one the mboard has presently, since newer bios updates almost always include all previous fixes. Updating the bios cannot cure ram compatibilty problems caused by the ram not being compatible with the mboard's main chipset, or in the case of some recent cpus that have the memory controller built into the cpu, compatibilty problems caused by the ram not being compatible with the cpu. Very rarely, a bios update may cure compatibilty problems with one or a few specific manufacturer's modules - if so, the notes usually say which one(s).

Message: Ok, I will likely just buy new memory direct from Crucial. I got the memory I have from newegg and they sent me the wrong stuff resulting in this issue. I will test it anyway as I am very much interested in learning how to handle these problems myself instead of paying someone else to do it. As for setting the memory timings, I have read through the manual several times and have found NO way to set RAM timing. BIOS does not show me an option either. Lastly, I have only updated the BIOS once and did so with Gigabytes's "@BIOS" system. It was very easy and have noticed no problems with it so far. Having said that I will not do so again as from the sounds of your advice, it's not a very good idea. Thank you sooooooooo much for your kind assistance and knowledge. It's incredibly hard to get someone to help with computer issues. I will continue to investigate your points, replace the RAM (will take a couple weeks as I am out of money), and keep you posted.

If the ram timings in the bios are slower (have higher numbers) than that specfied for the ram, if nothing else about the ram is wrong it may still work fine, but you need to test it to make sure. Test the ram first, after having tried cleaning it's contacts and re-seating it, following the directions as above. If the ram test passes, something else is wrong. Lots of different things can slow down Windows. You don't necessarily have to get ram from the web - local places have the most frequently needed current ram, they often have web sites (see their ads in the yellow pages for the address), you can get the ram from anywhere that has modules that can be looked up and found to be compatible, and they often have the same brand name mail-in limited time rebates. The ram may cost a bit more locally, but is often cheaper when you take into consideration shipping charges when you buy online.