Issue:
I've had PC issues in the past and after giving it some thought and putting things together I think that a recent issue has actually been the same issue I've had since I've had the PC. To get to the point, my best theory right now is that something has gone bad with my RAM. I'd just like any feedback or suggestions on my opinion before I go out and buy new RAM.
Context:
So last month I began encountering sudden BSOD crashes often. At the same time I had run a virus check and removed a trojan, so I assumed they were related. I reinstalled windows 7 ultimate 64 bit to ensure things were ok. However it turned out I continued to have erratic BSOD crashes, and it was apparent that something was simply not right. Processes would run slow, video would occasionally bleed and blur and smear with artifacts, borders of windows and programs would look broken and wrong. Things like that.
HD and OS:
I replaced my HD about 3 months ago and got a brand new one so to be sure it wasn't an HD issue I hooked up my other backup HD and ran my brand new install of win7 on that. I also experienced BSOD on the essentially blank backup HD. So that makes me confident that it's not an HD issue OR an OS issue. Having both a brand new install and BSOD on both a new HD and another unused HD. And neither was it any virus or trojan I would have had.
Now I began to realize that I've had nearly this same exact issue since I've had this PC. Only it is very erratic, I will get bad frequent BSOD issues for about a week. Then it mysteriously stops and things stabilize for 2 or 3 months until it happens again.
RAM:
Thinking of what the problem could be I remembered the last time the problem happened I investigated my RAM and found the 2nd slot was not reading my 2nd ram stick at all. After switching RAM around to test I found only that specific RAM slot wouldn't read any memory stick I tried and concluded the slot was damaged or bad. I removed the RAM from the slot since it was useless and hoping it cleared up crashes.
I can't be sure it had any effect but my crashes subsided until my most recent round. So what I'm thinking is that the single stick of 2GB RAM I left in may now have gone bad and is causing the issues.
To support this I did checks on all my crash dumps in Windbg. I am not hugely technical so I can't make a whole lot of those results, but the vast majority relate to ntoskrnl.exe and memory corruption.
Bug check strings include: "IRQL not less or equal", "bad pool header", "memory management", "ntfs file system", "system service exception", "page fault in nonpaged area", "unexpected kernal mode trap", "attempted write to read only memory".
To further support this the suspect RAM is the same RAM I've used since I've had the PC. And my BSOD crashes typically happened when I was doing memory intense things like gaming, watching high res vids, or editing etc.
Running the Windows Memory Diagnostic check on both of the different 2GB sticks of RAM I've had around gave results saying there were hardware issues. Testing the diagnostic on a spare 1GB of RAM I had resulted in a no hardware issues message. So everything seems to point to the fact both 2GB sticks are bad. I even ran my pc on the test passed stick of 1GB RAM for a while and for the duration encountered no BSOD.
Conclusion:
So basically, any thoughts? Am I right to have my RAM as my first suspect? I'm going to go out and buy a new stick asap. If for some reason it doesn't fix the crashes my second suspect would be something wrong with the MOBO/memory slots.
Originally I had thought that RAM either just worked or it didn't start your PC at all and I still don't understand what makes RAM corrupted or go bad. Does it just happen over use or pushing it too far? Thanks for any replies or reading this huge post.