PenguinActually

Interestingly. Now removing the 3rd 2GB stick from A3 it will boot. Windows still sees 6GB at 1033 MHz CPU-Z now see's 12GB, as expected at the same 1308 MHz, but it now thinks everything is in Single Channel Mode. Reinstalling the stick back into A3 just to confirm whether CPU-Z was seeing Dual or Single with all 5 sticks installed, but it shows Single too. Booted in around 5 seconds instead of the usual 20-ish, like the BIOS checks / hardware / Hard Drives it runs through on boot were skipped. No black screen and grey text like usual for some reason as well.

Yeah figured that'd be the case too. Tried taking the oddball 3rd 2GB stick out but no boot. I believe I may have had it out previously too for the reason that it'd only manage Dual Channel with only 5/6 slots used. Performance is considerably better than just 2x 4GB when it was in the FX system. Probably just down to having more available now than anything else being older hardware over all compared the FX. Now it's back running, going to continue to pull and move the modules around to see if for some reason things are functioning again.

Absolutely. Only threw them in to see what would happen and previously it's been perfectly stable much to my surprise with the only common factor being they're both DDR3, so I figured they may as well stay installed instead of sitting in a box. Makes no sense to me why trying to ditch 1 set, or from what I've tried, a single stick stops the system from booting though.

Yeah sorry still typing that. Apparently hitting Control and Enter will post for you lol. The only way I have got it to boot after re seating all RAM, was A1 - 2GB B1 - 4GB A2 - 2GB B2 - 4GB A3 - 2GB B3 - Empty Can't wrap my head around that one. Single Sticks in any slot is power cycling, Just the 2x 4GB sticks in any dual channel type position is Power Cycling. Just the 3x 2GB sticks in any dual or triple channel is power cycling.

Not too sure on this one. I don't use this system much unless I want a bigger screen, I'm doing detailed 3D work or for Sim Racing. Soon to be replaced with Ryzen so if the issue is hardware, it's of little concern. Been trying to get it to boot for 2 days, on and off. Specs to start with: CPU - Intel Xeon X5650 clocked at 3.6-3.7 GHz COOL - BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 3 RAM - 3x 2GB Corsair Vengeance XMS3. 1333 MHz (Came bundled with Mobo) - 2x 4GB Corsair Vengeance Pro. 1866 MHz (From my old FX-8350 System) MOBO - EVGA X58 3x SLI. 132-BL-E758-BR GPU - Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1060 6GB PSU - FSP Aurum CM. AU-650M. 650W STOR - Samsung 860 Evo 250GB - Seagate Baracude 1TB OS - Windows 10 Home - V. 1809 - EDIT - Accidentally posted, continuing to write info sorry. Had program crashes and BSOD's with the system that seemed to come back to RAM issues. Wouldn't surprise me with 2 different types forced to work together 3x 2GB and 2x 4GB. Decided to pull the 3x 2GB sticks out and just use the faster 2x 4GB sticks but I had power cycling afterwards. Prior the system has been using for 6+ months no issue. I then pulled it out and put my old AMD FX-8350 system with just 1x 2GB Stick for it to boot with and no more, for photos when I sold it and it's Mobo. Then slapped the current Mobo / CPU / RAM back in around 1 month ago. Tried 1x 4GB stick in A1. Still Cycling. Then in B1, same. Then every other slot and still power cycling. Tried then to run both 4GB sticks in dual channel and got power cycling. Then tried the 2GB sticks in the same fashion assuming because they came with the Mobo they'd be fine, but same thing. Any layout, any slots and it power cycles. If I put the RAM in. A1 - 2GB B1 - 4GB A2 - 2GB B2 - 4GB A3 - 2GB B3 - Empty The system will boot as expected and I am currently typing this from it. Windows says it's got 6GB @ 1033MHz , CPU-Z sees the full 14GB @ 654.3 MHz, so 1308 MHz which is very close to what the BIOS defaults to speed wise. The only changes in BIOS is Hard Drives to run with AHCI instead of IDE CPU VTT +125mv CPU Multiplier to 164 Turbo Core = On Can't for the life of me figure out why. No other system I have used has done it, and I'm sure very little to no other people have had it either. In the mean time while I try figure out what's going on and why. Thanks all - EDIT - Accidentally posted, continuing to write info sorry. Finished editing/typing all info.

Cool thanks for that. Explains why the headset immediately showed audio devices in the device manager and in the sounds window when it was plugged in then. Interestingly, as a test I installed an ISO of Windows 7 Home onto it that was on my external drive as a test, being the original OS it came with back in the day. Right off the first boot after pulling the USB out it has internal speakers and 3.5mm lines in and out. Made my day it's not a hardware issue, and learned that my testing with a USB headset wasn't going to tell me anything anyway. Now to figure out why there is no drivers at all for Windows 10 Edit Reinstalled Windows 10 with the newest ISO from the media creation tool over the windows 7 install and everything is perfect now for some reason.

Okay thanks. I wasn't sure if it still had to pass through the internal audio or if it could be processed directly.

I noticed my laptop has no audio at all now. Nothing for audio shows in the device manager, no drivers sort the issue out, no devices show in the playback and recording tabs of the sounds window. No internal speakers, no 3.5mm in or out. I can however plug a Razer Kraken V2 Chroma USB headset in and I will get audio out and microphone. I've been chasing drivers that seemingly don't exist and installing anything I could find for Win 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 but none have had an effect. Full system / driver updates done, except BIOS. Nothing had changed except a reasonably fresh re-install. Windows 10 Home V1809 If the internal sound has given up, would that still allow a USB device to work for audio?

Is there even a reason you'd want to cache files for a later time? It seems so counter intuitive for all users unless they specifically know. Caching was off by default when I checked earlier. Being a hard drive you can physically touch the enclosure and feel if it's vibrating when the platters are spinning or not without disrupting it anyway. The drive tends to spin down anywhere from 30 second to 1 minute after somethings written. Not that that's the original issue though because files copy on fine, then moving to the laptop from the desktop the files are there, it's just once they're accessed on the laptop they're hit or miss if they're gone when plugging back into the desktop. Sometimes happens the other way too, but for whatever reason it's a lot less common. And like I said earlier. I power off when I'm down using the computer to remove them instead of just pulling them out (not that there was ever any write issues pulling the drive out anyway once it had spun down) Just re-ran the windows drive scan and repair tool and after about 2 minutes it was done. Free space on the drive went from 600gb to 603gb so some time I'll find part of a file or something gone again. No change with the SMART scan though.

Ah well. Says "Caution" after all. Screenshot here. 98 Uncorrectable sectors which may indicate imminent drive failure according to here. There's more data on it from the 2 computers as well as photos and such from phones and cameras than what my PC could handle if it's drives were empty so I couldn't copy everything off as it is anyway. Still strikes me as odd that windows 7 never had an issue with it for the month I used it. Is it possible the drive had issues from new?

I sure hope not. It's not even 4 months old. It happens with thumb drives too. I dual booted with 7 and 10 when it first happened wayyyy back, and working off 7 for about a month it was fine. Back on 10 and it started doing it again. Going into device manager and in the properties of the external drive. It's set to quick removal which is disabled as it is. I'll run the tool and see if it's on the way out.

Could be. Coming from Windows 7 I just got used to pulling drives. As long as they weren't writing there was never an issue. I noticed Windows 10 never lets me eject drives safely, on both computers. Regardless of what's running and what I close they all say they're in use so I started to just shutdown from the start menu and remove the drives once everything is powered off which seems to work, until on occasion files just disappear.

I've run into this virtually every time I've moved work onto my external drive. Literally every time I plug any form of USB drive, be it a stick or hard drive I get the same popup wanting to scan and fix drive errors (Even if I plug something in, scan and fix, unplug and plug in again). This happens on both computers I use day to day I use a desktop with some grunt for most things, and a laptop for lighter useage. Both running windows 10 Home, both have been working fine for at least a year now, if not more. Because of this I bought a 2TB Seagate expansion drive to store files between the 2 and hold backups and so on. The most common issue I've notice is that I can copy a file from the Desktop, to the external drive, plug it into the laptop and the files are there. Unplug the drive, plug it back into the desktop and the files are gone. It rarely happens going from desktop to laptop. For example. I had a sketchup model I was working on for around a week. Decided to work off the Laptop last night. The file was saved to the external drive the whole time and stupidly not also saved to my internal drive. This morning I plug the external drive into the desktop and the file's gone, but the skb backup is still there because the laptop never touched it. Anyone else run into crap like this? Or know a some way to sort it out. Really defeats the purpose of saving files to an external drive if it just deletes the files randomly by itself anyway. I'm not sure if the laptops wiping them when it gets the drive, or the desktops not actually saving them.

Yeah the BIOs was never touched. Just had this "continue install" pop up from nowhere. After a month of messing with stuff on and off. 20 seconds to delete the other boot option and it's fixed. Thank you so much

For the last month or so, every time I boot my PC I get an option to pick which OS. I only have Windows 7 installed on my SSD, my HDD just has programs and basically everything else. I've not tried to install windows 7 again on the hard drive and my SSD is in 1 partition so there's no way to have a 2nd install on it, for whatever reason you'd want 2 installs of the same OS. Here's some pictures of the boot options Boot option 1: Windows 7 - tries to continue an install from who knows where, is met with an error saying the CD/USB is missing and the install can't continue. Pressing Enter restarts PC and goes back to select OS, will pick this option again if you don't intervene. Boot option 2: Windows 7 - Boots normally into my OS that I've been using for the last 6-8 months. I want to get rid of this option to try continue a random "install" but I can't figure out how to stop the option 1 from coming up and I can't find any information about something like this happening or how to sort it out. I just keep running across people having the install starting over and over every time they turn their PC on and similar install issues, or how to guides on installing windows. I tried running "Repair my computer" on my normal install, and run the boot problem fix but of course it never did anything to the other boot option.