Alright! It feels good when you solve a problem and set things right.

I’m glad I took the time to wonder if other people have the same problem with their computers. I thought it was reasonable to rule out memory since below 50 degrees C really isn’t all that hot. So I hopped on the web and started with my RAM.

Going to Corsair’s website lead to their support forums. I love their support forums; they have great response time and have several helpful FAQs up.

Here’s one topic: http://www.houseofhelp.com/v2/showthread.php?s=bccc0fb38b2b172374fc911d6929883d&threadid=10464

It describes my exact setup. I took their advice and set the CAS Latency to 2.5 and everything booted up fine and the RAM test utility that I downloaded went well! Finally!

So, since not much was on the computer yet, I reformatted and installed Windows yet again! This time, though, I took a chance and booted from the WinXP CD (just like I did the very first time) and it worked flawlessly! Nothing like bad RAM settings to suck up three days from your life, huh?

So, now I either settle with this RAM set to a slower setting or I trade it in for what they suggest, the LL RAM… Will decide later… for now I’m playing Fallout (funny how much of an overkill this system is for Fallout)!