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sharing my z68 extreme3 gen3 story

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  • sharing my z68 extreme3 gen3 story

    What happened to me after updating several drivers, firmware, bios...

    As an IT admin, my home PC is my "guinea pig". So it's time to reinstall Windows as it's terrible lately...
    So as usual before a new installation I check for updates...
    - BIOS update v2.3 (I have v1.3, download, ignore all the red text, nobody reads it anyway)
    - firmware update OCZ SSD from 2.15 to 2.22
    - modded driver for my ASUS Xonar DS (always wanted to try it)
    - new Intel drivers from the Intel website (as usual ASRock ones are old)
    + other minor updates, not important

    So... updating BIOS (those setting are not good, I know better), firmwares, installing Windows 7, installing drivers, updating Windows, starting to put back the software I need when...
    - boom ! BSOD - memory management (really ? on my PC ? must be something isolated... moving on)
    - finished most of the needed stuff, let's watch some Olympics, opening my TV tuner app and let's see if I got my waited email, opening Chrome when...
    - boom ! BSOD - memory management (really ? again ? starting to have bad feelings about all my updated BIOS/firmwares), resetting BIOS to safe values
    - days pass, more random app crashes, more BSOD... starting to read about the new BIOS at this point. I find that many people have problems after this update... why I never read this before I actually update it... installing debugging software, activating all logs, drivers verifier etc. it must be my new BIOS... or my new SSD firmware, more digging.
    - boom ! BSOD - fpn corrupted list (seriously ? a new one ? wtf !)
    - boom ! as I keep digging more BSOD, all kinds of them. cannot get anything useful from analyzing the dumps. at this point my system is crashing on a regular base, from 4 to 6 hours, totally random. at least one application crashes every hour.
    - I will put back my old BIOS, that worked for one year. take this ASRock !
    - HECI pointer mismatch. Yeap, I did. Searching for new BIOS chip now... 15 euros + taxes... not that much, so I can get one if I really f*cked it up...

    At this point I said to myself... OK. Stop, this is getting ridiculous. I need a 5 minutes break to look at the big picture.
    What errors do I have ? memory BSOD + memory BSOD + memory BSOD + more memory BSOD + totally random app crashes... see any pattern yet ?
    What if I have a bad memory ? What if exactly when/after I updated 1x BIOS, 2x firmware, installed new Windows, +5x new drivers, 1x modded/unofficial driver, what if one memory started to f*ck everything up ? What if...
    - download memtest86+, USB stick, install it, boot from it, all check
    - one DIMM = OK
    - second DIMM = dear God, over 200.000 errors in 90 minutes ? Must be something wrong. Testing on a second PC, same result...
    - my system has almost 24 hours since the last boot, no error yet.

    Pure coincidence ? The memory was ruined before that ? New BIOS more sensitive ? Who knows...

    Murphy, I hate you... "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"...

    All the above was one week of testing/searching/trying/frustration etc.
    Thanks for reading, sorry for the long post. :)
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