Hum... ok, will do, Sir! :) Thanks for the concern.

As I thought, it is indeed very dead. The eraser thingy didn't work at all, it didn't even boot.

Oh well... now to buy a couple of 2GB sticks to replace these.

And them... to install Win 7. Eventually.

OCZ website says their memory has a lifetime warranty: http://www.ocztechnology.com/support/warranty/

Maybe you can get it replaced that way? Worth a shot.

That depends, if you buy direct from the manufacturer that generally applies, but sometimes if you buy through a retailer you might not have the same protection. I'm guessing that there's a mark up involved which pays for providing the warranty that they don't get if it is bought through a reseller.

I personally buy my RAM from Crucial in pretty much all cases and haven't had any trouble yet.
It doesn't really matter, but usually what's happening there is that the power is exiting through the modem rather than entering.

And yes, it's always possible that the installation was done incorrectly or something happened to disconnect the ground from the phone line.

The warranty page mentions that it has to have come from an authorized dealer (which they list elsewhere on the site) so a receipt should have him covered if he bought it from one of those places listed. Here's the reseller page: http://www.ocztechnology.com/where-to-buy.html

Good luck with it, Falci

I'm working my way through my thirteenth bottle in a case of fifteen of malt liquor, so I've not the patience to read through all posts. Has anyone suggested "chip creep" yet?

I did a little bit of checking in OCZ's site and came to the conclusion that I won't get a new RAM stick from them.

No distress though. I found a decent offer on a pair of Kingston 2GB DDR2 800MHz sticks and bought them.

The only problem is that I'll probably receive them through mail late next week. But at least my machine is still functioning until there.

Kingston and Corsair make better modules than OCZ anyway. G.Skill is good for overclockers, but really only worth the investment if you truly want to overclock. If you want to run at stock speeds, then get stock modules.

In a similar issue to yours, I just ordered a second 2x2GB kit from Corsair for my own PC. It's the exact same model, the exact same speed and timings, and the exact same voltage. Only the version numbers are different (the older kit is version 2.2, and the newer is 8.2. The difference between versions, as the tech explained it to me, is a difference between materials used and outsourced manufacturers). Apparently, it was so much of a difference that it caused a critical hardware failure in the new kit, and I had to RMA it from the merchant I bought it from. After explaining the situation to Corsair's tech support, I was advised to disable "Unganged mode", and to dial back the speeds of all modules from 1333 to 1066 (666MHz to 533Mhz, approximately) . In addition, I was told that it may be prudent to, since my mainboard (MSI 790FX-GD70) was tailor-made for overclocking, increase the voltage from the stock 1.50V to 1.65V. After effecting these changes, I ran MemTest86+ (which I recommend you do as soon as you install your replacement modules) off a USB stick for about three complete passes. Everything seems to look "so far so good".

Bear in mind, the advice given to me was based on my system specifications. I strongly advise that you get professional technical help from Kingston about installing a mix-matched kit. Make sure you have all the latest drivers for your peripheral hardware, and the latest BIOS for your mainboard, and a list of model numbers for all of these for the tech, should you decide to talk to one.

Actually, I'll remove the old remaining OCZ stick and keep it as a backup option in case of new failures. So no two types of memories together in the same machine. A friend of mine who is an experienced tech support guy gave me that tip a few days ago.

And I have had that sort of problem ages ago (back in 1996 or 7), when I updated the memory of my first PC from 8mb to 16mb. Apparently the tech guy selling the stick wasn't much of a tech guy in the first place.

Right, kits that are sold in pairs are tested as pairs, and not as twin pairs, as in two 2x2GB kits. If you have a board with four slots, and you want to fill them all, buy a kit of four, since it has been tested as a kit of four.

Just so you guys know, I've just installed my two new memory sticks.

Now... why is Vista 32bits reading all 4Gb instead of only 3Gb as everybody everywhere told me?

I really wouldn't know.
But I know that I have 4 slots in the motherboard: 2 blue, 2 white. Before, I had one stick in one of each color. Now I've put both in blue slots.

Brazilian magic?

Okay... so I'm getting games crashing on me, sometimes frequently. I've also seen 3 BSoDs, and in one I wasn't playing anything at the moment (I was on firefox, actually).

I've read on plenty of places that Asus Striker Extreme does not work properly when with 4GB installed, so I'm guessing I need to update my BIOS. I already have awdflash and the most recent bios file, but I still need a proper way to reboot into DOS prompt, since awdflash won't accept vista's security mode with prompt only.

Can someone please point me where can I get a proper boot disk iso to burn?

A friend pointed this site: http://www.bay-wolf.com/bootcd-bios.htm but I couldn't even read the img file after unzipping.