I recently upgraded my girlfriend's PC by swapping out her old i5 processor for a Xeon in her OptiPlex 7010. After the upgrade, the computer works fine with her old RAM (2x2GB DDR3 1333MHz), but when I try to use the new 2x8GB Samsung DDR3 1600MHz sticks, it boots through the Dell logo and then crashes with blue screens. The errors I'm seeing include 'kernel security check failure', 'system thread exception', and various page errors. I've already updated the BIOS, checked for dead slots, and cleaned the PC. Any advice?
2 Answers
What specific Xeon CPU did you install? And do you know the exact model of the Dell computer? OEM motherboards can be picky about compatible CPUs and RAM, so it's possible that the new components just aren't supported. Have you tried updating the BIOS? Sometimes that's necessary for older machines to recognize newer parts. By the way, the performance difference between 1333 MHz and 1600 MHz RAM is pretty minimal, and considering the age of the computer, it might not be worth it for modern tasks.
To troubleshoot those blue screen errors, you'll want to check the crash logs known as dump files. If you can boot into Windows or Safe Mode, look in C:WindowsMinidump for any files. You can zip them and share them on a file-sharing site to help diagnose the problem. If you only have one or no dump files, be sure to follow guides on configuring Windows to create them properly so you can gather more data for troubleshooting.
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