Question about memory

[MadBrad]

Rousterfar,

What happens when you just use one of the PQI sticks? It is possible just one of the sticks is bad.

Also, have you tried using slots 1 and 3, instead of 1 and 2? Some boards are finiky about what slots get the RAM, and which ones do not.

Just a couple of ideas to try.

MadBrad

[Rousterfar]

Thought I would update everyone on the situation. To make a long story short with a lot of trouble shooting and some help from fellow TR forum member Welch, I found out what the problem was. Please don’t laugh.

It all boiled down to a simple, stupid mistake on my part. I ordered the Ram because my mobo clearly stated it was rated to take DDR 3200. Well it can. What I found out it can’t do is run at anything above a 333 FSB. So when I tried to run it in sync with a 400 FSB and the 3200 Ram, well you can guess that’s where my problems started. I’m actually surprised it even booted up at all with the settings I had it at. Knowing this now I can’t believe the Bios even let me set it for the 400 FSB under it’s “normal” settings. Glad I didn’t fry anything.

I just assumed that because other motherboards in the same line are able to run at a 400 FSB and because the motherboard was able to take that speed Ram that mine was rated to run with it. It’s a lesson learned.

Right now I am running the FSB at 333 and the Ram “underclocked” at 2700 speeds. The nice thing is that I am able to squeeze some slightly higher timings (CAS 2.0 instead of 2.5 and I plan to fool around with the other timings this week) out of the ram by doing this. I have also been able to overclock the FSB to about 344 with no trouble at all. Any higher and my system locks up. Overall my system is running about 2 degrees Celsius hotter with this ram then my old 2700 stick, but that could be anything.

So I’m going to stick with my original plan and keep this Ram. I figure for $70 after rebate it’s a good deal and I can always sell it later if I want to invest in some higher quality stuff. I’m also looking forward to being able to switch over to an A64, but for now things are going good.

FYI, I plan on running a good Ram stress test at the Ram’s normal relaxed settings tonight. It’s still a “cheap” brand and I figure running or not I should make sure it won’t give me any issues because of that. I will update this thread with those results.

Thanks everyone!

[Welch]

Glad to be of some assistance to you

Im not so sure I would run your FSB at 344 though. Its bad enough that its an OC for your CPU but its also an OC for your motherboard in this case. I never really got into OCing mobos. But if you insist on running it at 344 then make sure to lock your AGP and PCI buses so that you dont corrupt or damage any expansion cards connected to them.

When you run your FSB at 344 your actually running your ram at that as well. Given that your ram is WELL within spec by running at 344 as it is meant to run 400 you wont have to worry there.. However you will note that the ram is rated for certain timings at diffrent clock intervals. 266, 333, 400. When the ram hits a certain clock interval it will switch to the timings specified for it to run at. Lets lay out some theoretical timings here...

@266 - 1.5-2-3-5
@333 - 2.0-3-3-6
@400 - 2.5-3-3-7
(Keep in mind that these are 100% make believe numbers)

With your overclock you are running your ram at 344 with the lower timings in the @333 column. Lets just say you were able to overclock to 390.. Now this I think id see a problem with as youd be running only 10mhz off of 400 and still with the lower timings... This could cause stability problems, not to mention your motherboard is way out of spec for running above 333 .

Long story short, be careful what your doing with the overclocking on the board and cpu that arent designed for it. Im lucky that I have ram, and a mobo that are meant to run at 400 but a CPU thats meant to run at 333. If I had to OC id only have to worry about the CPU and make sure to check my rams timings with mem-test or the likes.

[muyuubyou]

Welch, please learn to use the URL tag:

for 115 bucks

[Welch]

LOL... Out of this whole post you managed to point out a mistake that I didnt even realize I made... PROPS TO YOU

So instead of linking it to the actual Item it linked to the image of it, an accident 5:12 AM (actually 9am here) and thats being up the whole night Think you could let it slide chief or is there some disciplinary action that must be taken for my atrocious actions?

[Rousterfar]

Well I just tested it at 344 using NTune from Nvidia.

I'm running it at 333 right now. I want to see if I can hit 2.0 CAS with timings around 2 2 6.

Not sure how it will run.

[Welch]

Well my ultra cheap PC-3200 is running at 2-3-3-6 after being lowered (in 333) origially 2.5-3-3-7

I didnt acutally run any tests, but i have gamed, and I have been running my system like this since yesterday and noticed zero data or ram errors So I think im good to go.

[Rousterfar]

I ran 3Dmark and noticed that my score didn't go up much. My CPU is clocked at the same speed and the Ram bandwith is still 333, but with these two sticks I have it running in Duel-Channel now. I had figured I would get a boost from that and the extra 512 Ram.

I'm going to play with it some more.

I have a feeling that CAS 2.0 3 3 6 will be what I get get out of the Ram for any long period of time.

[Welch]

Let me start out with repeating what someone said in a thread on these forums awhile back when I was just getting a second 512 to run dual channel

"Damn guys its not DUEL channel its DUAL.... The sticks of ram arent fighting each other!" lol.. Just thought Id let you in on that.

If youd like to test the bit of performance diffrence your getting from your ram, test the read, write and average latency using either Everest Home or SandraSoft. Everest Home is free and so is SandraSoft if I remember right.

With everest home dont run anything you wouldnt normally run in the background at idle, dont even move the mouse.. Itll pause for like 5-10 seconds and then give you a read out of the Read or Write or Latency depending on which you told it to benchmark. And it will compare it to other machines using whichever speed of ram, mobo, chipset, and CPU.

Then simply fidle around with diffrent sticks of ram in there to see how it runs speed wise to size-wise.

One thing that bugs me is how people who upgrade from 1gig to 2gigs expect to see a speed diffrence lol. 512-1gig possible.. 256-512 HELL YES (With XP especially). I guess people consider the size of ram they have as more speed, not true unless you have applications that even use that amount of ram. 1gig for most gaming will be fine, if you want to somewhat future proof yourself id go for 2gigs dual channel 2x1gig DIMMs. If your not using many applications that use say 1.5gigs of ram and you have it in there thinking its going to speed your rig up, your better off using just 1gig if it runs faster.

So give that a shot and see what configuration of all your extra DIMMS come out to. change it around and test til you find something to your liking. Id recommend 2x512 and no more unless your shooting for programs that can use more than 1gig in which case for with the 2gigs dualed

[muyuubyou]

LOL... Out of this whole post you managed to point out a mistake that I didnt even realize I made... PROPS TO YOU

So instead of linking it to the actual Item it linked to the image of it, an accident 5:12 AM (actually 9am here) and thats being up the whole night Think you could let it slide chief or is there some disciplinary action that must be taken for my atrocious actions?

Way to take it, Welch. First things first, I didn't have anything to add, still your link made it very uneasy to read the thread to everybody. I'm in Spain and I didn't check the thread before.

It wasn't meant to be a critical post, I just wanted you to know that proper linking could be done, so you EDIT your post and when you realize you **** up in the future, you can edit your posts and make it better to everybody. Happened to me many times, I read my post, realize that I've screwed the page then I edit it and nothing happens.

No need to reply in your high-school sarcasm tone. I thought "please" meant something, I said "please learn to use the URL tag" for Christ sakes.

[Welch]

I guess I read your post as a sarcastic smart ass post. Its been edited and I didnt think to do that to be honest .. Hell I used this thread as much as the creator of it, and was getting annoyed by it myself, did accure to me that I could have just removed the damn thing OH:

[Rousterfar]

LOL... Out of this whole post you managed to point out a mistake that I didnt even realize I made... PROPS TO YOU

So instead of linking it to the actual Item it linked to the image of it, an accident 5:12 AM (actually 9am here) and thats being up the whole night Think you could let it slide chief or is there some disciplinary action that must be taken for my atrocious actions?

Way to take it, Welch. First things first, I didn't have anything to add, still your link made it very uneasy to read the thread to everybody. I'm in Spain and I didn't check the thread before.

It wasn't meant to be a critical post, I just wanted you to know that proper linking could be done, so you EDIT your post and when you realize you **** up in the future, you can edit your posts and make it better to everybody. Happened to me many times, I read my post, realize that I've screwed the page then I edit it and nothing happens.

No need to reply in your high-school sarcasm tone. I thought "please" meant something, I said "please learn to use the URL tag" for Christ sakes.

I hope you guys are just messing with each other. You can't take something like that as a big deal.

[Rousterfar]

Let me start out with repeating what someone said in a thread on these forums awhile back when I was just getting a second 512 to run dual channel

"Damn guys its not DUEL channel its DUAL.... The sticks of ram arent fighting each other!" lol.. Just thought Id let you in on that.

If youd like to test the bit of performance diffrence your getting from your ram, test the read, write and average latency using either Everest Home or SandraSoft. Everest Home is free and so is SandraSoft if I remember right.

With everest home dont run anything you wouldnt normally run in the background at idle, dont even move the mouse.. Itll pause for like 5-10 seconds and then give you a read out of the Read or Write or Latency depending on which you told it to benchmark. And it will compare it to other machines using whichever speed of ram, mobo, chipset, and CPU.

Then simply fidle around with diffrent sticks of ram in there to see how it runs speed wise to size-wise.

One thing that bugs me is how people who upgrade from 1gig to 2gigs expect to see a speed diffrence lol. 512-1gig possible.. 256-512 HELL YES (With XP especially). I guess people consider the size of ram they have as more speed, not true unless you have applications that even use that amount of ram. 1gig for most gaming will be fine, if you want to somewhat future proof yourself id go for 2gigs dual channel 2x1gig DIMMs. If your not using many applications that use say 1.5gigs of ram and you have it in there thinking its going to speed your rig up, your better off using just 1gig if it runs faster.

So give that a shot and see what configuration of all your extra DIMMS come out to. change it around and test til you find something to your liking. Id recommend 2x512 and no more unless your shooting for programs that can use more than 1gig in which case for with the 2gigs dualed

I will try that software out this week. I have the stress test software running today while I am at work.

I got by for over 3 years with 512 ram. 1 gig should be more then enough for some time now. I can't see most games really running any better with 2 gigs vs 1 gig. That would be a good Techreport benchmark. test 2X512 running in DUAL channel vs 2x1 gig.

Next up for my upgrade path:

A new HDD around 160 to 250 gigs.

A new case! I want something small and silent.

[Welch]

I wouldnt think It could help in many games to be honest. Afterall that is the purpose of video ram . All of the new cards are being released in 512 and I believe the new minimum is 256, they probably arent making anything smaller than that now. And if they continue the upgrade path that they have been we might within the next year see the dawn of one hell of an expensive video card with 1gig of video ram (Not mainstream but as a premium as we see the 512 now, which will become the thing to have as the 256 will be comsidered minimum)... Similar to when we saw them release the 512 6800 Ultras. Seems to have a new standard every 2 years.

[Rousterfar]

An update on what's happening.

Well after some extended use I am finding that my computer is randomly rebooting now. I have even got a couple messages on a "blue screen" (not the dreaded Blue Screen of Death) that basically tell me there is a hardware problem with my computer now. The comp has even locked up a couple times.

I thought for a second maybe my power supply was going out, but I am fairly certian it is the Ram at this point causing me issues. Tonight I am going to put back in my old Ram and see if anything happens. If what I suspect is right I am going to have to return the stuff to Newegg.

[Welch]

I would. Just by seeing the name of the company and the price for their ram it honestly had me saying "No thank you" I make it a rule not to by from a no name brand. Chances are they use someone elses parts and just werent well known enough to have their ram supported well enough with the various mobo companys. When I saw your first post about the ram and all of the problems I suspected that it was the ram. But who knows, it could still be your settings as they were pretty out of whack the last that me and you talked. What are your current BIOS settings?

[Rousterfar]

The Ram is in the mail. Called and talked to a friendly NewEgg rep who gave me a RMA for a full refund. No "repair exchange" and no 15% fee. Go Newegg!

So now I got to pick some new Ram to get. Since I can't run it at 400 FSB it actually opens my options a little. I may just buy another stick of 512 Corsair XMS and use it with my other stick. Now that the news of AMB moving over to DDR2 next year hit buying a gig worth of DDR at this point might not be as good as an investment.

[Buub]

Now that the news of AMD moving over to DDR2 next year hit buying a gig worth of DDR at this point might not be as good as an investment.

I'm sure it will be a gradual transition. It's not like they're going to throw a switch and shut off DDR overnight while you're sleeping.