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I ordered 2x (2x4GB) Sticks of GSkill Sniper RAM while it was on neweggy sale. The sticks are rated for operation at DDR-3 1600, 9-9-9-24 @ 1.25 volts.

Well, it came in, and I ran memtest. Memory errors left and right. I did a little adjusting and found that

a) If I set the memory timings to auto, it goes with 9-9-9-28 which is the SPD setting. I tested each pair for several hours at SPD and there are no memory errors.

Still, it wont do the rated timing, which to me means its defective. I should return it. And there's no guarantee that if its "broken" in some slight way, it wont get worse later. At least that's my gut instinct.

Two other things to note though:

b) The board I'm testing on is an AM3 board. Gskill says this ram was only tested on P67 and P55 (?) boards.
c) The ram is rated for 1.25v low voltage operation. The lowest the board lets me set is 1.5v, but that's the JDEC spec.

I'm thinking my initial feeling to RMA this ram is still correct, right? I figure, RAM should mostly work with other chipsets, and should work with a little overvoltage anyway (especially when its at JDEC specs?) Thoughts, fellow gerbils? Newegg already approved of the exchange, but a small part of me is wondering if it isnt going to be this way with all the RAM.

I wouldn't be too hopeful about another set of the same make and model being any different. Since it passes at default settings, I'd say it is fairly likely that particular type of RAM just doesn't tend to run stable when pushed beyond SPD settings on that motherboard.

I'm also a little unclear as to what you're doing here. Are you trying to run all 4 sticks at 9-9-9-24 simultaneously, or just 2 at a time? It is fairly common to need to loosen the timings up when you've got more than one stick per channel (i.e. you really should expect to get the rated timings only when you've got a single stick per channel).

just brew it! wrote:

I wouldn't be too hopeful about another set of the same make and model being any different. Since it passes at default settings, I'd say it is fairly likely that particular type of RAM just doesn't tend to run stable when pushed beyond SPD settings on that motherboard.

I'm also a little unclear as to what you're doing here. Are you trying to run all 4 sticks at 9-9-9-24 simultaneously, or just 2 at a time? It is fairly common to need to loosen the timings up when you've got more than one stick per channel (i.e. you really should expect to get the rated timings only when you've got a single stick per channel).

Hehe, I should clarify, shouldn't I? I'm running them in pairs right now. Each in the original pair they came in.

I always thought that the SPD (and auto) settings were....sort of "safe defaults"? Runs ok on SPD, but not at the settings the RAM says its supposed to take.

Unless going from 1.25v to 1.5v is enough to introduce some errors, you think?

Thanks for the insight. I did forget about loosening timings some when running 4 sticks. Unfortunately, I havent gotten there yet.

gbcrush wrote:

I always thought that the SPD (and auto) settings were....sort of "safe defaults"? Runs ok on SPD, but not at the settings the RAM says its supposed to take.

Yeah, SPD settings are supposed to be "safe defaults". But it is a tossup whether the inability to run at the rated (tighter) timings is a problem with the RAM or the motherboard. Could even be the CPU, since the mem controller is on the CPU (I consider this rather unlikely, however).

Have you checked whether you've got the latest BIOS installed? Sometimes a BIOS update will help with stuff like this.

Yeah, SPD settings are supposed to be "safe defaults". But it is a tossup whether the inability to run at the rated (tighter) timings is a problem with the RAM or the motherboard. Could even be the CPU, since the mem controller is on the CPU (I consider this rather unlikely, however).

Have you checked whether you've got the latest BIOS installed? Sometimes a BIOS update will help with stuff like this.[/quote]


Hmmm, welll I suppose I'm being convinced. I wasn't intending the RAM for my AM3 platform anyways, I just wanted to see if it was bad (so I could do RMAs before I actually tried to build). But I suppose the flipside to that is, if it'll run at SPD without errors, it may be good ram...I should just wait and see how it performs in the P67 build I was thinking of, hmm?

I suppose there's always GSkill's lifetime warranty if they turn out not so great on a platform that's closer to intended. though I dont want to deal with that if i can avoid it.

thanks

gbcrush wrote:

I ordered 2x (2x4GB) Sticks of GSkill Sniper RAM while it was on neweggy sale. The sticks are rated for operation at DDR-3 1600, 9-9-9-24 @ 1.25 volts.

Well, it came in, and I ran memtest. Memory errors left and right. I did a little adjusting and found that

a) If I set the memory timings to auto, it goes with 9-9-9-28 which is the SPD setting. I tested each pair for several hours at SPD and there are no memory errors.

Still, it wont do the rated timing, which to me means its defective. I should return it. And there's no guarantee that if its "broken" in some slight way, it wont get worse later. At least that's my gut instinct.

Two other things to note though:

b) The board I'm testing on is an AM3 board. Gskill says this ram was only tested on P67 and P55 (?) boards.
c) The ram is rated for 1.25v low voltage operation. The lowest the board lets me set is 1.5v, but that's the JDEC spec.

I'm thinking my initial feeling to RMA this ram is still correct, right? I figure, RAM should mostly work with other chipsets, and should work with a little overvoltage anyway (especially when its at JDEC specs?) Thoughts, fellow gerbils? Newegg already approved of the exchange, but a small part of me is wondering if it isnt going to be this way with all the RAM.

you don"t need to buy overvoltage ram just maximum ram your motherboard support but not oc ram oc ram are many types of malfunction only great busses ram are enough to play extrem performance any kind of application.tenction free.

just brew it! wrote:

I wouldn't be too hopeful about another set of the same make and model being any different. Since it passes at default settings, I'd say it is fairly likely that particular type of RAM just doesn't tend to run stable when pushed beyond SPD settings on that motherboard.

I'm also a little unclear as to what you're doing here. Are you trying to run all 4 sticks at 9-9-9-24 simultaneously, or just 2 at a time? It is fairly common to need to loosen the timings up when you've got more than one stick per channel (i.e. you really should expect to get the rated timings only when you've got a single stick per channel).

try to 1 channel per module and default bios safe setting and after that try each and every single module and both you"ll find a answer hope its yousefull for u

gbcrush wrote:

Hmmm, welll I suppose I'm being convinced. I wasn't intending the RAM for my AM3 platform anyways, I just wanted to see if it was bad (so I could do RMAs before I actually tried to build). But I suppose the flipside to that is, if it'll run at SPD without errors, it may be good ram...I should just wait and see how it performs in the P67 build I was thinking of, hmm?

I suppose there's always GSkill's lifetime warranty if they turn out not so great on a platform that's closer to intended. though I dont want to deal with that if i can avoid it.

thanks

When they advertise the tightest timing the ram modules can handle, it's for the platform the ram modules were optimized for, and in many cases it can be very specific to the chipset. I agree that the most likely culprit for not being able to handle the tight timing is due to it being the AM3 platform vs the P67 or P55 platform. Even though in theory any DDR3 ram should work with any mobo with DDR3 slots, that's not the case. Some DDR3 will work terribly on certain motherboards even if there are nothing wrong with either of them due to compatibility issues. It's always best to see which ram modules were tested for the specific mobo if you are buying for. Likewise, it's always best to use the ram modules on the mobo that they were designed and tested for. At default settings even if the particular RAM-Mobo combination wasn't tested by the manufacturer, 90% of the time it'll still work fine... but more often than not, you'll run into odd issues as soon as you try to tighten the timing, overclock, or undervolt the modules, which seems to be the issue that you are experiencing.