Mo' memory, mo' problems

sandness · Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 10:54 pm Post subject: Mo' memory, mo' problems

I upgraded my P4 system to a Pentium D 820 last week over my turkey break. Here are a few pics:

New and old boards/ram

Money shot of the new Wintec Amp-X 2x512MB ram

gutted

Tapping radiator for another fan

Eliminating some noise

Quieter and cooler with 2 - 120's

Additional cooling for the passive northbridge

Now here's my problem. I made myself a memtest86+ disk to test my new memory. This is the first time I've ever done this. And, well, it comes up with errors. Lots of them, like 150 for a full pass of the test.

I tried running the ram at DDRII 667 4-4-4-12 (advertised timings), 5-5-5-15 (spd timings), as well as at 533. No dice- errors still persist, and appear to be exactly the same.

I then tried the sticks individually at spd settings- and both still had the same errors. From what I've read about Wintec, its supposed to be decent. And, I find it somewhat hard to believe that I'd get 2 bad sticks. I hate to RMA them as my system will be down. But, I probably will get something else if they are bad.

Is there any other way to test for bad memory? And, do errors in memtest86+ mean the ram is bad, or could it be something else?

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sickofsoyo · Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:05 am Post subject:

most likely its your ram. I would recommend putting the sticks into another mobo (maybe a friends) and see what they come up with.
_________________
P4 3.2ghz
lanparty pro875b
Enermax Liberty 500 Watt Modular PSU
Sony 52X CD-RW
Samsung 120gig SATA hdd
Maxtor 100gig SATA hdd
Powmax Demon case
ATI X800 XL AIW, 525 Core, 525 mem
Creative X-Fi Platinum
PDP systems Patriot Ram 2,3,2,5 timings

meobius · Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:45 am Post subject:

it's not always bad ram, try giving the board a bios flash, sometimes it's a problem with the chipset, or i've even seen it be a problem with the memory controller. (try flashing the bios first though)
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[KoG]^weaZel · Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:31 am Post subject:

^^^what meobius said^^^

also have you tried increasing the vDimm? Memory will fail if there isn't enough juice going to it.
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2old2care · Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:33 am Post subject:

Also, make sure you have the latest memtest, the older versions won't support the chipset.
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sandness · Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 2:47 pm Post subject:

I used the latest memtest86+ v1.65 I believe. So that should be ok.

vDimm should be ok at 1.8v as that is what the ram is rated at. The ram is being run at spd, so I hope it don't need more voltage. It is an Intel board, so I'm s.o.l. if it needs more voltage. Don't know anyone with a DDR2 board around here, so I'm stuck with what I've got.

I'm going to look for a bios flash and figure out how that works. I suppose I'll have to find a floppy drive to do this.

Thanks for the replies.

sandness · Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 4:21 pm Post subject:

Giggity giggity giggity! The bios update solved my problem. She runs stable at DDR693 at 4-4-4-12 with my wicked 4% fsb Intel overclock

. No more errors.

[KoG]^weaZel · Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 4:27 pm Post subject:

very sweet!!

Good Job meobius for the bios update suggestion!
_________________
I tweaked and it tweaked back! So I Tweaked some more!

"Barney is like the Michael Jackson of PBS." - James Tybeerious

sickofsoyo · Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 5:28 pm Post subject:

*starts smacking head on keyboard*

DUH! why didn't I think of that!
_________________
P4 3.2ghz
lanparty pro875b
Enermax Liberty 500 Watt Modular PSU
Sony 52X CD-RW
Samsung 120gig SATA hdd
Maxtor 100gig SATA hdd
Powmax Demon case
ATI X800 XL AIW, 525 Core, 525 mem
Creative X-Fi Platinum
PDP systems Patriot Ram 2,3,2,5 timings