3rd time unlucky?

willhub · 14 Dec 2007 at 23:13

Hi, well.. I dont believe this is happening.

Is 850Mhz 4-4-4-12 at its stock volts really too much for Ballistix PC5300 ram? I was running 4GB in my P35C DS3R (2x GeIL 2GB PC6400 and 2x Ballistix 2GB PC5300 running at 850Mhz 4-4-4-12 2.2V) Now the GeIL ram was overvolted by 0.1V and Ballistix stock, was all fine from what I seen, now I go down to watch max and paddy, get back up and my PC is turned up and I was like... :confused:

, so I turned my PC on, it switched on and off, then I tried again, and it would not boot, no screen come on, so I took 1GB Stick of the Ballistix out and its fine :confused:

Whats going on I cant believe it, last time in this mobo it was paired with 1GB (2x 512mb) Ballistix PC5300 kit and it died at 850Mhz 5-5-5-15, whats going on I thought this was good ram??

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 00:14

megatron said:
I have 1 bad stick of Crucial ballistix DDR2 pc-6400, just spent over an hour trying various slots and sticks. I was running it at 2.05-2.1v never more, and its rated at that. I will probably just run at default speed 1.85v when I get a replacement, I've noticed before that with America's Army or BF2 I can't tell the difference between CPU clock of 1.8Ghz vs 3Ghz so Im hardly going to notice 400Mhz ram speed.

Overclocking is cool but not at the expense of component kaput.

The default voltage is 2.2V :confused:

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 00:37

So is the ram just fussy or something? I'm running 4gb again now but its abit unstable I think, with turbo mode on in bios at 850Mhz 5-5-5-15 it was just stuck on loading forever with the bars, turning turbo mode off allowed me to get into windows at 850Mhz 5-5-5-12 at 2.2V.

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 01:10

megatron said:
When u say "3rd time unlucky", u mean that this is your 2nd replacment set of ram from crucial? Ive heard that the pc-5300 is especially prone to going bad, I wouldn't use the word "fussy" to describe this problem.

I bought my 1st set from a shop, it went bad, got it replaced by crucial, then I contacted the shop and got it replaced again, now I hope they'll refund me this time.

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 01:57

Troop said:
Run the balistix at 1.8-1.9, this seems to be the sweet spot on balistix 5300 on the DS3R.

I've been running 4GB on mine @400+ FSB for over 6 months with out problems, Give it a try. (if your mem is not dead already.

Will my GeIL be ok at that voltage tho for the clocks?

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 11:22

Trixxy said:
Similar has just happened to me.

965P-DS3P
4x 1GB Ballistix 5300 (2 sticks have orange sticker, 2 sticks have white sticker).

I was playing Crysis about half an hour ago, system froze so I rebooted.
PC would power on for a few secs, then shutdown (not enough time for monitors to come on). This kept happening, so I reset cmos, same thing.
Started to take out ram, and after trying various sticks in different slots, I've found the pc won't boot with any of the orange sticker sticks (even tried separately).
Boots up every time with the white sticker ones no probs.

How likely is that to happen, both sticks die at the same time?
They were only running about 360MHz and 1.9v, and had a 80mm fan blowing over them.

Will try them in another pc on monday to test in a fresh system, I don't have any DDR2 mobos here.

Very strange, I wonder if the slots of getting messed up on the DS3 mobo's? I dont get ballistix ram, same thing happened as you described, would not boot, the 8800GT's fan just kept on full aswell, so I took 1 stick of Ballistix ram out right, it booted, I put that 1GB back in, and it booted, then it was getting stuck on splash screen with endless amounts of bars, so I went into Bios, wacked it back up to 850Mhz 4-4-4-12 and put Turbo back in, I changed memory voltage this time from 2.2V to 2.1V and changed MCH Voltage (What is MCH Voltage?) to 0.1, it was on 0.2 before.

I hope it is not my motherboard, last thing I want 2 weeks to christmas

. I'll give crysis a run later.

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 15:16

Cob said:
MCH Voltage is the northbridge voltage.

PC5300 Ballistix does have a very nasty habit of dying. I went through four pairs before I gave up on them and sold the last pair as soon as it got back from RMA.

It's a pity because it's awesome memory when it's working.

I wonder if the shop will just give me a refund this time, I cant do with getting this stuff back and then having to sell it and making a loss on getting some GeIL ram.

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 15:31

furnace said:
I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I don't know why people are just expecting 667Mhz RAM to run fine at 850Mhz? Surely you're better off just buying some CL4 800Mhz RAM?

Because people run Crucial Ballistix PC5300 at 900+?

, The ram is amazingly overclockable, some of the best out there I believe but I think it seems the PC5300 stuff has a high failure rate :\. At 667Mhz its got 3-3-3-12 timings, at 667Mhz I can run it at 3-3-3-10, never tried lower, but even at 800Mhz I proberbly could push it to 3-3-3-12 at stock voltage but I use 4GB ram and overclocks dont seem to be as high with all slots filled, was worse with my P5N-E SLi mobo though. Its not the overclocks that is killing the ram for me, 800Mhz 5-5-5-15 killed the last set and that was at stock voltage and I know I was not even pushing the ram. Seems like people can run it at 800Mhz with quite abit lower than stock volts.

Dunno why it stopped PC from booting, running the 2GB Ballistix now at 850Mhz 2.1V 4-4-4-12 and it seems ok *touch wood*

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 21:22

tweakinfreak said:
Same board and I have 4gb 5300 Ballistix, sent both sets for RMA since I brought them 3 months ago, I've been ruuning it @ 4-4-4-12 890mhz 2.0 without any issues, although the RAM gets very hot as they are so close together in the slots so I also have a 120mm fan blowing directly over all four sticks just to keep the temps down!

As said before, great stuff "when it works" hopefully mine will behave now

I would not count on that

.

I'm gonna ask the shop to refund em or give me some of the 800 stuff if this stuff starts going mad again, seems fine atm *fingers crossed*

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 21:45

tweakinfreak said:
Oh I don't, believe me this RAM has caused me more issues than anything on my system, only thing is as RAM is so cheap now if I sold all 4 sticks i'd struggle to get anything that performed as well

Yea same, I tried selling my ram on the bay at slightly lower than stores as it was 100% brand new but no one wanted to know so only one option, to re use it, so if I cant get a refund from the shop then I will have to keep with it, I dont know why it dies so much though the GeIL is fine.

willhub · 15 Dec 2007 at 21:53

netby said:
eheheh

use it at defaults- 333mhz( DDR 667) at 1.85/1.9Vdimm and it won´t die, I promise you

8 months past running fine and counting

667Mhz is slow

, dont want to downclock my GeIL too

.

willhub · 16 Dec 2007 at 00:54

Troop said:
1.8-1.9v is fine for 400+ speeds with the balistix 5300's, willhub,....... take out the other mem and try the ballistix at 1.9v 4-4-4 12 with your present settings. just give it a try.

Hmm might do, I might try lowr the voltage to 2.0 my GeIL might be able to take it.

willhub · 16 Dec 2007 at 02:13

coneypark said:
Crucial ahve said before that 2.2 is not the default voltage for this memory. It will run fine at 1.8v and should be. If you have it running at 2.2v then it will more than likely die at some point.

Keep the voltage below 2.0 if you can and you will still get a great overclock on it as you can see from my sig and I ahve had mine running for about 11 months with no problem with it.

Hmmm but my GeIL is rated at 2.1 it says on the sticker.

willhub · 16 Dec 2007 at 13:42

megatron said:
That's the "red line".

Sorry, what is?

tweakinfreak said:
I may put my volts down to 1.9mhz?

Not sure if the 5300 Ballistix will do 890mzh @ 4-4-4-12 at those volts though?

Only one way to find out mind

I'm going to try 850Mhz 4-4-4-12 at 2.0 later, it cant damage the ram having it at high speeds and lower volts right?

willhub · 16 Dec 2007 at 14:29

tweakinfreak said:
I doubt it tbh?

Someone may correct me though?

Like I said I have been running 4-4-4-12 890mhz for a month with my 4gb (2 sticks just got back from RMA) but as the P35C DS3R over volts by 0.1 I have read I may actually drop my volts from 2.0 (BIOS reading) to 1.8/1.9 and see how it goes?

So at 0.4V I may have been running at 2.3V? Even so that should be fine for this ram.

I'm suspecting my graphics card is going abit mental now aswell, I let it load up windows, went down to see whats cooking, got back up 5 mins later and there was the desktop frozen with loads of white blocky crap all over it, I'm hoping that was gigabytes EXTERTool though.

These are the last problems I want happening at crimbo

.

willhub · 16 Dec 2007 at 21:04

megatron said:
Looking at the thread title, I'd say its not unlucky at all; u just don't have any concept that running on exceptionally high volts will shorten component life considerably. I would expect 2.3v to be used as a suicide screenshot. If the ram is guarenteed to 2.2v as you say then 2.3v is not "fine".

Ive got a dead stick of ram, my pc was crashing rarely in BF2, I upped the volts to 2.1vdimm and sometime later I come back to a blue screen unable to boot with that stick in.

U have RMA'ed twice, when are u going to wise up to the fact that u are the reason that ** ram is dying, u are taking the "red line" as the base line. The JEDEC specification for Vdimm for DDR2 is 1.8v any more and its overvolting.

Thats odd because I've seen people on other forums running this PC5300 stuff at 2.3V, I was under the impression that 2.2V was its ratedt voltage so I put it at that, its not me not understanding ant sort of concept.....

willhub · 16 Dec 2007 at 23:33

Whilst I think today I have learnt something from the people of this forum I dont think its my fault. But I'm running the 4GB GeIL/Ballistix combo @ 2.0V 850 4-4-4-12 now and will see if its stable

>

willhub · 16 Dec 2007 at 23:57

megatron said:
You are running 850Mhz, 50Mhz above rated speed. Even with 4 dimms I would not be surprised if the RAM could run with +0.0v i.e. 1.8v or closer to 1.85-1.9v due to gigabyte overvolting to start with. I could run at 1000Mhz with 2 ballistix pc6400 dimms with the default voltage. Then I found that to get to 1125Mhz I needed to add +0.2 and later increased to +0.25v to achieve stability.

The point is that with overclocking you use the minimum voltage (usually u do not undervolt) the default voltage, until your overclock becomes unstable. This is a fundamental of overclocking, and without trying to sound patronizing this is something that you are missing and its become very apparent with each subsequent post u make. Read any overclocking guide and u will see I'm not lying.

I'm actiualy 183Mhz above stock for the Ballistix, the Ballistix is 667Mhz PC5300, I can try 0.0V.

willhub · 17 Dec 2007 at 12:00

Scougar said:
I don't think anyone would recommend selling mismatched pairs of memory. You'll be drawing different power from different slots, not a pretty combination.

I would get a refund or sell the other ram and either get 4 matched 1gb sticks, or get 2x 2gb sticks. The 2x 2gb will probably be more stable as well.

Matthew

How will I be drawing different power from different slots when they are both at the same voltage?

willhub · 18 Dec 2007 at 06:59

Seems fine for me now, at normal voltage, 1.8-1.9.

I cant sell the ballistix and get some GeIL because the GeIL is 35 quid and the Ballistix wont fetch that.