Faulty or not?

Vekiq

Vekiq

Vekiq

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Joined
29 Jan 2007
Posts
273
Location
Scotland
Hi all

Here goes story of GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC).

Bought one of these kits some time ago when you still had to pay £ 150 for it

I paired it with

Win Xp (currently Vista home premium 64 bit)
Core 2 duo E6600
Intel Bad Axe 2
Ati 1900 xtx (currently 2900 xt 512)
antec 550 *** PSU

couple of weeks ago got another 2 gigs of the same ram and was faulty, failed mem test, failed intel stress test, caused numerous scan discs and all rest of problems under various voltage and timing settings.

Got it rma'd (great service 10 outa 10 to overclockers) my replacment arrived today, and guess what, failed mem test again.

This ram is meant to work at 800 mhz 4-4-4-12 at 2.10 volts, with that settings failes memtest in first 2 or 3 minutes, upping voltage to 2.2 did not help either.

I have put timings down to 5-5-5-12 and it works fine, passed 30 minutes of mem test, and vista memory diagnostic tool (not sure how much i can trust it tbh)

I run slight overclock on my cpu which gets ram speed to 834 hmz
at this setting 5-5-5-12 timings work fine, but 4-4-4-12 does not.

I had even more overclock on cpu which got ram speed almost to 900 mhz
and original 2 gigs in the past worked fine, not tried that yet with this ram, but i dont think it wil work.

Is ram faulty, or there are some other factors to consider?

Thanks in advance guys
 
Try 1.9v and 2.0v at 800mhz 4-4-4-12. The Geil UL sometimes prefers a lower than spec voltage.
 
Cheers Cob , but did not work on 1.9, windows did not want to start, gave me message that kernel is missing and safe mode and other boot options,
tried 2.0 booted , but memory test failed, working my way up voltage now to see what happens.

What would be safe voltage to go up to, dont want to fry something?:)
 
Cheers for responses guys.

Bios is up to date, but cheers Andy.

I dont have time to run new ram on its own tonight, need to get some sleep, but thats deffo what am going to try tomorrow,
But its looking all together like it will be another Rma.

But surely will not go for geil ram again.
Will keep plates that work, but stil wanna have 4 gigs of ram, thats why i bought 64 bit vista few days ago.

Any suggestions which ram would work ok with non faulty kit i have?
or would best best be getting rid of geli all together and getting something
new, maybe one of 4 gig kits?
 
Try 2.3V mate ( Trust me, I used to be OcUK Tech Manager!) Its great RAM and is usually stupidly overclockable. - Also, double check the memory divider - some boards may say 800MHz in BIOS but not give the DDR value [i.e actually 1600MHZ - in other words 400 should be set in BIOS.] (long shot I know :D)

Failing that, RMA.
 
Cheers for advice Andy.

tried 2.3 and no joy.
Memory in bios is set to 800, and Cpuz is reading it as 400 (441.2 as cpu is clocked) , so i take it thats
ok.

Funny thing is that with my current CPU overclock memory is working @ 882.4 Mhz timings 5-5-5-18 with no errors, but does not even want to hear 4-4-4-12 timings at stock speeds.

Now, how much of an performance impact will higher timings have?
If i am going to get same preformance with looser timings, but higher frequency, and can get it running stabile then i really dont care, as long as it all works nice an stabile.

Cheers guys
 
Vekiq said:
If i am going to get same preformance with looser timings, but higher frequency, and can get it running stabile then i really dont care, as long as it all works nice an stabile.
Click to expand...

You're on the right train of thought there mate. A higher FSB will Yield a performance boost and should make up for the shortfall in timings.

As an avid overclocker I'll be the first to admit that sometimes we need to take a step back from all these numbers and put our lives in perspective. What I mean by this is that the memory timings are simply how long the memory takes to fill itself with data, deal with that data and then empty itself ready for the next lot. As you may know, RAM timings deal in nano seconds (the lower the number, the quicker the aforementioned happens.)

The simple fact is, the human eye won't notice the difference between the two sets of timings you mention if you are planning on running at the higher FSB you mentioned.

BUT....:D......

Firstly I'm probably going to get such a slagging for the above so, in a possibly futile attempt to redeem myself to the hardcore overclockers out there:

You WILL notice a difference in benchmarks (super Pi, 3DMark CPU scores etc) because benchmarks are obviously there to turn these jargonistic numbers, nano secons and megahertz into a "score" that is meaningful and quantifiable to us.

So the question is, if you're happy with going with what you said in your last post, your pc will be faster than it was at CPU stock speeds even with 12,4,4,4 timings because you'll be running at a higher FSB which = higher memory bandwith.

In my past experience, that Geil RAM went like a stabbed rat and was stupidly overclockable (Had it up to 985MHz at 2.2V with 15,5,5,4 timings - sometimes MUCH higher [1105MHz once]) so with all this aside, if it was mine I'd still go for the RMA if you are hell bent on absolute speed. It could work fine for ever at the slightly slacker timings and you'd be happy.

That said, there could be a chance it could fail while you're in the middle of something important.

To reassure you, when I worked for OcUK Tech, we shifted stupid amounts of that Geil Ram (approx 2-300 sticks a day when the price dropped to around £60) and were lucky if we saw 2 or 3 stick back a week so it is to be trusted - think you've just been unlucky:)

If you decide you don't want to trust the Geil again, the Crucial Ballistix stuff is great at the moment but a wee bit dearer.

:)
 
Last edited:
Andy,


Thanks for your help, i even learned thing or 2.

I will let picture talk of issue this time.

memorytn2.jpg
 
Hmmmm - sounds faulty mate.

Try downloading memtest, burning to CD and booting from it - that will eliminate any errors from windows/ drivers etc. It will also test the full amount of Ram:

http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70/memtest86+-1.70.iso.zip

Burn that to CD (its already compiled as bootable mate so just burn the image in Nero or similar.

Full detailed links page here:

http://www.memtest.org/

If it comes with up any errors, defo RMA it mate.:)
 
GeiL doesnt like using 4-4-4-12 with much over 800, highest i got was 820, try setting the divider 1:1 FSB:MEM, also try setting everything to stock so mem shows as 400MHz in CPUz and run memtest
 
Cheers Andy, i have rmad it allready,

RaiderX, i have tested it at stock speed few times, same story, errors galore
 
I Have had 4 sticks of GeIL ULL ram in my machine before. And caused nothing but errors. I tried every combination of the 4 sticks under the sun and let memtest run for at least 2-3 cycles. Everytime i put the 4th stick in, it errored and was unstable. But running wither on their own was fine. So i sold 1 set, used the other set in another PC, and bought myself the OCZ 2x2gb kit.
I originally tried this in a 965P-DS3 Rev1.1, and also in a Rev 3 of the same board and they both had issues.

Have u tried Memtesting each pair seperatly from the other?
 
PhillyDee said:
Have u tried Memtesting each pair seperatly from the other?
Click to expand...

Yes m8, i hve tested it all separatley.

Cronology of tests goes like this.

Tests under 4-4-4-12
all 4 sticks in and slight overclock: fail
all 4 sticks with no overclock : fail

tests under 5-5-5-18
stock and slightly clocked speed
all 4 sticks : pass

tests under 4-4-4-12
2 new sticks in, stock : fail
2 new stick , slight overclock :fail

My older sticks work with out any problems whatsoever,
clocked, stock, anything, no porblems at all.

Tried voltages specified by geil, slghtly lower, and slightly higher
no difference, failes.

Cheers
 
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