Geil Dragon Ram

Associate
Joined
16 Jan 2003
Posts
1,236
Location
by my pc. :D
Hi,

I recently bought a pair of Geil black dragon 12800 DDR3 8GB memory modules (in a matched/boxed set) for my pc. Seemed to work fine and decided to buy an additional set (same set again) not too long after to get 32GB (Using VM's and the like).

Noticed that they were running at 1333mhz when MB on auto settings. Went into bios settings and enabled XMB profile - and on reboot my pc beeped a fair few times and then reverted back to auto settings.

Investigated further and found one set works fine on the XMB profile, the other causes the beeping. Both sets are labeled the same - "PC3 12800 1600MHz" but do notice that the memory chips on the modules are printed differently on one set than the other. Hard to read the actual chip details since the digits are so small - but one set has "Geil" printed straight, the other it's printed diagonally with a bit of a different layout on it.

Both sets work fine at 1333 and I've run memtest86+ for a few cycles with no issues.

Would a set that's labelled as 1600 but only runs at 1333 be regarded as "faulty"?

I also recently bought a 4GB 1333 module of the same memory for somebody else's pc, and the printing on the chips has the same "diagonal geil" print as the set that doesn't do 1600. Could this set have been mis-labeled/packaged at the factory? Anybody else have similar issues?
 
If they won't run at the speed they were sold as supporting then that would be reasonable grounds for returning them.

Does the 'faulty' set fail to work when they're install on their own, or just when both sets are installed?
 
It fails on it's own. I tried each set individually. Interestingly I've just tried putting the "Good" set in first, then the "bad" set and the pc boots and shows 32GB installed. Guess it's reading the XMP profile from the first module? Maybe an incorrect XMP on the "bad" set?

Unfortunately found out that Windows 7 Home Premium actually has a 16GB memory limit :( and it would cost me the same price as a fresh copy of Professional or Ultimate to buy an "upgrade" from MS.

So will probably use the "bad" memory in another pc for now.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom