Memory Damaged??

Cru54d3r

Cru54d3r

Cru54d3r

Associate
Joined
10 Oct 2003
Posts
193
Location
Nottingham
Booted my computer this morning and was browsing some websites when it BSOD'd - restarted comp and another BSOD - shut it down and restarted and it got into windows but then froze about 5seconds in

Thought this was my main hard drive failing but have scanned and checked all my hard drives and there is nothing wrong - so went into my bios and restored defaults and it worked allowing me into windows as normal - all hard drives accessible

Playing within the bios it appears as though its happy with my e6750 overclock from 2.66 to 3.2 but its not happy with my memory (Kingston PC8500 2x2GB) at 1066 - although its rated for 1066mhz at 2.2v I couldnt get it to run at that on my BFG 680i so had to up that to 2.25v

Have I damaged my memory running it over the specified voltage? Or can I give it more volts? I dropped it from 5-5-5-15 to 5-5-5-18 but that didnt help - still crases.. its only currently resolved by dropping it from 1066mhz to 800mhz

Thoughts please? Thanks in advance :)
 
Few extra notes.. have been running the cpu overclocked for about 2months and the memory at 1066 for a good few months

Safe mode wont even work when it was crashing and there was what appeared to be some gfx artifacts on the screen (rectangular blocks scattered) - thought this could be the gfx card but temp on that appears to be fine (60c)
 
My experience of overvolting ram was that it proved fatal remarkably quickly. 2.2V is pushing it for DDR2 already, the extra 0.05 may well have pushed it over the edge

Don't remember the fsb for your chip, do you have 800mhz ish available? If so it may be stable at this which is a temporary fix. If your ram fails memtest at stock settings you can rma it, though I would advise running the replacement at a slower speed rather than overvolting it
 
JonJ678 said:
My experience of overvolting ram was that it proved fatal remarkably quickly. 2.2V is pushing it for DDR2 already, the extra 0.05 may well have pushed it over the edge

Don't remember the fsb for your chip, do you have 800mhz ish available? If so it may be stable at this which is a temporary fix. If your ram fails memtest at stock settings you can rma it, though I would advise running the replacement at a slower speed rather than overvolting it
Click to expand...
thanks for the info - so if my memory couldnt run at 1066 when bought at 2.2v would the correct procedure be to return it for a replacement that could? running the lastest bios for my mobo and in a well ventilated case

just i specifically bought faster memory as I had 800 before - didnt think the extra 0.05v would matter much :(
 
I think it's a case of your board couldn't run it at 1066 stock volts rather than the ram being at fault, I don't think the replacement will do it either. However it may well do 1000mhz at 2.2V quite happily.

It comes under the heading of 'incompatible ram', my 1066mhz reaper would only do 1000mhz in a G35 board I used to own but did 1100 in the P45 which replaced it. I believe the correct procedure is to swear repeatedly and then accept that it's not going to run at 1066 :)
 
JonJ678 said:
I think it's a case of your board couldn't run it at 1066 stock volts rather than the ram being at fault, I don't think the replacement will do it either. However it may well do 1000mhz at 2.2V quite happily.

It comes under the heading of 'incompatible ram', my 1066mhz reaper would only do 1000mhz in a G35 board I used to own but did 1100 in the P45 which replaced it. I believe the correct procedure is to swear repeatedly and then accept that it's not going to run at 1066 :)
Click to expand...
Thanks again for the replies/info

Have i invalidated my warranty on my ram by running it 0.05v over? I cant recall any disclaimers on the packaging though i might have glanced past them in a rush to install the stuff - just wondering whether they would know if i rma'd and returned it
 
Nah, I'm pretty sure the warranty will be fine. OCZ makes a point of saying your warranty is fine up to 2.15V even though they're rated at 2.1V, so it's slightly murky waters but I can't see if being a problem.

If nothing else, I'm pretty certain they'll have no way of knowing you'd put marginally too much voltage through it. Worst case scenario is you get the same set back with a note saying your warranty was void, and you get to put it down to experience.

I'm told overvolting ram shouldn't hurt it, so you've got a valid case for saying its circumstancial. I had a set of ocz go down rather shortly after trying 2.15V on them, and without changing much else so I'm now very wary of overvolting ddr2
 
the extra 0.05v shouldn't matter really. one of my set of ram is rated at 1.8v for 1066mhz 5-5-5-18 and 2.1v for 1066mhz 5-5-5-15. but im running them at 1066mhz 5-5-5-18 2.11v for 3-4months
 
Last edited:
Sad times. My one was rated to run 1066mhz ram and just didnt like my set. Still, it's likely to run it well over 800mhz at least so could be worse. I reckon rma then see what the new set will do on a lower voltage.

2.2V seems really high as stock for ddr2 :s
 
stick memtest86+ on a bootable USB and test to see if your memory is the culprit.

Sounds like it may be....I just did a new build from some fairly old parts but they are still plenty capable...however my OCZ PC2-14400 was DOA :( So I have to send off for RMA. 1 stick doesn't even boot and the other won't do anything over 1600MHz without failing memtest.

Memtest is your friend, quickly narrows down the problem in my experience.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom