Memory suddenly became unstable after months?

Tom|Nbk

Tom|Nbk

Tom|Nbk

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As per title. I have 4GB of the GeIL Ultra as per sig running at 900MHZ 4-4-4-12 2.25v. All of a sudden I was getting device stuck in thread error with my GPU drivers after my computer BSOD I got OCing failed Checksum error. A Google suggested this was possibly down to memory.

So off I go to memtest, up come two errors after a few passes of test 5. Weird, it was OK a few months back.

Reducing timings down to 5-5-5-12 same voltage and speed and memtest manages the passes this time and I don't seem to get any more unstable behaviour in XP.

So why would my memory all of a sudden become unstable after months of rock solid stability?
 
2.25Vdimm in the Asus P5b dlx is more like 2.3V:)

I believe that Geil ram don´t use micron chips,but 2.3V is enough to kill any chip over the time

I used my last kit of crucial Ballistyx Pc2 5300 for one full year with 1.9V and i still have it as a spare ram ,in top condition

and now I´m using a kit of Kingston PC2 1066 with 1.95Vdimm for the last 5/6 months ,with not one single problem.
 
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Problem is that although Giel and other memory stick "assemblers" have is they use standard 1.8V Samsung, Micron (and other brand) chips on their sticks. They work out the best "batches" to get the best odds of successfull overclocking, and slap a high speed label on them.

Giel will honor warrenty with 2.3 volts, but odds are the chips themeslves are not actially designed with 2.3v in mind. (28% over stock volts)

Its not quite as simple as that of course, generally they run better designed PCB's with a good trace layout which aids high speed signal integrity, and often have some form of over voltage protection. But at the end of the day electronic parts deteriorate over time, and increasing their voltages speeds up the deterioration.

Same thing can happen with OCed cpus too. Can run years overclocked and then one day, errors, yet at stock everything still appears fine. Componants are manufactured with some overheads to cover minor manufactuing problems, and increase their lifespan. Many overclockers never notice though as they continue to buy the next cool think and overclock that long before the parts fail.
 
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well put Corasik:)

that´s exactly what I think about that matter- the Jedec standard are 1.8V for the DDR2,the manufactures do a "tuning" to it in order to give over clockers what they want:D


right now I´m using my Kingston pc2 8500 at 1.9V.They are rated 15-5-5-5 @ 1066 mhz ,but I don´t need the full speed of it (the Asus p5b dlx give the best results with the ratio between fsb:mem at 1.1) so I are using it at 425mhz ( fsb and mem) which means DDR2 at 850mhz and I lowered the latencies to a 12-4-4-4 ,and the Kingston are running great , and if I touch them with my finger they actually feel cold ,wich means they are under 37ºC

so for me, the rule is running my DDR2 ram at the closest possible to 1.8V,with it being stable, is the best thing for the reliability of the ram.
 
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