Too many volts???

IAmATeaf

IAmATeaf

IAmATeaf

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Suppose this is possibly a stupid question but I've always run the RAM in my sig at around 1.9v even though the stickers on the RAM state 1.8v. Rewind to to day before yesterday, my son is playing GTA4 which starts to randomly crash. After mucho buggering around I tracked the error down to a decompression problem which then pointed to either the hard drive or RAM. Decided to run memtest86+ and at around 4.7gb I reported errors so I started to up the RAM voltage which had no effect so upped the NB volts but nothing.

I then decided for whatever reason to set the RAM back to stock volts and memtest86+ passed without any errors. Not the worlds best expert on RAM but I've never heard or read of lower volts improving stability, it's always up it a notch. Anybody have any similar stories?
 
I found that during overclocking my DDR3 ram, that 1.72v ran great no errors at 1556 with stock timings, but 1.74 and 1.76 gave me instability. In my experience, yes too much voltage can cause instability.
 
Yup that's not uncommon, some memory works better with less vDimm . . . other sticks prefere humunga volts.

It may not 100% be the volts throwing up errros but the facts the sticks are burning hot due to increase voltage, chuck a fan over the RAM if you wanna know for sure! :cool:
 
Big.Wayne said:
Yup that's not uncommon, some memory works better with less vDimm . . . other sticks prefere humunga volts.

It may not 100% be the volts throwing up errros but the facts the sticks are burning hot due to increase voltage, chuck a fan over the RAM if you wanna know for sure! :cool:
Click to expand...

Hmm, temps, that's one thing I hadn't thought of and having 4 2gb sticks installed they are sort of tightly herded in. I've got a spare 12cm fan somewhere so I'll see if that makes a diff.
 
Can you place your fingers on top of the heat-spreaders when the RAM is running at full whack?

If you can't take the heat for more than 5 seconds without a sizzling skin sound then there running too hot! :eek:

You may find an 80mm fan easier to fit! :)

bigwaynecoolio2007efl7.jpg
 
I found my mem was getting really hot (too hot to touch), but wanted to go from 2GB to 4GB so replaced the modules with Corsair Dominator ones. They come with heatsinks and are cool to touch now. No need for fan over them.

So.. an aftermarket heatsink should help if you want it quiet still.
 
The RAM I have has the dominator fin-style heatsinks but in silver/alu finish. Had a feely-touch of the DIMMS and they were cool to the touch but they are now running at around 1.84 actual.
 
asusp5qdlxandcorsair3px3.jpg


IAmATeaf said:
The RAM I have has the dominator fin-style heatsinks but in silver/alu finish
Click to expand...
Technically referred to as DHX

Corsair DHX Technology 'Dominator' Overview and Interview

I do like the tech, the set I used never got hot due to DHX combined with an *obsessive* amount of case airflow! :D

IAmATeaf said:
Had a feely-touch of the DIMMS and they were cool to the touch but they are now running at around 1.84 actual.
Click to expand...

Well to go back to your original point, I'm not sure what the problem is from your description? . . . I guess you just need to work your way back up from stock and see at what point the problems begin?

Maybe you can re-read this thread and make a further post detailing what you have done. It's not clear how you had the sticks set-up originally (overclocked? what frequency etc?).

If they both run fine at stock but not when overclocked that could be a number of things. You may have to test the sticks seperately etc

Good luck and hopefully Yellowbeard will pass by, although I guess you should have put the word Corsair in the title! :)
 
Yep that looks like the sticks I have.

Sorry should have put this additonal info, I was running the sticks at stock speeds with stock timings but just at 1.9v effective, reason I did that was simply cause of what I had read on this and other forums that I should raise the volts as I am running 4 of these.

The problem, well it's no longer a problem but an observation is that if I raise the volts to 1.9v (1.88 in the BIOS) then 1 stick will start to fail memtest, lower the volts to the 1.84v (1.82 in the BIOS) I have it set to right now and the error goes away, the mobo overvolts by around 0.02v for the BIOS version (1403) that I'm on at the mo.
 
i always thought that having a fan over the ram messed with the airflow of the CPU fan so i didnt bother using my dominator fans that came with mine.
 
Damn, same problem has just occurred again, same RAM address is failing, I've now lowered the volts to 1.80v which passed memtest. I think 1 of the sticks is on the way out which is really poor as I only recently had 2 of the sticks replaced just before Xmas.

I purchased 8 sets of these RAM modules and 3 sets had to be returned as they never worked as delivered and now it looks like another set is about to go :(
 
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