Bent pins = RAM instability?

[Trackr]

So, I accidentally bent a few of the pins underneath the second RAM slot on my P5Q Pro Turbo.

At first, I couldn't POST if there was a DIMM in either of the two first slots (A1 and A2).

After I un-bent the pins as best I could, I managed to POST, but wouldn't pass Prime 95.

After 2-3 minutes, I would get the usual "Rounding was 0.5" error.

However, I am able to run any game for 30+ mins. Crysis benchmark being the most demanding.

The problem is.. I am getting 15-20% worse performance in Crysis..

So.. what should I do? Keep it as is, try to mod the pins or stick with Single-Channel?

 

[Elf_Boy]

I've read that mechanical pencils are great for unbending pins on CPU's, may well work for this too.

Other then that I think you may need a new mobo.

Some cpu's and motherboards are just plain picky about ram as well. You could try lowering the speed on the ram and/or upping the voltage though if there is damage to the mobo this wont really help.

Did you just add the extra ram? Or was it working fine before the bent pins?

 

[Trackr]

I've read that mechanical pencils are great for unbending pins on CPU's, may well work for this too.

Other then that I think you may need a new mobo.

Some cpu's and motherboards are just plain picky about ram as well. You could try lowering the speed on the ram and/or upping the voltage though if there is damage to the mobo this wont really help.

Did you just add the extra ram? Or was it working fine before the bent pins?

It's a new build with parts off eBay. Except for the motherboard, that was new.

I'm not really sure how to use mechanical pencils for that stuff.. the tip always breaks.

I don't actually know if it was working fine before the "accident"..

I am just now thinking whether I should scrap it.. even though it works fine in anything but Prime 95.

 

[NoOther]

It's a new build with parts off eBay. Except for the motherboard, that was new.

I'm not really sure how to use mechanical pencils for that stuff.. the tip always breaks.

I don't actually know if it was working fine before the "accident"..

I am just now thinking whether I should scrap it.. even though it works fine in anything but Prime 95.

You don't use the lead, you use the opening for the pencil to place around the pin and then gently bend it back into a straight position. The mechanical pencil allows you to bend it while keeping the pin straight as opposed to pushing it with something that might add more bends to the pin.

If it is running fine outside of prime, then just use it as is. Remember that prime is putting a full load on your system, you will almost never put that much of a load on it with normal operation. There may be the potential over the long run of damaging your memory, but then it is up to you how much that is worth to you. RAM is pretty cheap, what is the cost of a new motherboard compared to that of the RAM?

 

[silent-circuit]

If you're getting instability, time for a new board. No way around it really. Warranty support probably won't fix it as the damage was due to user error.

 

[Trackr]

Okay, well...

I've placed my Q6600 in there. It only works up to 400Mhz FSB.

That gives the RAM 800Mhz to work at.

For some reason.. it's stable, on any slot.

So, I guess that fixed that

 

[NoOther]

Could be with the bent pins you don't have enough bandwidth to go above that mark with the RAM. But if it is working now with how you have it setup, then hey, you didn't have to pay anything

 

[drescherjm]

Could be with the bent pins you don't have enough bandwidth to go above that mark with the RAM.

This is not a bandwidth issue but a signal quality issue.

 

[NoOther]

This is not a bandwidth issue but a signal quality issue.

Pot at o, Po tat o

What does loss of signal do? It allows less bandwidth. If you lose some pins, you have less signal strength and therefore less bandwidth in which to send information. That means it will not be able to run at higher speeds or may have intermittent issues trying to run at those higher speeds depending on the damage.

 

[Magnus]

Pot at o, Po tat o

What does loss of signal do? It allows less bandwidth. If you lose some pins, you have less signal strength and therefore less bandwidth in which to send information. That means it will not be able to run at higher speeds or may have intermittent issues trying to run at those higher speeds depending on the damage.

Haven't you learned that being "correct" is more important than solving a problem, helping someone or, getting the job done?

I'm glad the OP found a way to help the problem without spending more money.

 

[drescherjm]

Pot at o, Po tat o

What does loss of signal do? It allows less bandwidth. If you lose some pins, you have less signal strength and therefore less bandwidth in which to send information. That means it will not be able to run at higher speeds or may have intermittent issues trying to run at those higher speeds depending on the damage.

This is not the way pins work for a processor. Its not like a wireless connection where bandwidth can be reduced / packets can be resent ... Signal loss at this level means corruption unless corrected with ECC.

 

[NoOther]

This is not the way pins work for a processor. Its not like a wireless connection where bandwidth can be reduced / packets can be resent ... Signal loss at this level means corruption unless corrected with ECC.

After our conversation over the whole dual channel debate, I talked to several EEs that actually design these technologies. That is 'exactly' how they work. Those pins provide signal, signal provides bandwidth. It is EXACTLY like wireless signal and network signal. Packets have nothing at all to do with bandwidth, never did. And reducing bandwidth in wireless can only be done by reducing signal.

You are confusing bandwidth with throughput. You can reduce 'throughput' by throttling traffic, but that is not reducing bandwidth. Its the wireless signal that provides bandwidth, not packet transfers. Wireless signal may be affected by interference and other factors. Just like bent pins can affect the signal strength of the bus and thus their bandwidth. Throughput however can be throttled in a number of ways which affects transfers.

And yes, btw, those pins do provide a bus. Everything on the motherboard runs on some type of bus.

Bus - A conductor, which may be a solid bar or pipe, normally made of aluminum or copper, used to connect one or more circuits to a common interface. An example would be the bus used to connect a substation transformer to the outgoing circuits.

In other words the wires that connect the pins back to the CPU are called a bus. The bus provides the bandwidth, which is based on the signal coming through the pins.

Throughput refers to how much data can be transferred from one location to another in a given amount of time. It is used to measure the performance of hard drives and RAM, as well as Internet and network connections.

For example, a hard drive that has a maximum transfer rate of 100 Mbps has twice the throughput of a drive that can only transfer data at 50 Mbps. Similarly, a 54 Mbps wireless connection has roughly 5 times as much throughput as a 11 Mbps connection. However, the actual data transfer speed may be limited by other factors such as the Internet connection speed and other network traffic. Therefore, it is good to remember that the maximum throughput of a device or network may be significantly higher than the actual throughput achieved in everyday use.

The term bandwidth in computer networking refers to the data rate supported by a network connection or interface. One most commonly expresses bandwidth in terms of bytes per second (bps). The term comes from the field of electrical engineering, where bandwidth represents the total distance or range between the highest and lowest signals on the communication channel (band).

Bandwidth (BW) is a range of frequencies, or information, that a circuit can handle or the range of frequencies that a signal contains or occupies.
Example: An AM broadcast radio channel in the US has a bandwidth of 10kHz, meaning that it occupies a 10kHz-wide band, such as the frequencies from 760kHz to 770kHz.

2. The amount of data a digital channel or line can handle, expressed in bits per second (bps), kilobits per second (kbps), baud, or a similar measure.

Bandwidth is absolutely and unequivocably linked to signal strength and type of signal. Bandwidth is a measure used for communication, no matter the type of communication, based off the amount of signal that is being used. It doesn't matter if the signal is electrical, optical, microwave, etc. They all provide bandwidth.

So please stop can you stop with the nitpicking and confusing people? Soon you are going to make me start breaking out my EE, CE, and NE books for longer explanations of all these technologies.

 

[BinarySynapse]

This is not the way pins work for a processor. Its not like a wireless connection where bandwidth can be reduced / packets can be resent ... Signal loss at this level means corruption unless corrected with ECC.

The bent pin has a higher resistance since the contact area has been reduced. If its a data pin, higher pin resistance can attenuate a high frequency signal to the point that it's unreadable, but a lower frequency signal makes it through. If it's a power or ground pin, the poor connection can introduce noise into the system, which higher frequency signals would be more sensitive to than lower frequency ones, especially when when the workload increases.