EVGA 680i SLI C1 Post Error

[JookyOne]

So I've had this system for a little over 3 years and thus far it has been good to me. Last weekend I powered down my PC (normally I just let it sleep in Windows 7) and when I went to reboot it, it beeped for a long time and the LED on the motherboard read C1. From what I've read, this was a fairly common problem with this chipset/motherboard and I should count me blessings that it was worked this well for this long. Swapping the memory around, I found one stick will boot and the other will not. I've submitted an RMA to get the RAM replaced, but I am worried the motherboard might be the root cause of future RAM failures.

Therein lies my dilemma...

I've been contemplating building a new i5 rig, but was trying to hold off for the new offerings from Intel in 2011 to see if Sandybrige is worth waiting for or if it will at least knock down the current retail pricing on the i5 and i7's. But I don't want to be without a PC if I go through another set of memory on my 680i while in wait. So I look to my [H] community for advice...

A) Slap a band-aid on my aging 680i and hope my Frankenstein stays alive for another couple months.

B) Make it rain on NewEgg

 

[magoo]

I think it simply depends on if you have the money.

I built my son a P55 system for his birthday.....built on an EVGA P55 FTW platform, great board and very fast and stable.

I have that same EVGA 680i board as my second system.....it has always been a great performer.

 

[hdnut]

So I've had this system for a little over 3 years and thus far it has been good to me. Last weekend I powered down my PC (normally I just let it sleep in Windows 7) and when I went to reboot it, it beeped for a long time and the LED on the motherboard read C1. From what I've read, this was a fairly common problem with this chipset/motherboard and I should count me blessings that it was worked this well for this long. Swapping the memory around, I found one stick will boot and the other will not. I've submitted an RMA to get the RAM replaced, but I am worried the motherboard might be the root cause of future RAM failures.

Have you tried the other memory slots? That is, if you're only using 2 slots at a time, you can try the other two slots and see if that will allow you to boot.

Tried the famous C1 Error Recovery?

http://www.evga.com/forumsarchive/tm.asp?m=169747

The steps outlined in that post help me get out of unstable RAM overclock hell numerous times. If that post doesn't help you, and the memory module that you got back from RMA is still causing boot issues, then it's very likely that the memory controller on the NB is done for.

Try to be gentle on the RAM overclock as the north bridge on these 680i's are not as robust as their Intel counterparts. Keep the voltages low as it can go and run the DDR2 RAM at 800mhz with loose timings (CAS 5 is fine from my experience).

 

[JookyOne]

Thanks for the link hdnut. One of the sticks of Ballistix was definitely bad as one booted right up from the DIMM slot closest to the processor and the other threw the C1 error. Once I got the PC to boot, I cleared the CMOS and reset the BIOS to stock settings and still had the same problem with one stick of RAM booting and the other throwing the C1 error. Apparently, the batch of RAM that I have is from an earlier stock that ran at 2.2V. I called up Crucial to get an RMA and they told me they had a lot of problems with this higher voltage ram and would be replacing my RAM with their new stock that operates at 2.0V. Unfortunately, I won't know anything until I get my RMA ram which is going to take a while as my package with the bad stuff won't get to them until 12/06....*cries*