help find Mboard to fit ballistics tracer ram?

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whiskeykid

n00b
Joined
Oct 10, 2007
Messages
20
Am novice

I was in hurry to assemble a sockett 775 gaming rig and used a crucial memory selector software to choose correct ram ,I didn't do my research and bought 2.0v instead of 1.8v ram my gigabite and asus motherboards use .
Brand Crucial
Series Ballistix Tracer
Model BL2KIT12864AL106A
Type 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
Tech Spec
Capacity 2GB (2 x 1GB)
Speed DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
Cas Latency 5
Timing 5-5-5-15
Voltage 2.0V
Buffered/Registered Unbuffered
Multi-channel Kit Dual Channel Kit

I absolutely loved the bling of tracer LEDs and it was mostly stable for months .After much diagnostics I decided my errors to the boot ini files and master boot records that i had to repair or reinstall windows xp to fix were caused by the motherboads chipset incompatability with this 2.0v ram .I replaced the ram and no more errors and no more lost data. I love an easy fix.
The ram is beyond return date for newegg and I like this ram much, much and would like to buy proper Mboard for the memory for averaging 10 hrs gaming a week .
Any suggestions for sub $150 Mboard socket 775 dual and or quad core proc maybe thru newegg?
I won't need overclock ability .I have looked around and don't know what chipset is compatable with this ram- 1.8v memory is much more commonly required . Don't require crossfire set up , just single 16x PCIe slot @ 16x
gigabite ethernet would be nice and no onboard graphics needed and decent onboard audio would be nice but not a deal breaker -of course several sata connections are needed for hard drives [ 2 minimum -4 better]
Any help finding proper mboard would be great .
 
that rams defective, you should return it.

Contrary to what the sticker says all the ram I've ever seen adheres to one profile of Jedec, usually the faster stuff thats "designed" to be run at those higher voltages will default to DDR2 800 CAS 5 @ 1.8V. Thats a perfectly acceptable profile, nothings being run out-of-spec.

If your ram is giving you problems at that JEDEC profile, RMA it, its defective.

But I'd run memtest 86 (or orthos might get it for you) just to be sure.

edit: another way to word my post is that no motherboards are "compatible" with your 2.0V ram --with the exception being Intels XMP and Nvidias EPP, both of which are bullshit features designed to allow people who don't want to tinker with voltages to plug in their ram and get the higher tiered speed without manually adjusting anything.
 
I ran memtest and it failed right away , but it ran games and played dvds fine so I waited to see if it became unstable . Later, after shutdown, I felt the ram got very very hot to touch .thanks for the info on mboards . I think the ram was running on boards spec for voltage but since it isn't stable I need to do something like replace it .Hope the warrenty isn't invalid now after running at lower than spec voltage . den:(
 
Hope the warrenty isn't invalid now after running at lower than spec voltage . den
Click to expand...
Nope.

I stupidly closed a link to Crucials site "The nature of ballistix" was the page title that confirmed what MrWizzard posted. They do contain a default JEDEC 1.8V profile. If you leave your ram settings on AUTO and make sure the memory mulitplier/ratio is not OCing the ram and they are running the rated speed or less and it fails memtest86+ , see what Mike has to say and be ready to send them back.

You have done nothing wrong and have not by any of your actions damaged the ram. It is just the case that the Intel default voltage for plain jane ram is 1.8V. Skipping over some no longer applies history about voltage issues when DDR2 was first introduced 3 years ago and have long been fixed, as mentioned your ram should work at 1.8V on auto settings because of the default profile programmed into the memory stick. It is common for high performance ram to require manual settings of timings and voltages to get the peak performance out of them. However they should work at default settings also. My point is, you have done nothing wrong other than to be a bit confused about what is going on (and a lot of us where during the first days of DDR2) Now we get to be confused about DDR3 voltages which is 1.5V default but the high performance stuff usually wants 1.65. It never ends. :D

The only way you could void the warranty is to manually set the voltage to some absurd level or run them over with your car.
 
I used to say this a lot, and I guess it still applies... well, one pic is worth a thousand words really:

DSCF6457.jpg


Last I checked, they still worked, and that's after being abused with 2.5-2.8v in benching sessions. Also, Crucial's warranty is great, thank god. I've never had an issue getting dead memory replaced with them, however, it happens often enough around here that it's really a problem, and I think a lot of it would be solved with better cooling ;)
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
stuff + a pic
Click to expand...

+1 QFT

a fan is CRUCIAL for Crucial Ballistix! :p

Eclipse... now that's a name I've not heard in a long time...

I've had 4 * 1gb sticks of the DDR2 1066 and they're like little heating elements. They will not pass memtest at rated speed and voltage without active cooling on them. They've been RMA'd once - Crucial was excellent to deal with and turnaround was relatively fast but it's still a PITA. They now collect dust as they wait to be RMA'd again - eventually.

... most who've posted in this thread know wtf they're talkin' about (not counting me though I occasionally do have flashes of brilliance... very rarely, very occasionally, and usually not too brilliant maybe more like a flicker). You're in good hands... good luck!
 
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