I finally Ran Memtest86+

S

Ste

Gawd
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
574
So I had always wondered to myself, why reguardless of the settings, my overclock was never stable, why Crysis or other games would error out sometimes. I simply thought I hadn't found the right combination of voltages yet..

I was wrong..


I decided to run memtest..
And, well.......



















Ten Thousand Errors In UNDER three minutes!!!!!
So yea, to test whether its my board or the memory I am going to throw in some different memory and try again...

But, yea, I nearly died a few times over..

The Memory was run at its rated speed and timming with my Proc @ 3.6 Ghz.

I tried some other memory and it returned no errors in the same amount of time.

So yea, memory suggestions?
If noone suggests anything I will go with this.
Crucial Ballistix Tracer
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148076
 
And when testing, if you do get errors like that quickly, stop the test, yank out everything except 1 stick and retest for 2 cycles or unless it starts errors immediately or very quickly again, then test the other etc.

10K errors, eh... geez, surprised the machine worked at all.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
And when testing, if you do get errors like that quickly, stop the test, yank out everything except 1 stick and retest for 2 cycles or unless it starts errors immediately or very quickly again, then test the other etc.

10K errors, eh... geez, surprised the machine worked at all.
Click to expand...


Well the RAM I threw in there to test was set back to some value RAM, so I had to run my CPU At stock speeds.

And your right, I am surprised my computer ran at all after seeing how many errors poped up. Some weeks it would be fine for days, 3 days of folding and no problems, but then, bam, 4 consecutive Blue screens. Though always failing the Prime 95 Blend test reguardless of the clock should have been an early warning for me.

meh..

Anyway, I changed my mind. I will go with these if there are no better suggestions.
Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2 1066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148070

Maybe with the New RAM I can hit 3.8 Ghz... :)
 
If your ram isn't stable at its recommended speed then why not RMA it for a new set?
 
I would RMA it if I still had the receipt and information from the First purchase.
Which is required for the RMA, they want the original invoice, order number etc etc etc.

Which I lost...
< Hopefully I learned my lesson...
 
Guess you didn't get it from Newegg then....

Also.. just because it is "value" ram doesn't mean it won't overclock.. My Kingston DDR2-800 "value" ram will run at over DDR2-1000 at stock timings although voltage has to be upped to 2.1 from 1.8.
 
cyclone3d said:
1.Guess you didn't get it from Newegg then....

2.Also.. just because it is "value" ram doesn't mean it won't overclock.. My Kingston DDR2-800 "value" ram will run at over DDR2-1000 at stock timings although voltage has to be upped to 2.1 from 1.8.
Click to expand...

1. huh? I did get it from newegg...

2. But its not DDR2 800, its Corsair Valueselect DDR2 533. So, yea, it won't overclock much.... Plus its not even my RAM, its for my brothers new computer, so I don't want to "screw" with it.
 
You can print out an invoice from neweggs website, they save all your orders.
 
Thats what I thought as well, but When I went to view order history, newegg did NOT have my order of G skill listed..


But its all over and done now, crucial ballistix commings sooner or later..
 
Did you try running at less than the rated voltage? I run mine currently at 2.0 volts with no problems, but setting the voltage to the rated 2.2v and I'll get tons of memtest errors. Noticed the same thing with the Ballistix DDR400 ram that was in my pc before I upgraded, giving them less than the rated voltage made that pc stable too.
 
I guess this makes the discussion in several other threads about the "commonly accepted ways to insure a stable OC" moot?
 
Hang on here...

You said you were overclocking the system. If you push the overclock too far, then you'll start seeing errors in mem test. Go back down to factory clock and run ram test again. I you still keep getting errors, play around with the timings until you are no longer getting any errors. Then once you find the right timings, try to slowly overclock little, by little, checking mem test.

My ram is rated at 2-2-2-5 but i had to run it at 2-2-3-5 to get it stable at stock clock rates, and stable with an overclock.
 
lagos said:
Hang on here...

You said you were overclocking the system. If you push the overclock too far, then you'll start seeing errors in mem test. Go back down to factory clock and run ram test again. I you still keep getting errors, play around with the timings until you are no longer getting any errors. Then once you find the right timings, try to slowly overclock little, by little, checking mem test.

My ram is rated at 2-2-2-5 but i had to run it at 2-2-3-5 to get it stable at stock clock rates, and stable with an overclock.
Click to expand...

He tested another set of memory and it passed memtest86+. He has a bad module, its not magic.
 
rainman said:
I guess this makes the discussion in several other threads about the "commonly accepted ways to insure a stable OC" moot?
Click to expand...

What? If your talking about what I said about my overclocking problems in other threads and posts, then yes, probably... But I and we won't know for certain until I can take a good swing at this new memory..
In retrospect it really pisses me off to know now that all these voltages I tried in the past could have been stable, but it was BAD memory that would always end the stress test or cause a BSOD..
Bah..

bicycle_wreck said:
He tested another set of memory and it passed memtest86+. He has a bad module, its not magic.
Click to expand...

And the other Big clue was my board would NOT POST with the G skill when everything was stock (Memory was underclocked to 533Mhz or something), where as I poped the other Memory in and it posted and Booted into windows fine when everything was stock.

Before, when I was using the G Skill, I would always get the POST error "Bad CPU or improper installation" if I tried to run cpu at stock and Memory underclocked at a 1 to 1 ratio.. and this happened AT least 20 times...
So even if I never ran memtest, I would be pretty "certain" that the memory was bad because another pair or different memory POSTed fine when cpu was at stock..
 
Right on, man. I've had several people tell me to, "Try this, try that, timings, undervolting, overvolting, memory divider, blah blah blah." It's all a bunch of malarkey. Sometimes shit's just broke. Having memory pass memtest86+ and Prime95 for hours: priceless. Said memory not belonging to you: sad panda.

We'll push these IX38's full tilt when we [both] get defect-free memory. :cool:

I'm going to go play some GoW with my one good stick.
 
I had a stick of Crucial go bonkers on me like that. My PC kepy freezing and crashing - and my data and disk was increasingly corrupted. I couldn't even re-instal OS. Funny thing was, stuff I transfered off disk to save ended up not being usable even though it looked ok on the surface. I could see thumbnails of some photos I took with my Canon but they couldn't open anymore.
 
Its pretty crazy how much pain a bad module can cause. Just got my replacement Patriots, and I am off and running. I love this E2180 almost as much as my IX38. Hitting 3GZ on stock everything. Can't beat that with a stick!
 
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