RAM problems, pulling my hair out

[Atwooooood]

So i have just received my 4th replacement set of ram from corsair. I have been having so much trouble lately with ram getting shipped bad and ram going bad after a few days.

I just put in my new ram yesterday and already I'm having problems. Ill get ram related problems and ill pop in memtest and reboot and when memtest runs i instantly get hundreds of errors, so then i proceed to test each stick separately and both sticks again with no errors at all.

Reboot and everythings fine for a while, then i start getting problems again, so i repeat the process. Errors with both sticks in at first, then i test the sticks separately and both at the same time with no problems.

I reboot again and this is where im at now, just waiting for ram related issues.

The ram in question is Corsair Dominator 2x2gb sticks. Also i know its not a faulty memory controller because i still have 2 1gb sticks I've been using for 2 years and they're still running strong.

Any insight to this problem? Help would be appreciated.

 

[Archean]

Are you mixing different kind of ram in same system (i.e. 2x1GB + 2x2GB) ?

Do they have same make/timings-settings?

Asus boards are notorious for such ram issues, please ensure that settings in ram (i.e. timings/voltage) exactly match those on the ram's packaging. You may have to enter these settings manually in BIOS.

 

[Atwooooood]

Same ram and all timings and voltage is set to auto.
I haven't had any problems since yesterday, ram memtest again with no errors so if the problem arises again ill change the settings manually.

 

[Archean]

'Auto' on boards from Asus doesn't mean it will work; anyway, please do keep us updated; and good luck. Regards

 

[Atwooooood]

I've just left it on auto cause I have two 1 gig sticks of the same ram and its been working fine for 2 years on auto.

Thanks forn your help, ill stay posted.

Edit: So i got home and a bunch of services and plugins had unexpectedly ended so i ran memtest and of course, i got hundred of errors within the first 5 seconds, so i went into my bios and changed the voltage to the voltage it says on the sticks, but one thing that confused me was when i run memtest, it says the timing is 5-5-5-18, but on the stick it says 5-5-5-15 and when i went to change it in the bios, its already set 5-5-5-15 under the options but it displays it as 5-5-5-18 right above where i change the settings.

Is this normal or am i overlooking something?

Edit: i got the timing changed to 5-5-5-15 and voltage to 2.1, my bios just had to be restarted to show the effects. running several sessions of memtest, first test displayed errors, so far on the second one its coming back clean

Edit: upon upping my voltage it has caused my music to skip and stutter, could that be related to the increase in voltage?

edit: its actually when i change my timing from 5-5-5-18 to 5-5-5-15 that my music skips.

 

[UT66]

easy, 1) your motherboard doesn't like the ram. 2) one of your rams dsnt get along with the other, even if you are using the same brand of memory, if you do not have a dual channel kit you might have one ore more sticks with different brands of chips ( samsung, micron, hynix ) that cand lead to BSOD under w7,

i had constant BSOD on mt machine using the same model of ddr2 ram ( 8gb) , but 2 of the sticks had qimonda chips, and the other 2 micron and value, removed the value tick ( 6gb total) and its running perfect, with no hangs. give it a try

 

[Atwooooood]

I have identical sticks. Turns out the music skipping was being caused by cpu-z running as odd as that sounds.

I got my ram running at recommended settings and even got it running stable at 1066 mhz without having to increase the NB voltage.

edit: spoke too soon. got a BSOD. bumped it down to 800mhz

 

[Tedster]

any errors with memtest is not good. Your stick (s) are faulty or incompatible or you overclocked them too much potentially causing damage.

 

[Atwooooood]

So to bring this topic back up, I have disabled memory remapping, and that seemed to let my computer go error free a little longer, but after a day and a half my computer will start acting up again. Also like mentioned before, I am running the sticks at the timing and voltage printed on the modules.

Anything else that could be causing me from running stable at 4 gigs?

 

[Atwooooood]

Edit: So i decided to put the two sticks in the B ram slots rather than the A slots and so far its running strong. Could the ram slots be bad even though i can run 2 gigs in the A slots but not 4 gigs? If they turn out to be bad slots, my board is still under warranty.

 

[Archean]

The correct configuration should be:

One Stick in Slot 1 of Bank 0
One Stick in Slot 1 of Bank 1

or

One Stick in Slot 2 of Bank 0
One Stick in Slot 2 of Bank 1

This way you'll have your RAM working in Dual Channel Configuration; if that doesn't work out, then try the single bank configuration i.e. filling out both slots in one bank.

 

[Atwooooood]

I have the modules running in dual channel. Instead of having them in the yellow slots (A slots), i put them in the black slots (B slots). The modules will not run without errors with all 4 gigs in the A slots (although 2 gigs works fine) but with the modules in the B slots, the system runs flawlessly.

 

[Archean]

Let the system run for a while in this configuration, if it works without any issues for couple of days, it would mean that your hypothesis is correct and then you should ask them to either fix it or claim replacement board in warranty.

 

[Atwooooood]

Yeah, that was my plan. But quick question, isn't it odd or out of place for the A slots to work with 2 gigs of RAM without errors but having 4 gigs causes errors? Would that be bad ram slots or something else?

 

[Archean]

If all the RAM modules work without any problem in Slot 1 of each bank, it would mean that probably there is some hardware issues with the Slot 0 on each bank (e.g. onboard Memory Controller issues); which should be justification for warranty claim.

 

[Atwooooood]

I understand that, but if the ram runs fine in Slot 0, the primary ram slots, in any configuration except 4 gigs, would that indicate a faulty memory controller? I ask because i have two 1 gig modules that run fine in dual channel memory in Slots 0, the primary ones causing me problems, but with the two 2 gig modules i have running in dual channel in Slots 0, i get problems.

 

[Archean]

I think you meant 'slot 1' when you said that two modules run fine in dual channel mode.

I'd say yes (assuming the RAM is perfectly fine as you have ran memtest to check that).

 

[dividebyzero]

Some more info would likely help.....possibly
You say that the 2x2Gb kit work fine in the black slots (A2/B2) while the 2x1Gb kit works fine in the yellow slots (A1/B1). Moving the 2x2Gb to A1/B1 produces errors. My advice is keep the kits in a configuration that works. Reversing the order wouldn't gain you anything even if they also worked flawlessly.
The MCH is unlikely to be faulty if the voltage for both kits is identical (and set identically in the BIOS), likewise physical damage ( motherboard trace, DIMM slot/s, latch/es) as that would also show errors regardless of module density- as would power delivery (heavily OC'ed CPU/underpowered PSU).

Some RAM kits have the ability to work in one channel (DIMM set) while not working in the channel next to it. It happens. Likewise some boards can't tolerate having all four DIMM's populated even though the board is equipped with four slots.


You stated in reply to UT66's post regarding the IC's that the RAM were "identical". By identical you mean that the IC's are the same ? or are you working from a different definition?
Since you've stated you OC'ed the RAM to 1066 I assume the kit/s are DDR2-800? Correct?
Dominator heatspreaders....CM2X2048-6400C4DHX (Twin 2X4096-6400C4DHX) -if they were the C5 kit they likely wouldn't OC too well.
This kit uses PSC (Powerchips) memory IC's. For full compatibility, your 2x1Gb kit should be version 6.x. Any other revision (version) is likely to NOT be fully compatible- maybe not to the extent of non-working, but quite possibly throwing some data corruption errors into the mix at some stage. If your 2x1Gb kit is v1.x for example it will be using Micron IC's which differ from v2.x (ProMos IC's), v3.x (Samsung IC's), v4.x (Qimonda IC's) and v5.x (Elpida IC's).

Something else you could also check would be that the motherboard "Auto" settings for advanced timings are not equal across both channel A and B (easily checked by downloading Memset and comparing values for each module check the "SPD" button). I assume that people will set BIOS defaults when troubleshooting (i.e CPU at 333MHz core freq/1333 FSB and DDR2-667 @ 1.8v JEDEC, 1:1 divider) to eliminate a weak link in the memory control hub and allow the board to read/set the RAM's SPD just in case any setting has been modified. This is not always the case. If you aren't using thses values then maybe you should, before resetting the RAM to -800 @ 2.1v.

 

[Atwooooood]

The RAM sets that i have are CM2X1024-8500C5D and CM2X2048-8500C5D.

When troubleshooting i just always assumed to have the settings that were printed on the modules, so in the future i will try the recommended specs you mentioned.

The only reason i would like to get the A1/B1 slots working or replaced is because i plan on upgrading to win7 64 bit and will be putting more ram in the system and would like to not get any errors.