briank2 Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 I started out fine building the system shown in my signature about 2 weeks ago. I ran memtest86 each night for several nights with no errors. That was using stock SPD timings. I then switched over to 2.5-3-3-6 and again ran memtest86 without error overnight. Everything ran very clean and fast. I ran superPi 1M in 46 seconds! This all on stock cooling (temps all below 55C). Last night, I was getting an XP pop-up saying it could not read memory at address xxxxx, and either blue screen or kill the active program. It did this a few times. I gave up for the night and powered off the system. It did this a few times before yesterday, but I chalked it up as a bug in HL2, and didn't relate it to possible bad memory. This morning I tried starting the system and it complained about HAL.DLL being corrupt. At first, it sounded like the hard drive was corrupted. But the memory errors stuck in my mind. I ran memtest86 and received hundreds of errors in tests 3, 4, and 5 consistently. The memory locations always ended in 4664, scattered throughout the 512MB range. It always occured on bit 00400000 or bit 00800000 of the test. I moved the memory into the other banks, and received similar errors (except the last four digits were always 399c). I received these errors with 3-3-3-8 timings. I already filled out the RMA form with NewEgg and shipped the memory stick off for replacement, so I can't test anything at the moment (sorry, but I wanted to get it running by Christmas). After looking through this forum, I just wanted confirmation that it is a bad stick and not something else (like a bad CPU/MB?). Funny how it ran flawlessly for a few weeks and then consistently is now giving errors. The only things I didn't try were to manually set the memory voltage or reduce the FSB speed. Both were set to Auto in the BIOS. After I shipped it, I looked for several hours in these forums and did not find any reference to this motherboard/memory combination having issues like I experienced. Thanks for listening! -Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 Welcome to the forums! Short answer: maybe :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briank2 Posted December 19, 2004 Author Share Posted December 19, 2004 I understand there are many factors. So let me ask a different question... Should I expect to be able to run flawlessly at 2.5-3-3-6 at 2.75/2.8V @ 200MHz with this motherboard/CPU? Are the majority of people who have this combination working fine? I know there are always recommendations to slow things down to make it work, but as others pointed out, that's not why I bought XMS memory. I bought Corsair because they seem to be the best, and I figured I could build this system, run it at manufacturer specs, and it would be extremely stable. I'm certainly going to try again with Corsair, since there can be a bad piece of hardware even for the best makers. Is there anything I should do when I get the replacement stick, besides running memtest86 for a while? Unfortunately I dont have another newer/high end system to try swapping part with. I'm upgrading from a P3 1GHz... BTW, I haven't ruled out that it's the CPU or MB. If I get very similar errors on the same memory locations when I get the replacement part, there could be a bad etch on the MB or CPU problem. Thanks! -Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 Yep, those settings are the rated timings, and as such are guaranteed by Corsair. Tough to guess what's causing it though while the memory's away. Interested in the result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briank2 Posted December 19, 2004 Author Share Posted December 19, 2004 Well, at least I have some confirmation that HL2 would generate those memory read errors. For those who may come across this thread here, look at: http://www.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=207065&perpage=15&pagenumber=1 This still doesn't account for the consistent memtest86 errors, the similar errors when I never started HL2, and the HAL.DLL corruption message. I'll post more when I get the replacement RAM and test it out. Can anyone tell me if all the errors having the same last 4 digits in the memory address, and the problem being specific bits not getting set to 1, would indicate a problem with a chip/pin on the memory stick? I'm not a memory guru by any means, but isn't memory banked/addressed in some way to make this plausible? -Brian P.S. Could HL2 have killed my RAM??? I didn't have any problems until I loaded it and started playing. I played FarCry for days before I tried HL2, so I was stressing the system prior to HL2. I didn't get the memory read error in FC, just when I powered up my system to surf the Internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 HL can't fry your memory, however it may have messed up windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted December 20, 2004 Corsair Employees Share Posted December 20, 2004 What slots do you have the modules in and what do you have the dim voltage set too? I would suggest slots 2-3 and set the Dim Voltage to 2.7 Volts, in addition, I would test them one at a time with http://www.memtest.org to be sure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briank2 Posted December 30, 2004 Author Share Posted December 30, 2004 I received a new stick last Thursday. I ran it with memtest86 using 2.5-3-3-6 at 2.75V for 77 full passes without a single error. It also ran SuperPi 1M in 40 seconds! I ran prime95 overnight and it also had zero errors. The system seems very stable and I have not had a single glitch. BTW, it's in slot 1. I only have a single stick. Should I leave it at 2.75 or reduce it down to 2.7? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted December 30, 2004 Corsair Employees Share Posted December 30, 2004 Sounds like you have it under control. We warrantee them up to 2.9 Volts so you are fine at 2.75 Volts. Just don’t go over 2.9 Volts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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