pgamble Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 Hi Having had an issue with 3200 memory from Corsair on my SLI-DR, I eventually switched to 4400 TwinX - 2 x 512MG and got everything working fine at stock settings. Everything ran fine for 6 months .... but I have started to experience system crashes recently. Nothing on the box had changed in the intervening time - no new s/w or hardware so something has begun to fail. Memtest and prime95 used to run for 24 hours without a hiccup .... so I started looking at them today. Prime failed on torture test almost straight away with 'hardware error'. I tried Memtest and it failed on Modulo 20, ones and zeros towards the end of the test. The first cycle failed at 967.8mb and second cycle at 1011.8mb. This would seem to suggest that one or both of the modules has begun to fail. They are probably 9 months old now and were purchased from Simply Computers in the UK - now Misco. Obviously Misco won't deal with a refund or replacement of a nine month old pair of modules. Can you let me know what I should do to get stable again asap. Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted October 31, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted October 31, 2005 Please try the following settings and let us know if it solves your issue. DRAM Voltage (also called DDR VOLTAGE): 2.80 -------------------- SDRAM CAS Latency: 2.5 SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 4 SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 4 SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 8 All other settings are motherboard defaults. Please let me know if you need further assistance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgamble Posted October 31, 2005 Author Share Posted October 31, 2005 Hi Ram Guy Tried these settings .... get same problem. The issue is here is that the machine was stable for 6 months at the stock settings. Over the last 3 weeks reboots have become more common until I finally got fed up with it and decided to run some of the tests again. Memtest did clear over 24 hours without problems when these sticks were originally installed. Now it will fail every time with Modulo 20, ones and zeros. To me ... it therefore means either the memory controller on the A64 is shot or one or both of the 4400s are failing. If it was the memory controller, it would probably affect more other tests .... so I'm assuming it's the RAM on the way out. Forgetting stress tests .... The machine can run for as long as 4 hours now without crashing or it can die doing nothing (aside from the many background processes) after only 5 minutes .... I think therefore one of the sticks is failing rather than dead. Comments please .... and hopefully details of how I can get this resolved quickly (and free of cost to me in the UK). Many thanks Paul. Please feel free to email me on the.gambles@btopenworld.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted October 31, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted October 31, 2005 When you test the modules are you testing with one stick at a time and in different slots? Please give that a try and let us know if one or both sticks still fail when inserted this way. We will be able to tell what is going on from this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgamble Posted November 2, 2005 Author Share Posted November 2, 2005 Manually set settings you gave inc DRAM voltage. SIMMs work individually. Together, they will now only work with 2t command rate. For the last six months they worked fine together at the same settings with 1t command rate. Clearly they are not working with the same tolerances they worked for in the first 6 months of their life. I don't believe I should have to accept 2t for these 'perf' sticks when I know they should work at 1t on my hardware with the given settings. What to do ? This is frustrating because it took 2 sets of 3200XL PTs failing to run stably at 1t on this motherboard and the initial 2 sets of 4400 C2s failing before I got a pair from Misco that worked fine. In addition I had specifically checked your website to ensure the 3200 and 4400 were recommended for the SLI-DR. Having run for 6 months, I now find once again that the recommended Corsair memory no longer works. It doesn't give me a good feeling. How can you arrange a simple refund or replacement (with something you're sure will work) for a loyal (to this point) customer who is in England. I don't want to get into the ridiculous situation of paying to post memory to the US and be without a PC for a week or more (realistically). Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted November 2, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted November 2, 2005 Paul, Command Rate is not a memory setting and is more dependent on CPU MB and PSU. What you have posted would suggest some other problem other than the memory. But I have no problem replacing your modules, but from what you have posted I am not sure that will solve the issue. Please follow the link in my signature “I think I have a bad part!” and we will be happy to replace them or it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgamble Posted November 3, 2005 Author Share Posted November 3, 2005 This is so confusing. I knew command rate with 4 sticks was a nasty timing issue that DFI appear to have resolved in an upcoming board but I understood that if you were having issues with a 1t command rate with only 2 sticks and stock settings it was normally down to 'cheap' memory. The problem is here is that the motherboard companies always blame the memory for this problem. The memory people are blaming CPU/MB/PSU. What is clear is that I could Prime and memtest for 24 hours without errors at 1t for 6 months. Now the PC crashes doing 'nothing', prime fails within seconds and memtest modulo20 ones and zeros fails. The only way I can stop memtest failing now is to step down to 2t. It looks like memory .... if you believe it is not then I need a rationale as to why this particular test fails at 1t when it didn't before and what exactly I should look at on the CPU / mb / PSU to determine if they are at fault. Please understand, I'm quite prepared to believe it is something else, but without something compelling it seems unlikely. The other concern which hasn't been answered is that I had this command rate issue with multiple SLI-DRs with 2 lots of 3200XLPT and 2 lots of 4400 before finding this lot that worked for 6 months. This again points to memory. Can you explain it ? If I do go ahead with a replacement I need it to be done out of the UK ... so who are you official distributors and who do I contact. It is not practical and I'm sure against sales of goods for me to send them back to the US. I'm sure you'll understand that the reseller will no longer process a rapid replacement .... they will send the parts on to someone else and I'm then left without a working PC for weeks. Paul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted November 3, 2005 Corsair Employee Share Posted November 3, 2005 Paul, This is a limitation of the memory controller in the CPU and has nothing to do with the MB. DFI or any one may be able to work around this limitation by changing something else in the bios but it will have to slow the memory down with 4 modules no matter what they do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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