paolilla Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 I have just bought a new PC (details in the drop-down). I have the suspect that I've been sold second choice (i.e. partly fake) memory components. Facts: The type of memory which is installed is CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9, which should be 8Gb modules, however, as the tests show, (see figure below) I have 4 modules of 4Gb each! (16Gb in total) Besides, the same test show that the max Bandwidth is 667Mhz, and the Frequency is in the range between 444-800 Mhz, while it should be 1333Mhz (as I set in the Bios). Questions: 1. Can you confirm my suspect? 2. Is it reasonable to suppose that these modules are defective and are at the origin of several BSOD (0x07f UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP parm1: 0x08) of my new machine? (for completeness, I run a memtest86+ and it did not find any error) Thanks, Paolo http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg526/scaled.php?server=526&filename=corsairramtest.jpg&res=medium Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garvin Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 is the designation for the 2x4 GB kit, total 8GB's. 667Mhz is correct for the clockgen signal. DDR, DDR2, and DDR3 RAM runs at twice what ever the clock gen signal is, hence your RAM is running at 1333Mhz. Generic chioces for ddr3 RAM would have either 1066 or 1333 in their designation, not 1600. When you bought the system did they tell you that it would come equiped with 32GB of RAM (4x8) or 16GB of RAM (2x8 or 4x4)? The RAM you have is not "second choice" grade. Since the RAM passed Memtest, I doubt the RAM is to blame. You forgot to include what power supply and what monitor you are using in your system specifications, so it's going to be hard to give advice. I suspect the blue screens are being generated by the NVidia driver package that's installed, usually the HD audio part of the driver package. Folks with the 460, 470, 480, 560ti, and 570 gtx models are having lots of problems. For the 560ti anything past 275.33 can be problematic, ie Blue Screens, System lockups, Windows dropping to using generic VGA drivers, automatic reboots, automatic shutdowns, ect. There's quite a few threads on the subject over at the NVidia, EVGA, and MSI forums detailing workaround solutions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 FYI, that screen shot does NOT show you how many sticks you have, only how many SPD / XMP profiles are on the stick in slot # 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paolilla Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 Thanks Garvin, let me check a couple of other questions. 1. Today I twicked the BIOS and set RAM at X.M.P. with target speed at 1600Mhz. However the System Info still shows the 667Mhz Max Bandwidth. Isn't it strange? 2. When you bought the system did they tell you that it would come equiped with 32GB of RAM (4x8) or 16GB of RAM (2x8 or 4x4)? The machine was originally offered with 16Gb of RAM! No further specification was given about the combination of modules... 3. You forgot to include what power supply and what monitor you are using in your system specifications, so it's going to be hard to give advice. I suspect the blue screens are being generated by the NVidia driver package that's installed, usually the HD audio part of the driver package. Folks with the 460, 470, 480, 560ti, and 570 gtx models are having lots of problems. The tech pages at Microsoft say that for my type of BSOD RAM is usually responsible... Given that there is an inconsistency between the declaration and what tests say about my RAM modules, my suspect is reinforced. However I'll also definitely check with NVIDIA and their forums. My system details have been updated. 4. For the 560ti anything past 275.33 can be problematic, ie Blue Screens, System lockups,... What do you exactly mean with "anything past 275.33"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 1. No. SPD is a STATIC setting, not an actual setting. If you ran the memory @ 5 MILLION MHz (obviously not possible), the SPD settings won't change. 2. Download CPU-Z and look at the Memory tab. 4. 275.33 is a video driver version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paolilla Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 FYI, that screen shot does NOT show you how many sticks you have, only how many SPD / XMP profiles are on the stick in slot # 4. Thank Wired, I realized that... That screen is useful to see that there is an incosistency between declaration (8Gb) and physical quantity observed (4Gb). The same incosistency repeats also for sticks 1, 2, and 3. :bigeyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Actually it's not useful for that at all. The part number is on each stick indicating that it's a part of that kit. Since you have 4 sticks, each showing a module size of 4 GB, you do indeed have 16 GB of memory. HOWEVER, it appears that they put TWO CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 kits in the same system which is not recommended. If I were you I'd insist on the system builder replacing the two 8 GB kits with ONE 16 GB kit, as there's no way to guarantee that 2 kits will work well with each other since they haven't been tested together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paolilla Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 Actually it's not useful for that at all. The part number is on each stick indicating that it's a part of that kit. Since you have 4 sticks, each showing a module size of 4 GB, you do indeed have 16 GB of memory. HOWEVER, it appears that they put TWO CMZ8GX3M 2A1600C9 kits in the same system which is not recommended. If I were you I'd insist on the system builder replacing the two 8 GB kits with ONE 16 GB kit, as there's no way to guarantee that 2 kits will work well with each other since they haven't been tested together. I'll open the case and take a picture... For the moment believe me, I have 4 physical sticks on my mboard... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Why would you take a pic? I already stated you have proof that you have 4 sticks and so did you. There's nothing to prove to anyone. To rephrase what I said, they sold you TWO 8 GB kits, each consisting of 2 sticks. Therefore you have 4 sticks. HOWEVER, the two kits haven't been tested or guaranteed to work with each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paolilla Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 Thanks Wired, I see the misunderstanding. I was convinced that the CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 memory kit consisted of 1 physical 8Gb module... (not 2 of 4Gb). :!: I checked on the Corsair site and indeed they report that the Package Contents consists of Two 4GB memory modules. This vanishes much (not to say all) of my original suspect, but leaves me with the problem of explaining the consistent BSODs hitting my PC... Anyway this now is a new story. Best, Paolo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted November 17, 2011 Corsair Employee Share Posted November 17, 2011 I would make sure than you have the latest BIOS version installed and install just one module and load setup defaults and then enable XMP; then run http://www.memtest.org on the modules one at a time and with some ASUS MB's you have to disable legacy USB when running any memory test. And let the test run at least 3-5 passes per module. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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