Art Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 RamGuy I have four sticks of CMX512-3200C2 in a Gigabyte 8KNXP MBO for a total of 2GB of RAM.. One will fail Memtest plus Microsoft Memory Diagnostic. That stick, installed by itself, will not boot. I know I can RMA that defective stick and have it replaced. However I would like to upgrade to 4GB's of RAM at the same time. Can I RMA all four 512MB sticks and have them replaced with four 1GB sticks? I understand that I would have to pay for three of the sticks at hopefully a prorated price, but that is fine. If this is doable what RAM model would you recommend I upgrade with? I need something at least as good as what I currently have, plus be robust as I do a significant amount of graphic and video work. A problem I have is sending all the RAM at once. That leaves me without a PC for who knows how long. Can we send each other the RAM simultaneously? Actually I would have to wait for the new RAM to arrive first. I understand that I would have to pay for that up front and be credited later. Again that is acceptable. A related concern deals with a possible conflict. I had 2 or 3 sticks (I think 3) replaced ~2004 when I first got this PC. Since then it has worked perfectly except for when I would occasionally run Memtest. Test #5 (as I recall) would always fail with all four sticks inserted. Any one or two would work fine. I did not worry about it as the system ran fine. In pulling the RAM for this problem I did notice something that perhaps you could shed some light on. Three of the four sticks have the following label........ CMX512-3200C2 XMS 3202V3.1 0411108-0 XMS3200 512MB 400MHZ CL2 One stick has the following label..... CMX512-3200C2 XMS 3202V3.1 0411115-0 XMS3200 512MB 400MHZ CL2 Is that one odd number significant? Could that be causing a conflict and result in the Memtest Test #5 failure? Thank you Art Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted July 19, 2012 Corsair Employee Share Posted July 19, 2012 I would suggest you submit the RMA and let me know the RMA # and will send you a message on what the replacement options would be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted July 20, 2012 Author Share Posted July 20, 2012 The RMA number is....... 4863755 On the RMA request I entered 4 as the number of sticks I was returning. In actual fact only one of my four is bad. The remaining three I want to upgrade to 1GB sticks from the current 512MB.. I hope that does not confuse anyone. I also did not enter the card S/N nor the lot numbers as I did not know what they were. On reflection I'm guessing those are the red numbers on the card labels mentioned in my original post. So you have them if you need them. Looking forward to your suggestions. Also please tell me how many and which cards I should send back to you. Thank you for your help and time so far. Art Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted July 20, 2012 Corsair Employee Share Posted July 20, 2012 I am sorry I cannot promise that we will upgrade you, however I would suggest getting them all replaced so they all match. But once you have the RMA conformation I would strongly suggest calling our customer service by phone and see what the replacement options are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted July 27, 2012 Author Share Posted July 27, 2012 I took your advice and called Customer Service. They sent me four 1GB sticks in exchange for my four 512MB sticks at no cost to me provided I send my old Ram back. Four pieces of 1GB CMC2GX1M2A400CS arrived today to replace my CMS512-3200C2. I ran one pass Memtest 86 and Memtest 86+ with no failures. As I mentioned in an earlier post Test #5 would always fail. So the bottom line is that I am happy with the overall experience. I want to again thank you for your advice and Corsair for excellent Customer Service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted July 27, 2012 Corsair Employee Share Posted July 27, 2012 Np Thanks for letting me know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Tweaker Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 Three of the four sticks have the following label........ CMX512-3200C2 XMS 3202V3.1 0411108-0 XMS3200 512MB 400MHZ CL2 One stick has the following label..... CMX512-3200C2 XMS 3202V3.1 0411115-0 XMS3200 512MB 400MHZ CL2 Is that one odd number significant? Could that be causing a conflict and result in the Memtest Test #5 failure? The numbers you highlighted in red are not particularly significant, and would not cause your issue. Those are just the lot codes indicating when they were made, the significant numbers would be the model number and version number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted August 15, 2012 Author Share Posted August 15, 2012 I spoke too soon. One stick of the four CMC2GX1M2A400CS I received went bad after one week. Memtest failed a single stick at 3-3-3-8 and 2.5, 2.6, & 2.7V. I RMA'd the two sets and received replacements which leads to my question. When I received the first two sets I ran one pass of Memtest at the SPD settings of 3-3-3-8 and DIMM voltage of 2.5V (Bios DIMM Voltage set to "normal" on Gigabyte 8KNXP mbo is 2.5V). That test ran without error. It wasn't until a week later that the system began to exhibit problems which pointed to RAM. When I received the second set today I ran the same Memtest test at 3-3-3-8 and 2.5V. It failed test 4,5,6 before I stopped it. This time the errors did not run into the 30,000+. I adjusted the DIMM voltage in bios to +0.1 (2.6V) and reran Memtest. The test ran for two complete passes in 1:59:12 without failure. The question: Is that my correct settings: 3-3-3-8 and 2.6V? I see references to setting this RAM to 2.75V on the forum. Should I leave my voltage at 2.6V because it seems stable there? Or should I increase/decrease it? I have no interest in overclocking. I just want a nice, stable, nominal system. Of secondary interest, what would be a good number of passes to run of Memtest to insure stable RAM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted August 15, 2012 Corsair Employee Share Posted August 15, 2012 I would have the MB checked from what you have posted and I would also test the modules in another system to be sure they are really failing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted August 16, 2012 Author Share Posted August 16, 2012 All is well again, I hope. Today I returned the DIMM voltage back to the default of 2.5V. I used the SPD settings of 3-3-3--8. Ran Memtest for 4 1/2 hours up to Pass 4 and 96% of Test 8. There were no failures. All four 4GB sticks were inserted. I am satisfied that I have a stable system. When I initially ran Memtest the day before at 2.5V I saw minimal failures. As I recall there were 5 or 6, not the thousands one normally sees to indicate a serious problem. At the time I arbitrarily set the DIMM voltage to 2.6V to see if that made a difference. It did, as Memtest executed flawlessly. I did not know what to make of that hence my previous post. I would add that I did nothing physical, such as re-seat cards, etc. I simply changed DIMM voltage in BIOS back to 2.5V and it started to work?????? I feel very certain that one stick of the initial two sets I received did go bad after a weeks use. I ran Memtest on each stick individually and as Murphys Law dictates it was the last stick I inserted that was bad. Further, after Memetest failed that stick by itself would not allow a system boot. After re-seating that stick and allowing it to cool down for awhile, Memtest would boot up but fail every time. Again I want to thank you for your time and your advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted August 16, 2012 Corsair Employee Share Posted August 16, 2012 I would set the memory Voltage to 2.6 to 2.7 Volts with all four slots filled and you may have to set the memory frequency to DDR333. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted August 16, 2012 Author Share Posted August 16, 2012 If I read you correctly, you are suggesting that I run with 2.6 or 2.7V rather than 2.5V even though I seem to be OK at 2.5V. I'm guessing that's because with 4 slots filled that would cause a bigger voltage drop which a higher voltage should compensate for. Even though 2.5V is OK I might be on he hairy edge and 2.6V would give better stability. As you suggest, I will increase the DIMM voltage to 2.6V. I would rather not reduce the memory frequency to DDR333 for obvious reasons, performance. But if I must, I will. I assume by that you mean if 2.6 or 2.7V does not produce stability that I might consider DR333. Correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted August 17, 2012 Corsair Employee Share Posted August 17, 2012 The memory Voltage I agree only add what you need to make the system stable. And for the memory frequency when all four slots are filled DDR333 was suggested by Intel and Gigabyte. Now you are welcome to do what ever you like; But for testing we can only guarantee the modules as they are packaged, IE: one at a time or as a set of two modules! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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