CMX2048-8500C5D Bad???

Greetings,

 

I was wondering if one of you smart folks could help me with an instability problem. I have the Ga-ep45t-ud3p with 4g Corsair cmx 8500c5 dominators and intel e8500 cpu. Have had the setup for over a year and except for having to replace the ram about 8 months ago, (RMA to Corsair) it has worked great until about 3 weeks ago. I started having random problems-blue screens, freezes, application hangs. Most of the faults appear to relate to memory but not always. I have memtested with v2.11 and now with v4.00 but the results are far from consistent. Immediately after a crash I will get thousands of errors but other times the memory will test fine. This when testing both sticks at the same time. I have tested each stick seperately and have yet to get an error that way but I have only let it run a few passes. I have deleted and reinstalled all network, audio and graphics drivers. Bio is F7 currently set to optimized defaults. I am right now testing one stick in mem86+ on the 3rd pass with no errors. The instability might happen after a day, an hour a minute...no real pattern. Here's why I think memory. I dont have another board to test them in but I do have a spare 4g set of ******** dimms that I picked up along the way. They are 1066 as well but spec at 7-7-7-24 at 1.8v. When I run the rig with those installed... all good. Very stable. No errors. I've also run Prime 95 overnight twice with the Corsairs. Passed once-failed once after 4 hours--rounding error.

I would love to hear what ya'll might think. Also any advice for bios setup. Wish I could tell more but that's all I can think of.

 

Thanks

John

 

I posted this over on TweakTown forums as well.

You are not alone jtypeb, there's a thread on this issue here:

 

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83351

 

At this time the only solution I have seen that apparently works (provided at the ASUS forums) is to change the ram to a different type: The person who has recommended I do this has not had the problem re-occur since.

I read that thread just prior to posting. I almost posted there but decided to start my own. Thought I might get better help.

 

Sure seems odd though, the symptoms match my own almost exactly.

 

I mentioned in my 1st post I had 1 stick testing in mem86+. Reporting that I left it in overnight and was not suprised to see no errors ater 16 hrs and 33 passes. I just put the other stick in and will let it run but my past test have produced no problems so that's what I expect will happen.

 

Is there any bios config I shoud try to get these stable or should we just RMA and hope for better luck?

 

Thanks for helping

I have tried just about every bios setting I can think of: From the 'safe' automatic setting (no EPP, just the standard 800Mhz SPD) to manually entered ones for 1066 and 800, different voltages, etc, no luck: At first all looks well, ram will pass memtest (but only from a cold boot, not after a crash) and windows loads with no issues, but after a random amount of time (usually a few hours) the BSOD occurs again and I have to start all over.

 

What is clear to me is that once this problem kicked in after 2 months of complete stability running the automatic EPP profile it will not go away at all, no matter what settings we attempt to correct it.

 

Now you can RMA the ram and will likely find your system will seem stable again with the replacements, but all reports indicate that the problem will occur again within a few months and you are back to square one.

 

As it seems Corsair are not going to acknowledge this issue is an inherent problem with the ram the best option may well be to go buy something else.

Buying new memory right now is not an appetizing thought. I can't believe the current prices! This is very disappointing. I've had several sets of Corsairs over the years. Thankfully they are good about honoring their warrany as I've had to return several. This sucks though. Nothing worse than working with a computer wondering when the next time it's gonna fail. Sure hope they get it worked out. I just the other day completed another build I'm starting to use with the i5-750 and 4gigs of CMD4GX3M2A1600C8. So far so good. Hope they remain stable. Speaking of ram prices, I bought the DDR3's listed above at Newegg just over a week ago at $96US. Not a special sale price. Looked em up a minute ago...$135US. YIKES!!!

 

Back to this issue though...I completed the memtest on the 2nd single stick and ran 10 passes with no errors. That is consistent with what I saw before. I havent yet put the Corsairs back in it though..still using the other dimms. Stable

 

The moderator at TweakTown forums gave me some settings to try but I'm gonna wait a day or two before putting them back in. I guess that's the luxury of having other computers in the house. 3 on my desk alone. I'm hoping Ramguy or one of the good people here has something they'd like to offer in the way of solving. I would eagerly apply any settings they thought would work.

 

Thanks for listening...And helping

John

I have just reinstalled the Corsair ram back into my system. I ran 2 passes memtest with both sticks in place prior to booting for the 1st time. No errors. Ram timings are set manually now based on the info I got from Lsemeasap over at the TweakTown forum. Until now I have always allowed all timing setting to be 'Auto'. As you know I have another set of 2x2g ram from vendor X. These have been in for the last 3 days and I have not had any trouble. I'm hoping the settings I'm trying will work well. I'll keep you posted.

 

I have attached the settings I'm using. Please comment as you see fit.

Template1.txt

I'm thinking it's gotta be the Dominators. Errors have started again. After 36 hours running OK it started with an application hang in IE Explorer, hang in Steam game, then windows explorer wouldn't respond, then event viewer wouldn't respond, then shut down wouldn't work resulting in a black screen. Powered off with switch. Ran memtest when powered back up but before trying to boot. Ran 3 passes with both sticks in. 24 errors in test #5 but only on the 1st pass. 2nd and 3rd pass error free.

 

Ramguy? Yellowbeard?? Wired??? Anyone?????

Your symptoms are pretty much the same as many others. You will probably find that after turning your PC off fully (pulling the power cord and discharging residual power from the board by pressing and holding the power button with the cord out) you will not get errors from memtest and windows will load ok and seem fine...for a spell. This can last for several hours before a crash happens again and you have to go through the above again (a direct restart after a crash results in Windows 7 having problems loading and more BSOD's here).

 

My best guess is something in the sticks fails after a while (about a couple of months typically) leading to it having major problems handling power when they have been in use for several hours. I figure something on them slowly gets overloaded, reaches a point where the ram goes corrupt, and will stay that way until all power is cleared from the board and sticks.

 

This I think would explain why we see memtest errors from direct reboots and none from cold boots, but I guess only Corsair will be able to confirm if something like this is the problem (assuming they will look into into it..Officially it seems they are sticking to the line that it is anything but the ram that is the problem).

I posted in a different area of the forum a couple of weeks ago. See post # 429916. The only responses I've received are from guys who maintain my problems stem from some inherent design problem with the cmx2048-8500cd modules that I own. I'm not convinced that is necessarily the case but I have not heard otherwise from anyone from Corsair on the matter. I am certain the memory is not working correctly in my system though and wonder if you have any advice on settings I could try? Should I apply for replacements? What's the next step?

 

Thanks

Now you have the problem you almost certainly will not find any setting that can fix it (I've not seen any working solution yet and I have looked long and hard), so your next step should be to RMA the ram.

I'm afraid you're probably right MarkKelly. I got the RMA approved today so sending them back.