RAM Question: One in Yellow, One in Orange

[technosmurf]

I recently built a system using a 2x1gb kit of OCZ EB Plats and an DFI expert and, as advised to do so, put both sticks into the orange slots. I had trouble installing windows due to stalling, crashing, so then I took out the one stick closest to the cpu and left the other one inside the orange dimm farthest away from the CPU. After that it worked perfectly, unfortunately I really wanted to ake use of that extra stick I had taken out before and decided to try placing it back in such a way that it would register both dimms of ram and not crash on me. After a few combo's and a few fun no posts, I finally got the board to accept both sticks using a combo of one stick in the orange slot farthest from the CPU and one stick in the yellow slot farthest from the CPU. From what I've read over here its a pretty unusual combination. By doing this am I hurting the performance of the ram in my system, and if its possible is there a way I can check to see if it is?

[Sharp]

Hello,

 

Running in single channel mode 1GB vs running in single channel mode 2x1GB

There will be a performance drop but probably not much.

 

Use benchmark programs like the ones listed in my Sig.

 

Something else to try.

Flash to the latest bios.

http://us.dfi.com.tw/Support/Download/bios..._FLAG=A&SITE=US

 

After the flash, turn the pc off

Clear the CMOS for 10mins

Place memory in orange slots

 

Power the pc and run memtest.

If it still does not work, try the yellow slots and run memtest.

 

And if that does not work we will move on to adjusting the memory timings.

[technosmurf]

Thanks for the quick reply, though you caught me at work before

 

I flashed the latest bios and ran memtest. The ram seems to do well in memtest in both the orange slots (8-9 passes no errors), however during gaming freezes and reboots would occur. This, along with the fact that I couldnt install windows with that configuration, prompted me to find this new solution which utilizes both the yellow and orange slots. From what I've read here (correct me if I'm wrong), my particular type of ram's stability is measured through tasks such as gaming and memtest wont necessarily pick up errors which could cause gaming to fail. Anyways any suggestions you have of how to proceed would be much appreciated

[Praz]

If your EB sticks are not faulty the only reason they would be unstable in 3d apps is the timings are set to tight/improperly or the frequency is set to high.

[technosmurf]

Update: I paid a visit to the OCZ stock database and applied their settings (well most of them). For now it seems to be working, I got both sticks in orange slots and havent had a problem yet about games crashing/freezing yet (well at least in the first 5 minutes like before, didnt play for a long enough period).

 

Now that I think they're stable, any way to test them out?

[red930]

Update: I paid a visit to the OCZ stock database and applied their settings (well most of them). For now it seems to be working, I got both sticks in orange slots and havent had a problem yet about games crashing/freezing yet (well at least in the first 5 minutes like before, didnt play for a long enough period).

 

Now that I think they're stable, any way to test them out?

 

Well, besides running a few passes of tests #5 and #8 in memtest, you should probably first run Superpi 32M, and then run Prime95 'custom' setting with 700MB devoted to each core. It passes 12 hours of that, I'd say you're golden.

[Guest mars]

Update: I paid a visit to the OCZ stock database and applied their settings (well most of them). For now it seems to be working, I got both sticks in orange slots and havent had a problem yet about games crashing/freezing yet (well at least in the first 5 minutes like before, didnt play for a long enough period).

 

Now that I think they're stable, any way to test them out?

In windows, Super Pi is a good place to start. Download and install and try 1M then 2M all the way through to 32M. If you pass 32M, this is a good sign.

 

The real stability test is Prime95. If you want to be 100% sure that you are stable, run for 24hrs. No errors 24hrs prime95 is a stable rig!