Crucial Ballistix 2x1GB PC4000 kit gone bad (merged)

[MoodyDragon]

1.

I am not placing the burden of responsibility on anyone and this is not up for debate... If you want to OC the computer and run faster, higher clocks then it is up to you or anybody else to do what is necessary to keep everything running smoothly.

 

Now, I have ran that memory on the DFI NF4 Ultra-d SLI at 250MHz and prime95 for the past 5 days and it passed.

 

Mr CrucialLabs;0) I never even got around to OCing the memory. Was running everything 'optimized' to default settings. I have four fans in x2 configuration pusihng/pulling air in and out of the case... so the memory was certainly not overheating..

 

In any case, I may have spoken too soon that cooling the memory stopped the problems. ... They came back with a vengeance after the first day.

 

The tech support/customer service at Crucial is great. However there is certainly something wrong with this batch/memory.

[rottendumpling]

1. I would be the first to say when I buy high performance memory it better work at rated speeds out of the box as long as all of my other hardware will function there too. I did not imply the memory would not.

 

2. The heat spreaders are there for a reason; 1. for dissipating the heat and keep the memory cooler. 2. looks.

 

I am not placing the burden of responsibility on anyone and this is not up for debate... If you want to OC the computer and run faster, higher clocks then it is up to you or anybody else to do what is necessary to keep everything running smoothly.

 

Now, I have ran that memory on the DFI NF4 Ultra-d SLI at 250MHz and prime95 for the past 5 days and it passed.

 

It's all relative I suppose. I was making a point about the modules running at stock spec without cooling -- clearly I stated that if a user wished to OC they should take precaution.

 

Regardless, it's good to have official support from Crucial here; your presence and effort to help us resolve this is very much appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[Yankee]

Up until now I'm counting 25 (!) users with dead sticks or at the very least sticks that put out memtest errors. Compare that to 4 users that have no problems. There definately seems to a bad batch of ballistix out there.

 

You can't just count the ppl in this thread. Remember, this is a forum to solve problems. Normally people don't come here just to say "Hey, this stuff works great!"

You're only going to see the people having problems, so keep that in mind while reading here. Again, you can't just say these Crucial sticks are bad just because others are having problems. If you did that, then every DFI board would be 'bad' because that is the component that 90% of the people in this forum have a problem with.

[Ballistix]

Up until now I'm counting 25 (!) users with dead sticks or at the very least sticks that put out memtest errors. Compare that to 4 users that have no problems. There definately seems to a bad batch of ballistix out there.

Make that 5 users with no problems...

[deathman20]

Well might as well add possibley me off the list of bad sticks. Doing some retesting.

 

Switched back to orange slots again (was giving me issues before) with the 704-2bta bios

Running 6-23-3 bios

2.8V 3-3-3-8 timings rest default and tref on auto

 

Doing mem test now @ 290 and its working so far, and I know I definatly got errors before test 3 finished and definatly test 4. Rams running cooler then it was in yellow slots, about 2-3C.

 

Guess time will tell of how this is going, waiting for a new cpu currently also, jumping onto a Opteron 170

[fullfat]

You can't just count the ppl in this thread. Remember, this is a forum to solve problems. Normally people don't come here just to say "Hey, this stuff works great!"

 

exactly, im sure theres ALOT more people out there that have had no problems what so ever.

[deathman20]

Well 3 Passes completed on this im convinced right now....

 

GENIE BIOS Setting

FSB BUS Frequency....................290

DRAM Voltage Control.................2.8V

 

GENIE BIOS Setting >DRAM Configuration

DRAM Frequency Set (MHZ).............200 (DRAM/FSB:1/01)

Command per clock (CPC)..............Enabled

Cas latency (tCL)....................3

RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)..............3

Min RAS active time (tRAS)...........8

Row precharge time (tRP).............3

Row cycle time (tRC).................8

Row refresh cycle time(tRFC).........12

Row to Row delay (tRRD)..............2

Write recovery time (tWR)............2

Write to read delay (tWTR)...........2

Read to write delay (tRWT)...........3

Refresh period (tREF)................Auto

Write CAS latency (tWCL).............Auto

DRAM Bank Interleave.................Enabled

 

DQS Skew Control.....................Auto

DQS Skew Value.......................0

DRAM Drive Strength..................Auto

DRAM Data Drive Strength.............Auto

Max Async Latency....................Auto

Dram Response........................Normal

Read Preamble Time...................Auto

Idle Cycle Limit.....................256 Cycles

Dynamic Counter......................Disabled

R/W Queue Bypass.....................16x

Bypass Max...........................7x

32 Byte Granularity..................Disable (4 Bursts)

 

Bandwidth sucks at these settings 6300MB/s But yet I can't set it tighter without it crashing. Guess lower it be.

[Diverge]

I'm having trouble with my ballistix as well. Since upgrading to a socket 939 system, they haven't like 2 different motherboards (RDX200 or nF4 eXpert) and then haven't liked 2 different cpus (opteron 146 and opteron 170). I'm begining to think they have gone bad. They have acted up in my old nF3 system too, once in a blue moon the PC would not post with them in.. and i'd use my old muskins for a while, then a day or 2 later i'd retry them and they'd work again.

 

the nf3 is a socket 754, so they were never run in a dual channel system until recently. I'm thinking of rmaing them back to newegg, but i don't think i want ballistix anymore, after seeing all the issues people are have with them. Next time i am going ocz, or if i can get newegg to exchange them for ocz's i will.

[jetjaguar]

i had no problems with these sticks in my sli-dr with the 704-BTA bios .. but on the dfi expert with my opty 150 .. its a nightmare .. super pi just freezes or gives me not in round ..

 

i hear the drive strength and data drive strength are the key .. but cant seem to figure it out ..

 

anyone here running these sticks with the dfi expert board ?? can u please share ur timings .. etc

[axium]

I give up. Ive tried 3 different bios versions (latest official, 623-3, 704-2bt), every setting imaginable and these sticks wont even boot properly. Time to rma. :/

[deathman20]

i hear the drive strength and data drive strength are the key .. but cant seem to figure it out ..

 

Ya trying to find out the same thing to increase my bandwidth. But not much luck either in my books, but trying different things out.

 

But would you guys suspect if I was running something similar to this?

 

290FSB with loose settings basically running roughly 6300MB/sec in Sandra and Everest, but Sciencemark is showing 6,700-6,800MB/sec for speed

 

270FSB not touching the top settings, just the lower ones on the memory page, I was able to get 6300MB/sec in Sandra and Everest also, and Sciencemark what ya know 6,700-6,800MB/sec.

 

So now I'm really confused? What the heck did I change that would make so much difference between the 2 scores?

[randominator]

You can't just count the ppl in this thread. Remember, this is a forum to solve problems. Normally people don't come here just to say "Hey, this stuff works great!"

 

I agree with your point, nothing is just and black or white like that. Well, not all come here to solve problems - some also just come to brag about their ridiculously high overclocks

 

But my point is more this: I haven't found other threads about faulty memory sticks on the board with so many people having more or less the same problem with the same memory, and all within a short timespan.

 

This seems to indicate that at the very least the combination of a DFI board and 2x1 gig ballistix sticks seems to be more fault-prone configuration than any other I have seen around here. You could probably find a thread with more than 25 people complaining about faulty OCZ mem of some kind, but there appears to be a much larger fraction of people using OCZ mem here in the first place, and so the relative failure rate is probably much higher with these ballistix sticks than any other I have read about so far.

 

Even if there 225 other people here on the forum with no problem with their 2x1 gig ballistix (and I doubt that there are that many - 2x1 gig is not that common yet), it still means you have an apparent 10% chance of ram failure, which at least to me is unacceptably high.

 

Nevertheless, I sincerely hope that everybodys ballistix problems get solved soon.