Ballistix Tracers - Weird LED problem

[Geekasaurus]

Hi everyone. My first post on Anandtech! Wow!

Ok I have 2 dual channel 2x1gb Crucial Ballistix Tracers DDR2-1000 which I bought from two different sources from the US (I am in New Zealand).

When the first pair arrived, I plugged them into my Gigabyte 965P-DQ6 and went ga-ga over the LED's.

HOWEVER only TWO LED's would light up at one time on each stick.

I thought that this may be my motherboard etc and didn't give it much thought till today - which is when the second set of Tracers arrived.

I plugged these in as well and the LED's go all crazy when active - and from my understanding thats the way they are supposed to behave. :shocked:

Now I am wondering whats wrong with my first set? The whole system is working 100% stable with no issues as well.

Also the LED's on the "Weird" set are not random and seem to follow a cycle. i.e. the LED's will illuminate one by one going upwards and then return to the bottom and start the cycle again.

I can probably explain a lot better with this pic:

http://img178.imageshack.us/my...?image=dsc06076si7.jpg

I have swapped the DIMM's around, and put them in different slots on the motheoard etc - and no matter what both DIMM's from the first kit are behaving exactly the same....

Has anyone else had this behavious before? Or any ideas why they may be behaving like this?

Also I remember on one of these forums there used to be a Crucial rep - but not sure if it was Anandtech.....

Cheers everyone!

 

[PCTC2]

Hey. Welcome to AT Forums.

It just sounds like you got a bad pair. You might need to RMA them, but if they physically work fine, you can probably just ignore the LED problem, but if you want the aesthetics, then RMA the bad pair and just wait for the new pair to come.

 

[Geekasaurus]

Yeah it's weird how both DIMM's in one pair are doing that?

What are the chances of 2 faulty DIMM's in one dual channel kit?

 

[Azimuth40]

they could have had a bad run of the custom IC that lights the Leds. More than likely it is a PAL with latches and may have been mis-programmed. Unfortunately Crucial does not offer a standard spec sheet online which shows the logic. They do offer this ...

Ballistix Tracer memory features a black PCB, black integrated heat spreaders, and two rows of eight "chasing" red and green LEDs atop the module, circulating at varying speeds proportional to usage. A custom-designed circuit relays bus activity to the LEDs, allowing them to accurately reflect usage of each memory module. In addition, eight blue ground effects LEDs emit a constant glow near the pins.

If I had to guess they are showing the value of the address lines when RAS and CAS are active with greens for one and reds for the other. Doubt if they would take a chance on data bit drive current on a unbuffered DIMM but the address lines should have plenty of logic load capability.

I have multiple sets of both DDR and DDR2 tracers and the LEDs are very active on both types in 512 and 1G sets.