Corsair, Kingston, GEIL, what's wrong?

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
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Ok here are my current specs: Albatron i845PE pro 800 motherboard, P4 2.4 B 533 fsb CPU, albatron gf4 ti4200 videocard.

Now here is the problem. I cannot get any memory to be stable other than my generic samsung DDR 333 memory. I am currently using the Corsair 512 MB 3200C2 single stick, and using an FSB of 180 with a 1:1 ratio. That equates to DDR 360. My system is not stable and prime crashes within 5 seconds. I have the memory voltage at 2.8 (highest it can go), agp voltage up to 1.6 (highest it can go), and my timings are 2.5, 7, 3, 3 (highest it can go).

Now, when I swap that memory out and replace it with my samsung, same FSB, i can even lower the DDR voltage to 2.6, same timings, agp voltage back down to 1.5 I can run PRIME 95 all day and all night, and 3dMark loops all day and all night.

What the heck is going on. I've gone through so many different DDR 400 memory modules and NONE of them have been able to stable at anything remotely close to DDR 400. I am tired, and about to give up. Is it possible that I got 3 bad memory modules from FRY'S?
 

Technonut

Diamond Member
Mar 19, 2000
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Have you tried running Memtest86 @ default timings? If it passes at least 10 loops of all tests, (C-1-2-2-3-0- Spacebar) move on to other timings and Memtest again until you start to see errors.

EDIT: If you get errors @ default speed and timings in Memtest86, return the bad stick(s) back to Frys...
 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
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Ok I will try doing memtest at 333 and slowly move up. I will set the stick to SPD timings. I'll let you know.
 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
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ok, tried DDR 333 stock voltage SPD. FSB at 133. everything stock. Errors in memtest. I even tried the memory on a P4S533 with 2.5-2.9 volts and got memtest errors on all voltages at stock speeds. Guys what is wrong here? I can't have gotten 3 sticks of crap memory there has to be something more going on here.
 

Khyron320

Senior member
Aug 26, 2002
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I think its time to RMA the mainboard... first try differenct DIMM sockets for the ram if you havent already...

can you get into the bois and check your P4 temps are they ok?

whatever you do DO not try and flash the bois with all these memory errors
 

WarCon

Diamond Member
Feb 27, 2001
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Just re-read your post and now I understand. Its probably your motherboard as was suggested earlier.
 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
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it can't be the motherboard. I just replaced an i865G motherboard that was showing similar problems with this brand new one. This new motherboard will let me overclock even farther than my old IT7MAX. I think i'm going to end up getting 1 GB of that samsung ram I was talking about and just running it at 180 FSB at 1:1 ratio. The performance is good and i doubt I'd be able to see much of a difference between that and DDR 400 + speeds.
 

WarCon

Diamond Member
Feb 27, 2001
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I wonder if your 3.3 volt rail is noisy/bad on your powersupply. Its too coincidental for 2 motherboards to exhibit the same problem and have different sticks of memory have the same problem.
 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
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hmm... interesting guys. I returned this corsair memory and got some Samsung DDR 400 at a local shop.

The samsung is doing ddr 425 at stock voltage without breakin a sweat. Timings aren't great, 2.5, 7, 3, 3, 1 but I'm glad that it at least works. I will push for more, but I think i'm happy at 170 FSB with 425 Mhz DDR. I guess i was just unlucky the whole time. I am very glad with this memory too. Only cost me $80 out the door, vs that $162 corsair memory.
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
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so do you still say that geil pc3700 is crap considering that all these other "quality" company ram sticks won't work in your board???

or is corsair crap now as well?
 

Cesar

Banned
Jan 12, 2003
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Originally posted by: Shimmishim
so do you still say that geil pc3700 is crap considering that all these other "quality" company ram sticks won't work in your board??? or is corsair crap now as well?

Shimmishim Geil is CRAP! live with it
 

Don66

Platinum Member
Jan 5, 2000
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Shimmishim Geil is CRAP! live with it

Naw, I don't think so.

I have Geil GD PC3500 running on the 225MHz fsb @ 1:1

2.5,6,3,3

GAT turned off

Using an Abit IS7-E
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
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Originally posted by: Cesar
Originally posted by: Shimmishim
so do you still say that geil pc3700 is crap considering that all these other "quality" company ram sticks won't work in your board??? or is corsair crap now as well?

Shimmishim Geil is CRAP! live with it

well my crappy geil does 2.5-7-4-3 @ 234 mhz

 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
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well shimsham thats not exactly great. 233 mhz with mediocre timings. The best stuff out there is definitely OCZ EL and Mushkin Level 2. GEIL is not a trusted memory company for many reasons. Look on the boards, search for GEIL and see how many problems people have. Do a search for Mushkin level 2 memory or OCZ EL memory and compare. That's the basis for my reasoning.
 

Soulkeeper

Diamond Member
Nov 23, 2001
6,712
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any of you know if my mushkin hi perf black level II pc3500 might be holding back my oc ??
i have 2x512mb sticks running in dual channel in my asus a7n8x delux 2.0 with the nforce2 chipset
or is it my motherboard holding me back ??
 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
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it's not the greatest timings in the world...

but it's not crappy either...

i can run ddr500 @ 2.5-4-4-8 which i don't think is too shabby...

 

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
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Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
well shimsham thats not exactly great. 233 mhz with mediocre timings. The best stuff out there is definitely OCZ EL and Mushkin Level 2. GEIL is not a trusted memory company for many reasons. Look on the boards, search for GEIL and see how many problems people have. Do a search for Mushkin level 2 memory or OCZ EL memory and compare. That's the basis for my reasoning.

so just because this board has more people who have had problems with geil as compared to ocz, it makes geil a company not to be trusted???

can't you understand that geil is turning their name around kind of like what ocz is doing as well?

so if you got a bad stick of ram from OCZ, would you start saying they're a company that can't be trusted especially because of their past?



 

Arcanedeath

Platinum Member
Jan 29, 2000
2,822
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Geil is a decent company, Their Value Ram is awful though unless you have a motherboard that can do 3.1 volts to Vdimm (it's spec'd to run 2.6-3.1) I couldn't get it stable at 2.8V (the max my board would go) , I've heard good things about their golden dragon memory and their "Ultra" memory, but I would stay away from their Value memory, and I suspect that is what most buy when they get Geil memory as they are trying to save money. Just my 2 cents.... :)
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,599
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Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
Geil is a decent company, Their Value Ram is awful though unless you have a motherboard that can do 3.1 volts to Vdimm (it's spec'd to run 2.6-3.1) I couldn't get it stable at 2.8V (the max my board would go) , I've heard good things about their golden dragon memory and their "Ultra" memory, but I would stay away from their Value memory, and I suspect that is what most buy when they get Geil memory as they are trying to save money. Just my 2 cents.... :)

I'm a satisfied Geil Value user - PC3200, running dual channel at 2.63V. I haven't tried going beyond 200FSB though; I've never had luck with FSB overclocking. Some of my systems (prior ones) have given me grief if I went even a single MHz above default FSB. Of course, come to think of it, that was before functional asyncrhonous PCI bus speed locks existed.