corsair ram issues

oldman420

Platinum Member
May 22, 2004
2,179
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I have 2 ea sticks of corsair PC xms ram and they are going bad they fail memtest and vista memory test.
they will boot at ddr 400 but crash before I can get into windows.
I have them in an abit nf7-s v2 board with a xp2600 mobile cpu.
I have a 1 gig stick of patriot ddr400 that works perfect in all 3 slots at 2300 mhz so I know the cpu and mb are good.
I posted on corsairs message board and the ram guy told me I should be running at cas 2.5 at ddr 2700 and that is why I am having problems.
bahhh This is total bulls**t.
they sell their ram as super fast and capable of ddr400 at cas2 how can they say this to me and expect me to accept it.

it says ddr400 at cas2 right on the memory.

what should I do here?
thanks
 

gramboh

Platinum Member
May 3, 2003
2,207
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To clarify, go to Corsair's website and post the issue in the forums. RamGuy or whatever his name is will help you within a few hours. This guy is amazing he knows about all comparibility issues in all sockets/mainbaords with all of Corsair's memory and is very timely.
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
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To oldman420,

If your motherboard is only capable of PC2700 speeds---thats your bottleneck---do your research on the motherboard first before blaming ram. But if you push setting higher than the total rig permits, you get memory errors. The trick is to push them as high as possible without getting memory errors.
Or worse yet causing physical damage to the ram. If you want to understand how ram works better you are gasp going to have to read up on the subject--and download cpu-z and other benchmarking programs, play with setting in your bios, and sneak up on the limits imposed by your biggest bottleneck. When you mix different ram types, unpredictable things happen. In my case it caused two sticks of PC3200 ram to downclock to less than PC2100 speed. And now I have them running--at zero overclock, at full PC3200 speed---and a 50% greater memory through put. Could I push it further--maybe, but I am happy with what I have.

To gramboh---been to the corsair website---I have posted questions---ram guy ignores the corsair specific questions.---one of which could be a help to oldman420--namely how well and at what settings will corsair vs512mb400 ram downclock if placed in a board only capable of PC2700 or 2100?
Ramguy may be a gem sometimes---but not always.
 

Boyo

Golden Member
Feb 23, 2006
1,406
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If the RAMGuy says you should run it at 2.5cas, then I would follow his advice. He knows what he is talking about.
 

ribbon13

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2005
9,343
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Originally posted by: Lemon law
To oldman420,

If your motherboard is only capable of PC2700 speeds---thats your bottleneck---do your research on the motherboard first before blaming ram. But if you push setting higher than the total rig permits, you get memory errors. The trick is to push them as high as possible without getting memory errors.
Or worse yet causing physical damage to the ram. If you want to understand how ram works better you are gasp going to have to read up on the subject--and download cpu-z and other benchmarking programs, play with setting in your bios, and sneak up on the limits imposed by your biggest bottleneck. When you mix different ram types, unpredictable things happen. In my case it caused two sticks of PC3200 ram to downclock to less than PC2100 speed. And now I have them running--at zero overclock, at full PC3200 speed---and a 50% greater memory through put. Could I push it further--maybe, but I am happy with what I have.

To gramboh---been to the corsair website---I have posted questions---ram guy ignores the corsair specific questions.---one of which could be a help to oldman420--namely how well and at what settings will corsair vs512mb400 ram downclock if placed in a board only capable of PC2700 or 2100?
Ramguy may be a gem sometimes---but not always.

As far as I understood, by convention, downclocked RAM runs at the same SPD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Presence_Detect
 

oldman420

Platinum Member
May 22, 2004
2,179
0
0
my board is a nforce 2 400 board and does support 400 mhz fsb I have been using this board and ram for 2-3 years no problem
I have the version 2 board with mcp-t southbridge
from Abits website
The NF7-S, based on nForce2 chipset (MCP-T + SPP), supports the latest AMD Athlon XP processors with 200/266/333 FSB, (400 FSB support in version 2.0 only) and features new dual 400MHz DDR memory controllers that deliver up to a 50% increase in bandwidth. With the nForce2 MCP-T.
Believe that I have done my homework and have found the limits of my setup, as I have never overvolted this ram and the highest fsb I have had it at is 205 at 3 3 3 12 I can assure you it is indeed bad ram and not my board or cpu.
My Barton mobile is not rated at 400 fsb, however anyone who has had one of these will tell you this is not an issue.
when these were the cream of the crop people were getting insane over clocks with this combo at low v core and tight memory timings.
I am sorry but the ram guy way underestimates the xms line as this was their premier overclocking ram at the time.
had the ram guy done his research, I would not be here asking you folks.

both sticks also failed memtest as well as the vista memory checker.
also I am currently running a single stick 1 gb of patriot ddr400 ram at 200 x 11.5 stable as a rock. so my board will do 200 fsb , vcore is set at 1.45 volts as well with no problems I do love my barton mobile.
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
How much vdimm are you giving that XMS? And which version is it? That makes a difference in how much vdimm it needs to run dual-channel @ 400 Mhz. You can find out from this link: link. Yeah, I know that the thread was written by RamGuy, but it still will help to know which IC's your RAM has.
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
3
0
The first question now is are you running this in automatic spd or manual settings? In my case spd super downclocked slightly different ram modules and I had to go into manual bios settings to get rated speed. But any bad setting in manual could cause bad results.

Its also possible the corsair ram was good when you installed it and now is physically defective. Perhaps it should be tested in another mobo that happily runs that flavor of corsair ram.

And its also my understanding mobile processors are not capable of the same settings as non-mobile ones. That design is flat out different.
 

oldman420

Platinum Member
May 22, 2004
2,179
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0
Originally posted by: myocardia
How much vdimm are you giving that XMS? And which version is it? That makes a difference in how much vdimm it needs to run dual-channel @ 400 Mhz. You can find out from this link: link. Yeah, I know that the thread was written by RamGuy, but it still will help to know which IC's your RAM has.

I have v5.2 ram and I set the voltage to 2.7.
givin that the ram was running fine and now will not I bet the part is going bad, still waiting on an rma fropm corsaire to be sure.
 

ScrapSilicon

Lifer
Apr 14, 2001
13,625
0
0
Originally posted by: oldman420
Originally posted by: myocardia
How much vdimm are you giving that XMS? And which version is it? That makes a difference in how much vdimm it needs to run dual-channel @ 400 Mhz. You can find out from this link: link. Yeah, I know that the thread was written by RamGuy, but it still will help to know which IC's your RAM has.

I have v5.2 ram and I set the voltage to 2.7.
givin that the ram was running fine and now will not I bet the part is going bad, still waiting on an rma fropm corsaire to be sure.

rma is needed ...gl