Crucial Ballistix 3rd set went out!

[96redformula]

On my 4th set...

First: 1GB Single Stick PC4000
Second: 1GB Single Stick PC4000

Asked to recieve 2x512 PC4000 as a replacement

Third: 2x512GB PC4000 Dual Channel Set went out today(blue screen then tested, 1 really messed up and the other 1 dead)

I am so so so pissed right now. I am going to order from zipzoomfly a cheap corsair value 512 pc3200 value stick for $40 2nd day air to hold me till the ballistix comes in. I am never going to use crucial again and that is that. I just got my overclock to 2800mhz with my opteron 144 at 1.5 voltage and even had the divider to keep the ram running at DDR 500 or under.

Crucual you all need to check your quality control and get better engineers.

 

[RichUK]

No offence but you say you have gone through 3 pairs, is this not a case of user error. AFAIK Crucial are the leading memory manufacturer, so I would have thought their quality control is pretty good.

 

[buzzsaw13]

Uh, sounds like a user error here. I've never had a problem or even heard of a problem with Crucial unless there was some overclocking involved.

 

[PClark99]

Originally posted by: RichUK
No offence but you say you have gone through 3 pairs, is this not a case of user error. AFAIK Crucial are the leading memory manufacturer, so I would have thought their quality control is pretty good.

not as far as ballistix is concerned. something bad definitely happened at crucial with regard to the 1GB sticks. They have even stopped making them altogether now.

very scary.

 

[Zebo]

I dunno I think it's those dfi boards...

They just don't fry crucial either but lots of ram -

My baliistixes would'nt even run stock in DFI and OC like mad in 5 other boards.

Do I even have to ask what mobo you have 96redformula?

 

[Avalon]

If you have an Ultra-D, on some BIOS's I think it was if you were running at a normal range of Vdimm, but had the Vdimm jumper on the board switched to 4v, there was a potential of frying memory placed into the board. Something like that. If you do have an Ultra-D/SLi-D, I'd look into that and make sure your setup is correct.

If not, disregard my message.

 

[RichUK]

I really wasn?t aware that Crucial had a problem with its Ballistix memory. I much prefer OCZ when it comes to memory anyway.

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

someone remind me that these are great chips...... because? My $59 pc3200 512's from Sam's Club are going on 2 years of use.

Originally posted by: 96redformula
On my 4th set...

First: 1GB Single Stick PC4000
Second: 1GB Single Stick PC4000

Asked to recieve 2x512 PC4000 as a replacement

Third: 2x512GB PC4000 Dual Channel Set went out today(blue screen then tested, 1 really messed up and the other 1 dead)

I am so so so pissed right now. I am going to order from zipzoomfly a cheap corsair value 512 pc3200 value stick for $40 2nd day air to hold me till the ballistix comes in. I am never going to use crucial again and that is that. I just got my overclock to 2800mhz with my opteron 144 at 1.5 voltage and even had the divider to keep the ram running at DDR 500 or under.

Crucual you all need to check your quality control and get better engineers.

 

[Fallengod]

Ive heard many bad things about crucial ballisitix lately. I was actually thinking of buying some a guy had, then was informed how likely they are to die. I cant say how glad I am I went with ocz instead.

 

[96redformula]

No it is not anything I have done........search and you will find many people having them die on them.

The first two 1GB Ballistix sticks went out on my ASROCK 939 Motherboard.
The 2x512 sticks went out on the DFI Ultra-D.

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: RichUK
No offence but you say you have gone through 3 pairs, is this not a case of user error. AFAIK Crucial are the leading memory manufacturer, so I would have thought their quality control is pretty good.

did you hear... crucial discontinued their z503 2 x 1 gig ballistix.

it's not the user... it's the sticks...

i went through 2 kits as well...

i finally sold the 3rd one i got from rma

 

[Painman]

A total of 3 dead 512 sticks here. Out of 3. Unless my Ultra-D is HORRIBLY misreporting voltage (and I don't believe it is), the sticks never ran above 2.83 or so VDIMM. I've never had any reason to switch the board's VDIMM jumper block, as I've never run any Winbond RAM on it.

Newegg gave me my money back on it, all $250 of what I paid for the pair of sticks last year. Way to get the hell out of a lousy investment without taking a loss, thanks Newegg. At least my tale of 2 Ballistix had a happy ending. I would still buy standard issue Crucial sticks, if they were priced to compete with Corsair Value Select or what-not, but I won't touch Ballistix again with a 10 foot pole.

 

[Fallengod]

Yup. Go to xtremesystems forums and youll see many others with ballistix that have died. Yeah they did discontinue them as well. Ive heard the later batches didnt have that problem, or maybe its vise versa, but Im certainly never going to be trying them to find out.

 

[Capt Caveman]

My third set of Crucial Ballistix are slowly dying. They perform amazingly when they work, too bad they only last about two months.

 

[Brunnis]

Tried a total of three 512MB Ballistix PC3200 sticks in my NF7-S 2.0 and all of them produced errors. Needless to say, they were a huge disappointement. Also, they overclocked extremely bad and couldn't even reach 220MHz. The old BH-5 sticks I had went much higher.

 

[ayabe]

I thought the DFI boards were pretty picky when it comes to RAM, I wouldn't say with absolute certainty that the sticks are bad unless they fail on another motherboard.

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: ayabe
I thought the DFI boards were pretty picky when it comes to RAM, I wouldn't say with absolute certainty that the sticks are bad unless they fail on another motherboard.

crucial wouldn't discontinue them if they were all failing only on dfi boards. capt caveman for one has an asus.

painman, the dfi ultra-d's, at least the 3 i've checked with a dmm, all do misreport the vdimm, ~ .06-.08 too lght. but nothing that should fry your ram if you're setting it at 2.83.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: rise4310

Originally posted by: ayabe
I thought the DFI boards were pretty picky when it comes to RAM, I wouldn't say with absolute certainty that the sticks are bad unless they fail on another motherboard.

crucial wouldn't discontinue them if they were all failing only on dfi boards. capt caveman for one has an asus.

painman, the dfi ultra-d's, at least the 3 i've checked with a dmm, all do misreport the vdimm, ~ .06-.08 too lght. but nothing that should fry your ram if you're setting it at 2.83.

I suppose so, I've just had similar experiences with Mushkin a few years back and it turned out to be an issue with those particular sticks and the mobo I was using.

 

[Diasper]

Mr brother's Ballistix sticks died too - he was using a DFI board.

Because they didn't produce them anymore they offered to do an exchange where they'd exchange for the cheaper sticks and refund the difference. It worked rather well as the sticks had fallen in price massively so he ended up saving quite a good amoutn of money. Also the new sticks don't perform too badly - 240mhz at 3-3-3 or so.

You might want to try that as going for 2 x 512mb sticks won't offer much of an upgrade path or hold their value as well as 1GB sticks.

 

[Painman]

In my case, I had tinkered around with the timings for the 'Stix and finally got them running eror-free in Memtest, Prime, S&M, etc. After a couple months, random crashes and bluescreens started to happen. I had a Neo4 hanging around (sold now) that I knew they had previously worked fine with and they failed Memtest hooked up to that board.

As for 2.83v, that's what my DFI reports for VDIMM when it's set for 2.8. I know that's not necessarily accurate, I'd like to test the board for accuracy, but my DMM doesn't have very fine probes on it. I don't trust myself to not short something out when trying to use it on tiny SMD components and such. In any case, Crucial allows for 2.8 +/- 0.2 volts on the RAM according to its data sheet.

 

[TankGuys]

Yep. Ballistix dying is not particularly strange. I've heard this happening a lot, so I don't think it's necessarily user error.