How worried should I be if RAM won't do rated timings & speeds @ rated voltage?

Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
38,107
433
136
I've been beating my head against the wall trying to find the source of my random crashes. Of course stupid me I wait until I'm about ready to sell all my SLI stuff & move to X38 + Crossfire before I break out the memtest.

Sure enough, at factory prescribed timings & voltages I get errors in less than 15 minutes. I'm running 8 gigs of this stuff:

http://www.ocztechnology.com/p...ade_2gb_module_4gb_kit

800MHz DDR2
CL 5-6-6-18
(CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
1.8 - 2.0 Volts*

I've upped the voltage to 2.1V & it's been running longer than the first test. Assuming it runs all night with no issues should I just be happy? Is this perhaps a side effect of running 4 DIMMS vs 2, or should I go ahead & take the time to test each stick individually?

[EDIT]Well scratch that it just started spewing red. Guess it's time to label the sticks & start testing. :([/EDIT]

Viper GTS
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
Running 4 sticks usually requires raising the northbridge voltage a notch, and two if overclocking. Were you aware of that?
 

Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
38,107
433
136
I've tried a huge range of NB voltages to no avail.

I've dropped it to one stick & already have one that produced errors. I'll test all 4 individually & see what happens, if I have just one or two producing errors I'll assume it's memory.

I'm running the stock timings with the memory at or below its rated frequency, I don't expect (or desire) to get over the rated speed.

Viper GTS